Nested Blocks?
Previously, at our office, outside vendors were asked to "not nest blocks" in drawings returned to us. I have been trying to figure out all of the issues around this statement. What exactly are nested blocks about. Are they blocks within blocks or blocks within something else? What are the advantages or disadvantages to them? Could someone please ramble on this topic for a while? Any clues would be greatly appreciated. You know those Russian dolls where you open one and there is another inside? Then you open it and there is another inside of it and so on. Blocks can be nested just like that. There are good reasons to do it, and there are bad reasons to do it.Say you are drawing a cubical farm - an office building. In each cube is a desk, a chair and a bookcase. Each of these are blocks so you insert them into a cubical block. If you change the size or type of chair, desk or bookcase, you redefine the block and your cube automagically updates. You arrange several of these cubical blocks into a department module (another block). You put 5 modules on a floor.
Then the boss says that he does not like the way you put your department grouping together, he wants the BOSS cube (another block) only accessible through a secret door. All you have to do with nested blocks is to edit that block, regen the drawing and all departments in the building are now set to make things difficult for the poor saps who are stuck there.
The drawback is that some noob comes in and redefines the desk block without realizing it. Suddenly your entire drawing has desks that look like desk-phones.
Fire is not good or bad - but it can cook your dinner or your finger, depending on how you use it.
Glen Thanks Glen, I will build some models to work with and explore the behaviors of this nested magic. I never nest blocks, or xref's for that matter. If you're not careful you can create quite a mess. And heaven help anyone who has to take over working on your drawing. Having to figure out the method to someone else's madness can be quite frustrating. Thanks Cad64, I recently inherited this office and now I'm trying to dissect everything to see how its all made. The priors left some clues about how some things were done, but i have some ground to uncover. Is there a way to find nested blocks/xrefs? If I have to nest blocks I will usually explode them so they are just entities within other blocks but sometimes they can be useful - can't yet think of an example though.
One of the express tools can be used to list subentites but I can't remember which one. Click around in the Express Tools|tools pull down.
Alternatively if you select a block and instigate a REFEDIT or BEDIT you will get a list of what blocks are contained within the block you first selected. That way you can redefine a nested block simply. Thanks Dave, I will explore these today. From what I've done with blocks, if it's nested it should still be there if you try to insert a block.Only problem I've had with nesting blocks is forgetting where I set the insertion point and then redefining the block, oops! one "feature" of nested blocks that is useful if you understand it but a potential problem if you don't is that only the TOP block gets redefined if a newer example is inserted.
If you have a Parent block with a Child block inside, or have an example of Child already defined in your current drawing, and insert a new Parent block containing a new Child the Child block DOES NOT get redefined.
Conversly if you redefine Child, ALL instances of Child will be redefined including those alreay part of the Parent block.
This isn't as complicated as it sounds (try it to get comfortable) but will trip up the unwary.
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