Chapter 2
IN THIS CHAPTER
Touring the AutoCAD screens
Going bar-hopping: Title bars and the status bar
Unraveling the Ribbon
Practicing with palettes
Discovering the drawing area
Using online help
Over the years, AutoCAD’s interface has undergone many changes, starting with a simple text menu down the right side (still the second-fastest way of using AutoCAD) and then progressing to drop-down menus, toolbars, a Dashboard (which only survived two releases — 2007 and 2008), tool palettes, and, for now, the Ribbon menu.
Like the rest of this book, this chapter is written for someone who has used other Windows programs but has little or no experience with AutoCAD. Here and throughout the rest of the book, I show you how to do things by using AutoCAD’s implementation of Microsoft’s Fluent User Interface (or FUI; pronounced “foo-ey”). AutoCAD has always been big on backward compatibility, and this includes the interface. You can always shift between older and newer versions of the user interface.
When you first open AutoCAD, you encounter the Start window. I can already hear your plaintive cry: “Where do I draw? The screen is full!” No problem. The Start screen (shown in Figure 2-1) is just a menu of available actions. It should be quite obvious as to what each item does. For now, just click the rectangular New button on the left side.
If the screen is partially obscured by any palettes, close them by clicking the X in their upper-left corners. AutoCAD remembers that you closed them, so the program doesn’t open them next time.
Figure 2-2 shows the screen you then see, AutoCAD’s initial drawing window.
Now you’re ready to get to work. Starting from the top down, AutoCAD’s interface has eight main sections:
Quick Access toolbar: This toolbar, in the top-left corner of the screen, includes buttons for some of the most commonly used functions, such as Save and Undo. You can add functions that you use all the time and delete unneeded buttons by clicking the down-facing triangle near the right-hand end of the toolbar.
If you’re floundering, looking for the weird icon representing the command you want to use, click the down arrow at the right end of the Quick Access toolbar and select Show Menu Bar. The classic text-based menu appears above the Ribbon.
Command line: This gray rectangular box at the bottom of the window is the chat room between you and AutoCAD, displaying your input to AutoCAD and (equally important) what AutoCAD says it needs from you.
When you’re having a problem and all else fails, read the command line.
Because of the way that AutoCAD was developed, you usually have four or five ways to invoke a command, primarily by using the Ribbon, keyboard entry, toolbars, the menu bar, and right-click menus. Throughout this book, I focus on the Ribbon and direct keyboard entry because the other methods, from earlier releases, aren’t necessarily turned on in recent releases of AutoCAD.
A workspace defines the AutoCAD environment, including such things as which version of the Ribbon menu to display and whether or not toolbars are used. In addition to the default Drafting & Annotation workspace, a few additional preconfigured workspaces are available from the Workspace Switching button. You can customize workspaces. I stick with the out-of-the-box Drafting & Annotation workspace, except in Part 5, where I use the one for 3D modeling.
Located at the right side of the program title bar, InfoCenter serves as Information Central in AutoCAD. You can
The Application menu is accessible from all workspaces. The AutoCAD Application menu has the following commands on the Application menu:
The CLOSEALLOTHER command closes all open drawings except for the active one. (Unfortunately, the command doesn’t appear on the Ribbon menu, so you have to type it at the command prompt.) You'll appreciate the significance of this feature after you open 20 or so drawings looking for a particular one and now want to close the rest.
In addition to the Application menu’s file menu items, it has a few other features worth a mention:
Recent Documents: When you choose this option, the right pane displays a list of recently edited drawings that aren’t open. You can show them in a simple list or as thumbnail images. You can also pin them to stop them from scrolling off the list. Naturally enough, clicking a filename opens the drawing.
The Recent Documents feature is hardly necessary, however. Instead, click the Start tab near the upper-left corner of the screen to bring back the Start screen, which displays a scrollable series of thumbnail views of the last few open drawings, as shown in Figure 2-1 earlier in the chapter.
Open Documents: Choose this option to see which documents are already open, and click an item to switch to it.
