Menus and Icons

In the previous post, I've explained about the various areas in the AutoCAD window. Here they are expanded and the stuffs inside are explained below.

AutoCAD cursor
The AutoCAD cursor also known as the cross-hair is nothing but a pair of two crossed lines across the screen. This changes into a small square when an object in the drawing area is selected and it changes according to the command that is currently active. The image below shows the cross-hair.

The Pull-down menus
These menus are available from the Menu bar on the menu area. These menus are used for quick access of commands and functions. The basic functionality are,

• Display additional menu choices on the menu that contains a ">" mark on it. This is called cascading menus
• Display a dialog box that contains settings that can be changed (options with ellipse... marks).
• Issues a command that require keyboard or drawing.

As the menu is selected, AutoCAD flashes a single line help in the status bar.

Tool bars & Icons
Just as the pull down menu, the commands in the toolbar do the nitty gritty work of creating new objects and editing the existing ones. These icons are grouped by action types such as Draw toolbar and Modify toolbar and so on.
The Draw toolbar contains tools needed to create new objects. Modify toolbar contains tools to modify the objects that have been created.

The icon in the toolbars perform three types of actions. Namely,

• Display further options if the little arrow at the right hand-side corner of the icon is seen. See image below.

• Open's dialogue boxes.
• Executes commands that require keyboard or mouse inputs.

And the various toolbars are a given below,

• Standard toolbar
• Draw toolbar
• Modify toolbar
• Properties toolbar
• Style toolbar
• Layers toolbar

These toolbars can be seen marked in the image in the previous post that i've posted.

The usage of there toolbars would be explained in detail as we cover them in the upcoming posts. So stay tuned.

Mouse

The mouse has three functionality that can be used in AutoCAD. 

Left Click   - To select [specifies the pointer and commands on screen]

Right Click - Return Button [Equivalent to 'Enter' or 'Return' on the keyboard]

Scroll          - Continuously picking and moving, it as pan

                      Front and back scroll, it works as zoom in/out

Now that we have an overview idea of all the options available in AutoCAD, now its time to get in to the methods of drawing. On the next post, we'll be discussing about the co-ordinate systems.