Tutorial 14: Linked Panels

Draft a panel once, then let its opposite-hand twin follow along — link the two, and every save of the origin offers to renumber, mirror, and redraw the copy for you.

The core curriculum built one panel and shipped its deliverables. The advanced track starts here, with the feature that pays that work forward: tilt-up buildings are full of near-identical panels — the same panel repeated down a wall, or the same panel in opposite hand on the facing wall. Linked Panels lets the panel you spent nine lessons perfecting drive its copies: link a clone or a mirror to it, and whenever the origin changes, ConstructiVision walks through every linked panel and brings it up to date automatically. This lesson is a guided first pass — the full field notes, including linking panels that already exist and unlinking, live in Work with linked panels.

Note

A browser version covers part of this lesson. Open it here — it lists exactly which steps it does not cover, so you know what to come back to AutoCAD for.

What you will build

From the finished panel TP08-12 and its project:

  • a new panel drawing, TP08-20 — the opposite-hand (mirror) twin of TP08-12, created, renumbered, mirrored, and redrawn for you by the update walk;

  • a link between the two panels, visible from either end in the Linked Panels dialog;

  • the full save-time cycle: a save of the origin marks the copy out of date, and Update Now brings it back in sync — the rhythm you will use on every real repeated panel.

Before you start

  • The advanced track builds on the finished panel thread: complete the panel lessons through Tutorial 9: Brace Points & Expansion Gaps. (Tutorial 13 prints from the panel but does not change it, so it is not required here.)

  • Have TP08-12 open inside its project — click Open Drawing and pick it from the project folder. A project must be open: the Linked Panels button asks you to create or open one first otherwise.

  • The panel must have been saved at least once — a copy is made from the drawing on disk. If you have followed the thread, every lesson’s closing redraw has saved it already.

  • Your team needs at least one panel token: Step 2 creates a new panel.

Tip

Joining here? Download the lesson solution — the finished TP08-12 — and place it in the project folder you created in Tutorial 1 before opening it. Links are kept per project, and the update walk opens the linked drawings from the project folder, so this lesson wants the drawing inside its project — not opened from a downloads folder.

Lesson

Step 1 — Open the Linked Panels dialog

With TP08-12 open, click Linked Panels on the ConstructiVision toolbar. The Linked Panels dialog opens with Current panel: TP08-12 at the top and three sections below it:

  • Linked panels — every link this panel takes part in. Empty so far.

  • Link an existing panel — panels in the same mark series not yet linked to this one. Also empty: TP08-12 is the only panel in the project, which is exactly why the third section exists.

  • Create a copy — make a new panel drawing as a copy of this one and link it in a single step.

Step 2 — Create the opposite-hand copy

The facing wall of a real building wants this same panel in opposite hand. Under Create a copy:

  1. In New panel number, type 20 — just the number. ConstructiVision completes it to TP08-20 from the origin’s own mark series. (Typing the full mark works too; a number that already exists in the project is rejected.)

  2. Tick Mirror copy (op. hand) — the copy should be the opposite-hand version, not a repeat. (The Mirror (op. hand) button higher up belongs to Link an existing panel; it does not affect the copy.)

  3. Click Create a Copy + Link.

Note

Creating a linked copy makes a new panel and uses one panel token. If your team has no tokens left, the copy is refused and nothing is created.

The command line confirms the copy — created as a mirror, and stale until first update — and the Linked panels list now shows the new link:

-> TP08-20   mirror   STALE

STALE is expected, not a problem: the new file is still a byte-for-byte copy of TP08-12 — it only becomes its own panel after its first update. That update is offered the moment you leave the dialog.

Step 3 — Run the first update walk

Click Done. ConstructiVision immediately asks:

Panel TP08-12 has 1 linked panel(s): TP08-20 (mirror) Update linked panels now?

Click Update Now and watch the walk run — hands off the keyboard until it finishes:

  1. TP08-20 opens, is renumbered to its own mark, mirrored to opposite hand, and redrawn — the same draw you have watched close every lesson, now run for you.

  2. The drawing is saved, and the walk returns you to TP08-12. The command line reports each stage as [CV-LNK] lines, ending with walk complete and back at the source panel — linked panels are in sync.

Open Linked Panels again to confirm: the row now reads -> TP08-20   mirror   in sync. Close it with Done.

Step 4 — Visit the linked panel

Click Open Drawing and open TP08-20. Two things to see:

  • The drawing is TP08-12 flipped left-for-right — the door and openings you placed in Lessons 5–6 now sit in opposite hand, with the dimensions and callouts redrawn to match.

  • It is still its own panel: the title block and panel mark say TP08-20, not a copy of the origin’s. A linked panel gets the origin’s geometry and features on every update, but its panel number and its gridline marks are never copied — those are the panel’s own identity.

Open Linked Panels from this side and the same single link reads from the other direction: <- TP08-12   mirror   (origin)   in sync. One link serves both panels — there is nothing to link “the other way round.”

Step 5 — See a save mark the copy out of date

Go back to TP08-12 (Open Drawing). Now watch the ongoing rhythm every linked pair lives by:

  1. Click Edit Main Panel, change nothing, and click OK. The panel redraws and saves — and because the origin saved, the update prompt appears again.

  2. This time click Later. Nothing is lost: the command line notes the linked panel was left stale, and the Linked panels row shows STALE again until the next update.

Two safety nets catch a link left stale: opening TP08-20 while it is out of date prompts you to update and redraw now, and a Batch Utilities run (Tutorial 13’s panel book) warns you first, listing the out-of-date panels, before printing them as they are.

Step 6 — Bring the pair back in sync

Repeat the no-change redraw — Edit Main Panel, OK — and this time answer Update Now. The walk runs exactly as in Step 3 and returns you to TP08-12 with the link back in sync. That is the whole discipline: edit the origin, save, and say yes — the copies follow.

Note

Links work in both directions. If you edit and save the linked panel instead — TP08-20 — ConstructiVision offers to push the changes back to the origin. Declining keeps the changes local, but a later update from the origin overwrites them. The full rules, and Unlink Selected for retiring a link, are in Work with linked panels.

Check your result

Tip

This lesson’s result spans two drawings and the project’s link record, so there is no CV-CHECK-LESSON14 command — the single-drawing lesson checker has nothing it could grade here. Check the outcomes themselves against the list below.

You should now be able to verify all of the following:

  • The project folder contains TP08-20.dwg alongside TP08-12 — a drawn, dimensioned panel, not a blank copy.

  • TP08-20 is TP08-12 in opposite hand: the Lesson 5 door and Lesson 6 openings sit mirrored left-for-right, and the title block carries TP08-20’s own panel mark.

  • Linked Panels in TP08-12 shows -> TP08-20   mirror   in sync; the same dialog in TP08-20 shows the identical link as <- TP08-12 with the (origin) tag.

  • A save of TP08-12 answered Later flips the row to STALE; the next save answered Update Now runs the walk and flips it back to in sync, ending with the command line’s back at the source panel — linked panels are in sync.

If the walk ever reports a linked drawing it cannot find, or a row looks wrong, the recovery moves are in Work with linked panels — including removing a dead link with Unlink Selected.

Where next

  • Reference depth: Work with linked panels — linking panels that already exist, clone versus mirror, unlinking, and every prompt’s exact behavior.

  • What “out of date” is measured against: Track revisions — the save-time backups that let ConstructiVision know the origin has moved ahead of its copies.

  • Where stale links surface downstream: Print a panel book — the Batch Utilities warning that checks link status before a panel book prints.

  • A companion video for this lesson is planned alongside the written curriculum.