This feature, like Recent Documents, isn't necessary because a series of tabs appears across the top of the graphic screen, one for each open drawing. Hovering the cursor over a tab produces a quick preview of its drawing, which makes jumping from drawing to drawing much easier compared to earlier releases.
Search: When you’re unsure of a command name or you want help on a topic, just start typing in the Search bar, at the top of the Application menu. AutoCAD quickly displays a categorized list, complete with links to start commands or to access the online Help system. See Figure 2-4.
You can also search directly from the command line. Just start typing the name of a command. As you type, AutoCAD displays a list of what it thinks you are searching for. When you see the one you want, click the question mark beside its name to get help about the selected item.
The primary interface element in the Drafting & Annotation, 3D Basics, and 3D Modeling workspaces is the Ribbon, a customizable area that contains a series of tabbed, task-oriented collections of panels. Those panels marked with a little down-facing triangle on the panel label have more tools concealed on a slideout (see Figure 2-5). Click the panel label to open the slideout. You can click the pushpin icon to pin open the slideout if you don’t want it to slide home when you’ve finished using it.
If you find yourself using a particular Ribbon panel often, click and drag it into the drawing area. If, for example, you’re doing a lot of dimensioning, you can drag the Dimensions panel into the drawing or even to another monitor, and it stays put, even as you switch to other panels or tabs.
To gain some screen space, you can click the little white button to the right of the name of the last tab on the Ribbon to reduce the amount of space the Ribbon occupies, or use the drop-down menu next to the little white button to tailor the Ribbon’s display, or drag individual tabs over to a second monitor. By default, the Ribbon is docked at the top of the screen, but you can dock it against any edge or float it on another monitor.
The tabs on the Ribbon are organized by task and differ according to the workspace selected. The Drafting & Annotation workspace offers the following panels on the Ribbon:
Parametric: Serves as the home base of one of AutoCAD’s most powerful features. You can apply geometric or dimensional parameters or constraints (rules of behavior) to drawing objects so that, say, two circles always are the same distance apart or the length of a rectangle is always twice its width. I introduce parametric drawing in Chapter 19.
AutoCAD LT is limited when it comes to parametrics. You can modify or delete existing constraints, but you need the full version of AutoCAD to create them.
In most of this book, I focus on 2D drafting, which is by far the easiest way to get your feet wet with AutoCAD. Just don’t drip water on your computer. If you’re not already in the Drafting & Annotation workspace (the default workspace), you can return to it by clicking the Workspace Switching button, towards the right end of the Status bar (and shown in the margin). I cover workspace switching in more detail in Chapter 21, where I discuss 3D modeling that has a different workspace. When you are in the Drafting & Annotation workspace, AutoCAD displays the interface shown earlier, in Figure 2-2.
Like all good Windows programs, AutoCAD has tooltips, those short descriptions that appear in little text boxes whenever you hover the mouse pointer over a button. In AutoCAD, tooltips display two levels of information. When you first hover the mouse pointer over a tool button, you see a short identification of the command. When you continue hovering, a longer description of the icon’s function, often with a descriptive image, appears in an extended tooltip. As helpful as they are when you’re starting with AutoCAD, you’ll probably want to remove these training wheels sooner or later because they cover up some of your drawing. You can do so in the Options dialog box. See the online Help system for more information.
I’m intrigued by the computer industry’s fascination with icons. Traditional Chinese uses about 450,000 icons, but in the 1950s Simplified Chinese came into being with only 4,500 icons. On the other hand, Korean is generally considered to be the best written language in the world. It has 24 “letters,” no punctuation marks, does not distinguish between uppercase and lowercase, and is perfectly phonetic. On the other, other hand, AutoCAD uses about 1,300 icons.
The status bar (see Figure 2-6), which appears at the bottom of the AutoCAD screen, displays — and allows you to change — several important drawing modes, aids, and settings that affect how you draw and edit in the current drawing.
Earlier AutoCAD releases allowed you to change status bar buttons to display icons or traditional text labels. Now, unfortunately, we’re stuck with icons only. The good news is that the F keys (F3, F5, and so on) can also be used to turn on and off the most commonly used drawing modes.
