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Hi Mark,
Which version are you currently using? Plain AutoCAD?
What type of work are you doing (Civil/Survey, Archtectural, etc...)?
Grips are a handy tool but certainly not going to be the prime contribution to speeding up your workflows. There are many handy tools that have evolved. Let us know what field you are in and maybe we can point you toward some helpful hints.
Cheers,
Blaine
Blaine Young
Senior Engineering Technician, US Army
Hi Mark,
Which version are you currently using? Plain AutoCAD?
What type of work are you doing (Civil/Survey, Archtectural, etc...)?
Grips are a handy tool but certainly not going to be the prime contribution to speeding up your workflows. There are many handy tools that have evolved. Let us know what field you are in and maybe we can point you toward some helpful hints.
Cheers,
Blaine
Blaine Young
Senior Engineering Technician, US Army
Generally in my experience, the command line is faster with the caveat that it shouldn't be used for everything.
It should also be said that fast isn't synonymous with accurate.
If you are not using the ribbon it might be worth looking into.
Some suggestions for picking up speed - Watch what the "fast" guys do and take note of when they do something different than you.
If you want to be come more familiar with aspects of the GUI challenge your self to only use the mouse and see how you fare. There are some wonderful tools in the right click menus and the contextual ribbons. One you are proficient, then just pick the best parts of both worlds.
If you are having trouble finding where a command is in the interface you can search it by click on the "a" and searching.
CADnoob
Generally in my experience, the command line is faster with the caveat that it shouldn't be used for everything.
It should also be said that fast isn't synonymous with accurate.
If you are not using the ribbon it might be worth looking into.
Some suggestions for picking up speed - Watch what the "fast" guys do and take note of when they do something different than you.
If you want to be come more familiar with aspects of the GUI challenge your self to only use the mouse and see how you fare. There are some wonderful tools in the right click menus and the contextual ribbons. One you are proficient, then just pick the best parts of both worlds.
If you are having trouble finding where a command is in the interface you can search it by click on the "a" and searching.
CADnoob
I use a gaming mouse that I made a bunch of macros for the buttons for my most used commands. Now that on it's own isn't a ton faster than just typing the shortcuts. Where I gain the speed I believe is that I can be using the commands off the mouse and then my left hand can stay on the number pad to type in distances.
My mouse has buttons on it for: esc, mirror, spacebar, mtext, break, join, delete, move, copy, shift, trim, offset, polyline. Took a while to get used to where the buttons were but not as long as you would think. I made a little cheat sheet and taped it to my monitor for the button locations. I ended up moving the buttons around and put the ones I used more on the easier to reach mouse buttons as it depends on your hand size how your thumb will rest on the mouse. I also tried learning them in tiers and not all at once. Like when I started using it for the first week I really only used the move, copy, polyline, esc buttons as to not overwhelm myself with 13 buttons. I'd need to think about where they were but by the end of the week I just did it and had those 4 down. Next week I added a few more. I mouse with many buttons isn't for everyone. It's just one thing that I do. I used to play games years ago so it's more natural for me. For some people it just adds a layer of confusion and complication that they don't need.
Another thing to get faster is to see what things you do most. If you use break once a day then getting a tiny bit faster at using break isn't going to speed you up very much. If you use move every 15 seconds then being faster at move will really add up over a day. After you find the things you use most then think how can I be faster at these things? What kinds of drawings and software are you using? Post the things you do most as I mentioned and maybe people will have some tips to speed you up. Like me, I used palettes in this way. I put things on palettes that I'm using over and over. When I'm noting up a drawing I have a palette for that. One of it's tabs is 2 different multileaders that go in on different layers, 2 dim styles that go in on specific layers and other things like that. I'm using those things over and over when I'm annotating so having it all set up ahead of time is easier.
You can flip through a few commands with spacebar after you click on a grip. Depending on what you are doing it could help. For me clicking on the grip takes more time than just doing the command and windowing some part of the object to get it selected.
Short version is what things do you do most? Figure out how to be faster at a few of those and your overall speed will go up just by the shear amount of repetition that goes on in autocad.
Nick DiPietro
Cad Manager/Monkey
I use a gaming mouse that I made a bunch of macros for the buttons for my most used commands. Now that on it's own isn't a ton faster than just typing the shortcuts. Where I gain the speed I believe is that I can be using the commands off the mouse and then my left hand can stay on the number pad to type in distances.
My mouse has buttons on it for: esc, mirror, spacebar, mtext, break, join, delete, move, copy, shift, trim, offset, polyline. Took a while to get used to where the buttons were but not as long as you would think. I made a little cheat sheet and taped it to my monitor for the button locations. I ended up moving the buttons around and put the ones I used more on the easier to reach mouse buttons as it depends on your hand size how your thumb will rest on the mouse. I also tried learning them in tiers and not all at once. Like when I started using it for the first week I really only used the move, copy, polyline, esc buttons as to not overwhelm myself with 13 buttons. I'd need to think about where they were but by the end of the week I just did it and had those 4 down. Next week I added a few more. I mouse with many buttons isn't for everyone. It's just one thing that I do. I used to play games years ago so it's more natural for me. For some people it just adds a layer of confusion and complication that they don't need.
