Detail components

To place one

1. 1Open the view you are detailing: the plan, or a section, an elevation or a callout window from the Views tab at the top of the tray.
2. 2Click the Library pill, go to 2D and choose Detail components on the rail.
3. 3Pick a family, then click a size. The line under the heading says where it will land, for example the plan or the name of the section.
4. 4Click in the drawing to place it. The tool stays armed, so a row of joists is a row of clicks. Press Space to turn the figure a quarter turn counter-clockwise and X or Y to flip it across or down. Escape finishes. Typing in a text field never turns or flips the figure: the keys are the field's.

The families are timber in section (a rectangle with the cross, at 47 x 75, 47 x 100, 47 x 150, 47 x 200, 47 x 225, 63 x 150 and 75 x 200, or any size you type), batten and counter batten, wall tie, insulation batt, DPC and membrane, steel angle, steel channel, plasterboard, brick and block.

To change a size

Select a placed component. Size (type parameters) lists the family's dimensions in millimetres. Size belongs to the type, so changing it changes every placement of that type in the drawing, in one undo step. To change only the one you selected, use Duplicate type in the type picker first, or pick another size from the same picker. Rotation, the flips and the line style belong to the placement alone.

A component takes a line style like any drawn line. In the plan you move, rotate, flip and duplicate it with the same tools as any element; in a section, an elevation or a callout window, Move, Copy and Mirror take it as they take a drawn line, and Rotate works there, in a callout window over a plan as well, by three clicks: the centre, a start direction, an end direction. The angle steps by 15 degrees and the line drawn from the centre is the angle you will get; hold Shift for any angle (pressing or releasing it takes effect at once), type an angle and press Enter, or hold Ctrl to turn a copy (the dashed outline shows the copy while the original stays where it is). The figures you turned, and any text you drew, turn live as you aim. Mirror flips the figure about the line you pick, so it is reflected, not just turned. Type names are unique, whatever the capital letters or spaces: a name another type already has is refused with a line saying so, and the catalogue size is always on offer, marked (standard) when you have edited a type of the same name. It belongs to the view it was placed in: it shows in that view, on that view's sheet viewport, in its PDF and in its DXF, and nowhere else. Copy and paste keeps it in its own view, and refuses with a message if that view is not on the level you paste into; its type comes with it, matched by name.

To snap to one and line things up

What you draw next snaps to the corners, the middles of the sides and the edges of a placed component, in the plan and in a section, as it does to a drawn line, and only to the components of the view you are in. A component you are carrying does not snap to itself. Align works on them too, in the plan, in a section and in a callout window: click an edge of one component, or a line you drew, as the reference, then click an edge of the component to move, and it slides until that edge lies on the reference. In the plan the reference can also be a wall face you picked with Align. The two edges have to be parallel, and a locked layer is refused with a message. Click the reference component again to pick another edge, click anywhere that is not an edge or press Escape to drop it.

In DXF and DWG

Each type leaves as a block named after it, such as Timber 47x150, and each placement as an insert of that block on the layer you drew it on, so a CAD user can edit or count them. A flip is written as a mirrored insert. The block carries no colour, weight or linetype of its own: a component with a line style writes that style's colour, lineweight and linetype on its insert, a custom pattern as its own linetype, and one without follows its layer.

Corb can list the families and place one by name, size and position in a named view. Angles are counter-clockwise as you see them, and with no level named it places on the level you are working on.