Missing something.....

There's a toolbar for BW, and SW/THD, but I need one for copper. If you pick copper from Spec View, it draws copper.

Command: _PIPW
2" PIPE, COPPER TYPE L
Pick start point or [TOP/BOP] <last point>:
Pick end point:
Code: PTN-001.0008

But if you issue the _PIPW command, it draws BW.
Doesn't seem to be a seperate command for the copper. Where is the copper spec being set when the command is issued?

it depends on what is included in your specification file. my guess is your spec includes both BW and copper. by default it is going to select the BW first.
if you turn on the optional component toggle, you should see a list of all pipe that is included in the spec, including the copper. you can then select it.
or you could make the bw pipe optional and the copper will be selected every time you click the pipw button.

my opinion is to make a specification that only contains the copper pipe and fittings in it so you wont see this problem.

Thanks, Matt. That's helpful. Correct me if I'm wrong, but..... We have our specs as CWR, CWS, HWR, HWS, etc., in order to keep each system on it's own layer and color. Our current labeling program assigns to annotations to the corresponding layer, such as CWR-Txt. So we would have to make a Cop-CWR, Cop-CWS spec or whatever and then _PIPW would only select the current Cop-CWR spec? Seems like a lot of baggage. Seems we should be able to use the one CWR spec, and say < 2 1/2" is copper, > 2 1/2" is BW. Sad we have to make all these specs just for layers anyway, but I sure don't want it all on a 150 layer.....

2 ideas that come to mind.

the first one would be to use it as your currently have it set up but make use of the optional component dialog box toggle. once you turn it on, a dialog box pops up with a list every time you click on a button. its an extra click to select your component but it aint that bad.

the other one would be to change your config variable LayerByLineNumber. i dont know how that might work into the scheme of things but it might be something you want to play around with.

Without seeing the spec, it seems that your buttweld spec size range overlaps the copper. I think this might help.

I am assuming you have two types of pipe data files, one for copper and one for BW. If that is the case, edit the copper spec so that it starts at 1/8 and ends at 2.5. Edit the buttweld one to start at 3" and end at 12".

This should save a lot of layer work and keeps your specs at your proposed colours.