Hi all,

I've spent the last while building Caddex, an AutoCAD/Civil 3D plugin that lets design teams manage their construction detail drawings without ever leaving the AutoCAD environment — and I'm looking for a handful of volunteers to help me beta test it.

What it does

Caddex gives designers and engineers a shared, version-controlled library of drawing details, accessible from a native AutoCAD palette. Key features:

- Build a shared library of drawing details across your team

- Add both AutoCAD blocks and External References (XREFs)

- Group, filter, and tag library items for quick access

- Add custom tags, descriptions, and titles

- Preview details using your preferred color-dependent plot style table (CTB)

- Add markups and annotations that sync across the team

- Track changes to library details, project by project

- Approve, reject, or spin off variants when a detail is revised

Caddex never modifies the details you add to the library — anything you insert into other drawings comes through exactly as it was before it entered the library.

Where it stands

The plugin is currently under review by Autodesk for the Autodesk App Store. While that's in progress, I'd love feedback from real-world users to refine it before launch. It works on AutoCAD and Civil 3D 2025, 2026, and 2027. (Support for other Autodesk verticals and earlier releases like 2019–2024 is on the roadmap if there's demand — let me know if that's you.)

What I'm offering / asking

One month of free access to the full version (the public download is a limited trial; team trials with full capabilities need an account — I'll set that up for volunteers).

In exchange, I'm asking for honest feedback on what works, what's clunky, and what's missing.

If you find it useful, a quick word to your professional network once the trial wraps would mean a lot.

One heads-up on install

The installer is code-signed, but Windows SmartScreen still shows a "Windows protected your PC" warning on brand-new software until it builds up enough install reputation with Microsoft. Click More info ? Run anyway to proceed — it's completely safe. As more people download and run it, the reputation accumulates and the warning fades on its own; signing just means you'll see my name as the verified publisher rather than "Unknown publisher."

Interested?

Reply here or send me a DM and I'll get you set up with an account and a short start-up guide. Happy to hop on a quick call to walk you and/or your team through it.

Thanks for taking a look — feedback from this community would be hugely valuable.

https://caddex.io