Kate has blogged about a new AutoCAD feature that I’ve been waiting to see for years:
LT Unlimited: Ignore Missing SHX Files
How many times have you tried to open a drawing, only to be stopped short by a missing dialog…
Most of the SHX infected files we have were not created by Autodesk products. Often survey data will have embedded SHX in points or linetypes that are nearly impossible to eradicate. The universal answer was “get the SHX” but often it’s not available, especially old projects.
Even worse, if you did have the file it didn’t really help with AutoCAD Architecture (ACA) projects. If you placed the SHX file in the same folder as the dwg it would open fine. That meant your ACA Survey Construct, for example, opens fine. The problem was if ACA project Views & Sheets referenced that construct they didn’t find the SHX and still threw the “Missing…”error. You could work around this by adding explicit search paths, project paths, to the AutoCAD options but with with lots of projects and multiple machines it isn’t practical.
For me that’s why this dialog alone makes the move from 2010, or older, to 2011worth the effort. It will save a lot of clicks.