I cover each status bar setting as appropriate when I discuss its relevant commands. See the online extras for a description of each of the status bar buttons.
The F12 key turns Dynamic Input on and off. When it's active, most command input and responses from the command line are repeated in the graphic area of the screen, close to the current cursor location. Dynamic Input can increase efficiency because you don’t have to shift your focus between the command line and the current cursor location. On the other hand, some users find it distracting to have so much information dancing and flashing around the cursor. When you find it irritating, just turn it off by pressing the F12 key.
The Dynamic Input tooltip doesn’t display options unless you press the down-arrow key, as shown in Figure 2-7. Pressing the up-arrow key displays previous input.
The command line (or command window, or command prompt, or command area, or whatever else you want to call it), as shown in Figure 2-8, is a throwback to the dark ages of AutoCAD. It puzzles newcomers and delights AutoCAD aficionados. Despite the razzle-dazzle of Dynamic Input, the command line is still the most efficient way to perform many AutoCAD operations.
Cozy up to the command line, because it’s AutoCAD’s primary communications conduit to you. AutoCAD displays prompts, warnings, and error messages in the command line that Dynamic Input may not show. Even when Dynamic Input gives you the same info, glancing at the command line is more efficient.
The command line is a semitransparent toolbar that can float anywhere on the screen, allowing drawings to show through it. This recovers some of the vertical window area that was lost to the Ribbon. Hey, Microsoft, computer screens are getting wider, not taller! By default, the command line displays one command input line plus the last three input prompts, but you can change the number of prompts that are displayed.
As a command is running, the command line often displays several options that can be chosen during the command. You choose an option by entering the uppercase letter or letters shown in each option, such as Close or LWeight. It’s usually, but not always, the first letter. Some commands have more than one option whose name begins with the same letter, such as Entity versus Exit, so you enter E for Entity but X for eXit. For consistency, some options use a letter other than the first letter even if the current command doesn’t have conflicts. The most common example is eXit, which always uses X even if no other options in the current prompt start with E. Entering command option choices is not case-dependent. X or x will both work. However, ON and OFF must be entered in full because they are shown in all uppercase.
You don’t even need to type the option letter. You can select an option by using the mouse and clicking it in the command line.
Despite (or because of) AutoCAD’s long heritage as the most successful CAD software for personal computers, newcomers are still astonished at the amount of typing they have to do. Modern programs have much less dependency on the keyboard than AutoCAD does, but as you get used to it, you’ll find that no other input method gives you as much flexibility or speed as pounding the ivories — oops, wrong keyboard!
Typing at your computer’s keyboard is an efficient way to run certain commands, and it’s the only way to run others. Instead of hunting for a button or scrolling through a menu, you can start a command by typing the command name, seeing which ones AutoCAD presents to you, and pressing Enter when you find the right one. Even better, for many common commands, you can type the short form for a command name (known as an alias) and then press Enter. For example, you can simply type L for the Line command, C for Circle, and CO for the COpy command. Hands up, everyone who’d rather type APPLY instead of APPLYGLOBALCAPACITIES!
Aliases are not case-sensitive, so entering, for example, C or c will start the Circle command.
AutoCAD’s AutoComplete feature can help you become a keyboard jockey. Start typing a command name, and a list appears at the cursor showing all command names that start with the letters you’ve typed. You can continue until only the command you want appears, or you can scroll down the list and select a command with your mouse.
The command line features more functions beyond simply entering commands and options. It includes a spel checquer for command names so that close enough is good enough, the same as hand grenades and dancing. For example, it recognizes the misspelled LABLE as the correct LABEL. It also has a synonym list so that entering ROUND (an otherwise non-existent command) starts the FILLET command, and it’s adaptive so that commands you use more frequently rise to the top of the suggestion list.
The following steps demonstrate how to use the keyboard to run commands and view and select options. If Dynamic Input is toggled on, press F12 to turn it off — temporarily, at least. Follow these steps to work with the command line:
Type L and then press Enter.
