Welcome to the Construction Notes Manager suite of AutoCAD productivity tools started by Thomas Gail Haws in 1994 and released as Free Libre Open Source Software on July 26, 2020. These tools are AutoCAD commands ready for AutoCAD and Civil 3D users who have no knowledge of AutoLISP. Please contact me if you need any help using or modifying these tools.
With the help of the Claude Sonnet 4.5 AI model of Copilot AI agent in VS Code, this week I added
- reactive auto text for quantities and Civil 3D information to CNM bubble notes
- a quick "pipe" labeler for utility research that reads text and style based on layer from a file you edit
Thanks to my AI assistant, I can now implement your ideas fast. Try me!
- Windows installer: Choose, download, and run a Windows installer from the download page.
- From github: Put all the files from devsource into a folder of your choice and follow the Installation Help instructions at the download page.
- Videos: Watch CNM From The Beginning or browse this playlist.
- Command list: Open the very nice spreadsheet list CNM-Command-Reference.ods that has dozens of productivity enhancing commands and a column ranking the "coolness" of each command.
- Run Git Bash Here in the Windows File Explorer context (right-click) menu under hawsedc\develop.
- Check 'git status'
- Put hawsedc\develop\devsource at top of AutoCAD Support Files Search Path and in Trusted Locations
- To test, open devtools\scripts\test-suite\cnm-test-start.dwg and run cnm-test.scr.
- If developing menu, unload cnm.cuix and load from source folder.
- In AutoCAD command VLISP VS Code, open hawsedc\develop folder.
- Develop and test in VS Code.
- Final test open devtools\scripts\test-suite\cnm-test-start.dwg and run cnm-test.scr.
- 'git commit -am"..."' as needed.
- Disconnect VS Code debugger, close all files, then run devtools\scripts\compile.lsp and see hawsedc\compile\README.TXT for compile and distrib instructions.