Keyboard commands?

[thatcadguy]

Does anyone have a list of ACADE's command names? I'm sick of using toolbars and right clicks. Thanks in advance.

[david_brude]

Type "ae" at the command line to show a scrollable list of all the autocad electric commands.

[jseefdrumr]

Sounds like you're looking for command aliases, really. I think it takes too long to type in the typical ACADE command on the command line.

Most of the time, if you let your mouse cursor hover over a command, there will be a popup that comes up after a second or two. You can see the command line call for the command displayed in that popup. (If you're not seeing that popup, then you've probably got the notification balloons turned off in OPTIONS.)

However, many of these are really long: AESWAPBLOCK, AEREBUILDDB, etc. Unless you're typing at 100 wpm or more, navigating menus and clicking the buttons is generally quicker.

That said, I prefer command line entry. In a perfect world, my eyes never leave the monitor, my left hand never leaves the keyboard, and my right hand never leaves the mouse. So I use 2 and 3 letter command aliases and I reassigned all my commands so that they can be entered from the left side of the keyboard in only one or two keystrokes.

There are two methods for this. First, LISP (major old school!). Second, set up a pgp file.

Unless you know some LISP basics, go with the pgp file. Check out "About Creating Command Aliases" in HELP for more detail. Essentially, though, you'll be setting up a basic text file listing each command and your alias for that command.

My method relies on my left hand remaining at its 'normal' typing position at all times (index finger above the F key). Then I made a list of the commands I wanted to alias. From there, I decided which keyboard key to put them on. Since some commands feature characters that the left hand can't reach (without looking down, anyway) I tried to find places for them that were reachable. For instance, I use PLOT and PLOT PREVIEW quite a bit. I put them on the 'Z' key: Z is ZOOM (default), ZZ is PLOT, ZZZ is PLOT PREVIEW. V is LINE, VV is POLYLINE, and VVV is PEDIT (polyline edit). Stacking similar or related commands on the same key like that aided me in remembering where they had moved to. It also helps you move more commands to the left side of the keyboard.

I actually have two lists of aliases, one for Vanilla and one for Electrical. The Electrical commands follow the pattern I'd set up for vanilla, but are preceded with 'E'. So for me, V is a line, but EV is a wire. (There are no polyline wires in ACADE so I have no EVV alias.)

It's not possible to actually arrive at a place where my eyes never leave the monitor while my hands stay on the keyboard & mouse. But, this allows me to get pretty close. Plus, I never really need the toolbars and menus so all that stuff is collapsed and out of the way, maximizing my drawing area. I leave PROPERTIES open, docked on the right, but every other thing is collapsed.

If you need help setting up command aliases, post back here and I or another user will get you together on it.