AutoCAD starts the Line command and displays the following prompt in the command line:
LINE Specify first point:
Click a point anywhere in the drawing area.
The command line prompt changes to
LINE Specify next point or [Undo]:
Click another point anywhere in the drawing area.
AutoCAD draws the first line segment.
Click a third point anywhere in the drawing area.
AutoCAD draws the second line segment and prompts you:
LINE Specify next point or [Close Undo]:
To activate the Undo option, type U and press Enter.
You can type the option letter in lowercase or uppercase.
AutoCAD undoes the second line segment.
If you type an option that the command line doesn’t recognize (for example, X isn’t a valid option for the Line command), the command line displays an error message and prompts you again for another point — in this case, a point for the Line command:
Point or option keyword required.
Specify next point or [Undo]:
Option keyword is programmer jargon for letters, shown in uppercase, that activate a command option. This error message is AutoCAD’s way of saying, “Huh? I don’t understand what you mean by typing X. Either specify a point or type a letter that I do understand.”
Type 3,2 (with no spaces) and press Enter.
AutoCAD draws a new line segment to the point whose X coordinate is 3 and Y coordinate is 2.
Click several more points anywhere in the drawing area.
AutoCAD draws additional line segments.
Type C and then press Enter.
The C instructs AutoCAD to draw a final line segment, which creates a closed figure and ends the Line command. A blank command line returns, indicating that AutoCAD is ready for the next command:
Type a command
Here are a few other tips and tricks for effective keyboarding:
Display the much larger text window. The normal one-line command line usually shows you what you need to see, but occasionally you want to review a larger chunk of command-line history. Press F2 to see the AutoCAD text window, which is simply an enlarged, scrollable version of the command line, as shown in Figure 2-9, left.
Press Ctrl+F2 to see the editable version, as shown in Figure 2-9, right. In this mode, you can copy and paste command history. Question: How do you think I make sure that all my examples and exercises work properly? Answer: I have an excellent technical editor who checks everything.
Enter number of sides <4>:
The default is four sides, and you can accept it by simply pressing Enter. (That is, you don’t have to type 4 first.)
AutoCAD uses two kinds of brackets when it prompts.
[Close Undo]
. To activate a command option, type the letter(s) that appear in uppercase and then press Enter, or click the option directly in the command line.<4>
. To choose the default value or option, press Enter.You can also right-click and choose Enter as input to a command. Easier yet, you can use the spacebar instead of Enter, as long as you’re not entering text.
Palettes are refined (well-mannered) versions of dialog boxes. Unlike regular dialog boxes, which insist on your undivided attention while they're open, palettes stay discreetly on the screen as you carry on with other tasks. AutoCAD still has many dialog boxes, but over the past several releases, palettes have replaced quite a few former dialog boxes.
AutoCAD contains more than a dozen palettes (fewer than a dozen in AutoCAD LT). Unless noted otherwise, you can open any of these palettes from the Palettes panel of the View tab. I describe just a few of them, in the appropriate chapters.
After you’ve taken some warm-up laps, you’re probably itching for the main event. The AutoCAD drawing area is where you do your drawing. Gee, what a surprise! In the course of creating drawings, you click points to specify locations and distances, click objects to select them for editing, and zoom and pan to get a better view of what you’re working on.
Most of this book shows you how to interact with the drawing area, but you should know a few things upfront.
AutoCAD operates in two parallel universes, called spaces, which AutoCAD indicates with a status bar button and two or more tabs in the lower-left section of the drawing area:
Here are a few things you should know about the AutoCAD drawing area:
Unfortunately, in AutoCAD, F1 doesn’t stand for Formula One. Pressing F1 at any time opens the online Help window, shown in Figure 2-10, as does clicking the question mark.
As is the case with most Windows programs, AutoCAD Help is context-sensitive. For example, if you start the Line command and just don’t know what to do next, Help will, er, help. You can browse the online Product Documentation from the AutoCAD Help page or type words in the Search box to look for specific topics. In this book, I sometimes direct you to the AutoCAD online Help system for information about advanced topics.