Note:
This is sort of a combination Update and Reminder that next Tuesday
is our April Meeting. Due to some miscommunications, we apologize
for the lateness of the Update.

_________CONTENTS_________________________________________________

o   Current News
o   Next meeting date, time & location
o   Minutes of the last meeting
o   MicroStation Tip of the Month
o   Unsubscribe information
o   MMLC Officers contact information

_________CURRENT NEWS______________________________________________

Ahhh, Spring is here. We're all busier than ever to prepare for
Minnesota's short construction season. Let's make some time to
attend the next meeting to find those shortcuts and insights on how
to make this sometimes tempermental software/hardware marriage work!

Don't forget to check Bentley's Select Stream Website for some new
enhancements for MS/J. Cell Counter, Daily Tip and Quick Text Edit are
available for download at:
http://www.bentley.com/select/stream/index.htm.

Checkout these two CAD e-mail newsletters:

   Cadgurus.com e-newsletter (www.cadgurus.com)
A concise and valuable weekly newsletter with some very good tips and

utilities specifically for the MicroStation user. Their website has
some slightly buggy Java scripts, with some freezing noticed on IE5,
but it's worth getting to.

    upFront-eZine (www.upfrontezine.com)
A slightly long but interesting weekly newsletter that focuses on
general CAD issues, with a bias towards AutoCad, but mentions
newsworthy Bentley events also.

For those who follow the goings on in the comp.cad.microstation
newsgroup (another valuable place for tips and CAD news), this month
marks the departure from Bentley of Mark Hamstra (on to better
pastures) and the almost departure of 'says it like it is' Sam
(Galilee). We'll miss Mark and there are some of us who'd miss Sam's
verbal antics (and some who wouldn't).

_________NEXT MONTH'S MEETING DATE/TIME/LOCATION____________________

DATE:       April 18, 2000

TIME:       4:00 to 6:00 PM

LOCATION:   SEH Conference Room

DIRECTIONS: Take Crosstown (State Hwy 62) to Shady Oak Road (County
             Rd. 61) Northbound exit. Once on Shady Oak Road heading
             north take first right.  Take next first right into
             parking lot of Holiday Express. Go around back of the
             building and take a left out of parking lot then take a
             right into parking lot across the street and you are
             there. Park in the lot and come up to 2nd floor.  The
             Address is 10901 Red Circle Drive.

TOPIC:      TBA. We're open to suggestions. Anyone have any ideas?

We hope to see all of you there! Please feel free to contact any of
us for further directions (if needed), to RSVP, or just show up.
Everyone's welcome!!!

Note: We are generally alternating the times between a 4 pm and a 5
pm start to give you more flexibility in attending. If the 4 pm time
is too early (in other words, your boss won't let you off early),
then the 5 pm start time may be more convenient for you.

_________MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING_______________________________

DATE:      March 21, 2000
TIME:      5:00 to 7:00 PM

HOST:       Pam Jones/HNTB
LOCATION:  HNTB Conference Room

ATTENDEES: Dan Crawford, Dave Dickson, Gary French, Jim Henderson,
            Scott Ornat, Dan Streeter, Dean Sturgis, Cindi Olichwier.

TOPIC:     Linking DGN files to Excel Spreadsheets

The meeting convened at 5:15 pm. Dave Dickson (our resident fearless
presenter) gave a demo on how to link Excel Spreadsheet data to
MicroStation DGN files. A good discussion occurred with tips on
linking and what pitfalls to avoid. There seems to be 2 approaches:
link by column and linking the entire table. Both have pros and cons.

At 6:35, the meeting adjourned with excited attenders racing back to
the office to try their new skills.... well maybe not right away.

No discussion was made about next months meeting location and topic.

_________MICROSTATION TIP OF THE MONTH_____________________________

Hot Keys!

Ctrl-x, Ctrl-c, Ctrl-v: Do you think about these when you use them?
That's right, no pictures, icons, or doo-hickies. So was PARC wrong?
(Palo Alto Research Center - among other things, they created the
first mouse driven windows interface) Simply put, PARC researches
found hat if you have to think about where a command lives on the
computer that it would take longer to execute the command. They also
found out that we remember pictures better than numbers and letters.
That says that an icon command interface should be faster, because we
will remember the pictures. Well sort of. "Okay, but what does this
have to do with me and my project deadline?" Be patient there's more!

Personally, I like icons, but I am finding that the icons are not
always consistent in look and feel, and there are a lot of them, so
naturally I have to remember where they are. So, that means I have to
think about it, and that in turn means my reaction slows down. How
much? I dunno. But I hate slowing down, because I have to miss lunch
to make deadlines. The point is that we need consistency, and one way
to do that is by using the same command interface from one application
to the next. Icons help, but only when these are used consistently.
Gee wouldn't it be great if MicroStation and AutoCAD icons were the same?

We remember ctrl-x, ctrl-c, ctrl-v because they are available in
virtually every other software application.

Most applications allow us to modify the "Hot Keys" (Ctrl -
<something> keys) to be what we want them to be. So, why not go ahead
and change your MicroStation hot keys to match other applications?
Good idea? Sure it is.

The first thing that I do is make sure that ctrl-z is for undo,
because that's what it means in most software applications. This is a
preference in MicroStation. Open the preference dialog, that's
Workspace->Preferences and click on Input. Make sure that Control+Z to
exit is not checked. Now when you enter a design file ctrl-z will undo
previous actions.

You can define hot keys for all of the other menu commands. For
example you may want to change the Save Settings Hot Key from ctrl-f
to ctrl-s to make it feel more like a save command. To do this you
would open Workspace->Customize->Menu Bar.
 
Double click on file to display the File menu.
 
Scroll down a little to see the Save Settings item. Double click.

Change the Accelerator Key (the Hot Key) from F to S. Now click OK on

the Modify Menu Dialog. Next click Save on the Customize dialog and
then close it. Now when you do ctrl-s you will be executing the Save
Settings command.

If you have any tips to share with us here, please send them in and
we will publish the best one next month. The selection will occur at
our next meeting, so come and vote for yours! The rest will be on our
MMLC website (see the Contact section at the end).

_________UNSUBSCRIBE INFORMATION___________________________________

If for any reason you don't wish to continue to receive future
newsletters or e-mails from us, please send an email (or just reply
to this email) to:

    mmlc_mail@yahoo.com

You don't have to write anything except 'unsubscribe' in the Subject
or Body. If you want to explain why, please feel free, otherwise it's
no problem, we understand.

If you know of anyone who has moved away or is not using MicroStation
professionally anymore, please contact us.

_________MMLC OFFICERS CONTACT INFORMATION_________________________

If you want to contact one of MMLC's current Officers:

    Chair:      Dave Dickson      ddickson@sehinc.com
    Vice Chair: Dean Sturgis      dean.sturgis@dot.state.mn.us
    Secretary:  Scott Ornat       sornat@ci.minnetonka.mn.us
    Treasurer:  Cindi Olichwier   colichwier@srfconsulting.com
    Web Design: Pam Jones         PJones@HNTB.com

For general questions regarding MMLC, please send email to our
Official Web-Mail address at:

    mmlc_mail@yahoo.com

Remember to check the MMLC Website: