Command Line

5 Quick Tips for AutoCAD WS

Mar 22

Some of these may be familiar to you, but it never hurts to revisit ways to improve your CAD experience.

1. Shortcuts Are Your Friend

Even without the familiar Command Line from AutoCAD, you can still rely on the typed shortcuts you already know. As you type each letter there will be no indication until the shortcut is complete and the cursor changes to prompt your next click to begin the action you selected.

For a comprehensive list of AutoCAD WS shortcuts, look here. These are a few that we use regularly.

F8 – Ortho Mode. You can easily toggle Ortho mode on and off with one key to make sure your lines are always at a right angle. Alternative shortcut: ortho
ma – Match Properties. Like Format Painter or any other similar function, Match Properties captures the defining properties of one object and allows you to copy them to another selected object. Alternative shortcut: matchprop
t – Insert Text. Define the size and placement of your text box and start typing. Alternative shortcuts: dt, dtext, text, mt

2. Contextual Toolbar

Whenever you click on an object or block a toolbar will appear with a number of context sensitive options ranging from Move and Rotate to Mirror, Offset and Explode. Contextual toolbar is great for newcomers to AutoCAD…

3. Pan and Zoom by Mouse

You can scroll the mouse wheel to zoom in and out of your drawing. Click and hold the mouse wheel to switch the cursor to the hand symbol and pan by moving the mouse. You can achieve the same effect by holding down the Space bar to switch the cursor and then hold down the left-click and move the mouse to pan.

4. Sharing Multiple Drawings

Sometimes you want to share multiple drawings from the same project or send multiple files to a colleague. Instead of sharing each individual file, you can create a folder for all the files you want to share and then simply share the entire folder.

When you share a folder it’s like using an FTP destination. You can add more drawings to the folder and they will be automatically shared according to the sharing permissions you decided.

5. Right-Click for Convenience

Your trusty right-click can help you reach a number of useful commands such as repeat or undo the last action and zoom and pan.

How would you improve productivity in AutoCAD WS?

Apart from the Command Line and a version of the app for Android (we know!), what else would you add to improve the usefulness of AutoCAD WS?

Right Click in AutoCAD WS

Jan 27

We have posted recently here and here about the possibility of adding a command line to future releases of AutoCAD WS. It was very clear that some AutoCAD users prefer to use their keyboards.

But today’s post is about a another type of user. This is for users who are more comfortable doing everything with their mouse. If you’re the kind of person who like to do everything with a mouse, then you should know what happens in AutoCAD WS when you right-click your mouse.

There are two different contextual menus available when you right-click depending on whether you are in the Drawings directory or you are working on an open drawing.

Right-click in Drawings directory

The menu selections here are very straightforward and deal with file management for your online account in AutoCAD WS.

Using the mouse you can select multiple files and then right-click and click Open selected to open each drawing at the same time in a separate tab.

Share selected will open the share permissions just like clicking the share button. Again you can do this for one or multiple drawings at the same time.

Remove shares will cancel all the share permissions you have allocated to the selected drawing or drawings.

You can use Cut, Copy and Paste selected to manage your files and move them to different folders.

Currently the only way to permanently delete a file from your online account is either by clicking the Delete button or by right-clicking and selecting Delete selected.

Rename selected allows you to rename files in your AutoCAD WS online account.

Right-click within a drawing

The top two commands in this menu will change according to the last act you carried out in the drawing. So you can Repeat or Undo a Move, Line, Rotate, etc.

Where applicable, Redo Last Command will be available as well.

You can use Zoom Window to focus on a particular part of the drawing. Selecting Zoom Window allows you to identify two opposite corners of a rectangle. The drawing will then automatically resize itself in your window to focus on the area bounded by your rectangle.

Zoom Extents will resize the entire drawing so that it all fits within your browser window. From here you can start over and zoom in again on the part of the drawing you want to work on.

Do you right-click in AutoCAD WS? Let us know what commands are missing from these menus in the comment section.

AutoCAD WS Command Line, Part 2

Jan 06

Something very interesting happened following the last post about potentially introducing a command line to AutoCAD WS.

I presented four options about the placement of a command line in AutoCAD and then posted a poll where you could choose which one you liked best.

We got a few comments both on the blog post and on our Facebook page. The comments were unanimously in favor of us reproducing the existing and comfortingly familiar command line. But then when we looked at the poll results we fund something entirely different.

A clear majority (55%) of people who voted in the poll, chose the widget as their preferred representation of the command line. The existing version was back in third place with only 19% of the votes.

So we thought we would try to compare a couple of different versions of the widget, each with a different look and feel, and get your opinion on them.

Three pictures with a poll underneath.

Command Line Widget A

Command Line Widget B

Command Line Widget C

Poll

What Would A Command Line in AutoCAD WS Look Like? – Poll

Jan 02

One of the most conspicuous differences between the full version of AutoCAD and our web application AutoCAD WS is the command line.

When we designed the interface for AutoCAD WS, we left out the physical representation of the command line. But even without seeing the command line, we held on to all the familiar shortcuts. Every function that exists in the AutoCAD WS web application can be activated by the same shortcut that you use in AutoCAD.

Nevertheless, once we launched we saw that there was still considerable demand for a command line in the web app with plenty of you saying that you just can’t work without one.

(We even had a few people complaining that there is no command line in the AutoCAD WS mobile app for iPhone, but that’s a discussion for another time!)

In thinking about what the command line might look like in the AutoCAD WS web app, we have come up with a few proposals and a poll where you get to let us know what you think.

If we were to add a command line to AutoCAD WS where should it go and what should it look like. Have a look at these four suggestions and vote in the poll below.