Another thing to get faster is to see what things you do most. If you use break once a day then getting a tiny bit faster at using break isn't going to speed you up very much. If you use move every 15 seconds then being faster at move will really add up over a day. After you find the things you use most then think how can I be faster at these things? What kinds of drawings and software are you using? Post the things you do most as I mentioned and maybe people will have some tips to speed you up. Like me, I used palettes in this way. I put things on palettes that I'm using over and over. When I'm noting up a drawing I have a palette for that. One of it's tabs is 2 different multileaders that go in on different layers, 2 dim styles that go in on specific layers and other things like that. I'm using those things over and over when I'm annotating so having it all set up ahead of time is easier.
You can flip through a few commands with spacebar after you click on a grip. Depending on what you are doing it could help. For me clicking on the grip takes more time than just doing the command and windowing some part of the object to get it selected.
Short version is what things do you do most? Figure out how to be faster at a few of those and your overall speed will go up just by the shear amount of repetition that goes on in autocad.
Nick DiPietro
Cad Manager/Monkey
Hi again,
I like the suggestion by @cadffm regarding the ribbon. The commands that are visible by default cover most work you might encounter. The home ribbon has quick access to common things and other ribbon tabs drill into those areas further. Each panel of the ribbon may offer additional commands via drop-down arrow and some commands offer deeper option via similar arrow.
I've worked with several students over the years that were in the same spot as you and they simply enrolled to refresh their skills. I challenged them to follow my lead in classroom demonstrations but as you might expect, they were sometimes the hardest ones to keep moving. Once they accepted the new interface and saw the efficiencies it became more clear to them how to speed up a bit.
Suggested design tools to consider (if not already using):
Dynamic Input
Polar Tracking (forget Ortho)
Object Snap (running OSNAPs and on-demand using shift+right-click)
Object Snap Tracking
If you are REALLY stuck in low gear the I'll suggest that you try some "intuitive trimming" by starting your trim command and hitting the enter key. You can simply hover over things you want to trim and they will attempt to find intersections for trimming instead of you having to specify the trimming curves. Within the same command sequence you can hold the shift key to extend intuitively.
Also know that every option you typically see on the command line is available via the right-click menu as you progress through command sets.
The mouse (just in case)...
Use the wheel for zooming in and out. Double-click the wheel to zoom-extents.
As you force yourself to work with new things feel free to post questions or stumbling points on the forums.
Cheers,
Blaine
Blaine Young
Senior Engineering Technician, US Army
Hi again,
I like the suggestion by @cadffm regarding the ribbon. The commands that are visible by default cover most work you might encounter. The home ribbon has quick access to common things and other ribbon tabs drill into those areas further. Each panel of the ribbon may offer additional commands via drop-down arrow and some commands offer deeper option via similar arrow.
I've worked with several students over the years that were in the same spot as you and they simply enrolled to refresh their skills. I challenged them to follow my lead in classroom demonstrations but as you might expect, they were sometimes the hardest ones to keep moving. Once they accepted the new interface and saw the efficiencies it became more clear to them how to speed up a bit.
Suggested design tools to consider (if not already using):
Dynamic Input
Polar Tracking (forget Ortho)
Object Snap (running OSNAPs and on-demand using shift+right-click)
Object Snap Tracking
If you are REALLY stuck in low gear the I'll suggest that you try some "intuitive trimming" by starting your trim command and hitting the enter key. You can simply hover over things you want to trim and they will attempt to find intersections for trimming instead of you having to specify the trimming curves. Within the same command sequence you can hold the shift key to extend intuitively.
Also know that every option you typically see on the command line is available via the right-click menu as you progress through command sets.
The mouse (just in case)...
Use the wheel for zooming in and out. Double-click the wheel to zoom-extents.
As you force yourself to work with new things feel free to post questions or stumbling points on the forums.
Cheers,
Blaine
Blaine Young
Senior Engineering Technician, US Army
@MarkFitz wrote:
I use XLINE a lot, because it's accurate, then trim accordingly...
Good/Bad...??
Id pose this can be good and bad. I rarely use xline for actual geometry i use it more for construction lines. That said there have been a few time i used it.
CADnoob
@MarkFitz wrote:
I use XLINE a lot, because it's accurate, then trim accordingly...
Good/Bad...??
Id pose this can be good and bad. I rarely use xline for actual geometry i use it more for construction lines. That said there have been a few time i used it.
CADnoob
@MarkFitz wrote:
...
Perhaps what I need to do rather than watch videos, is make one myself, filmed over my shoulder or whatever, of what I do and how I work, then have people make suggestions...?
This is a pretty good idea. Just get some examples together and ask people to volunteer to critique or draft. as @pendean mentioned screencasts are a pretty good way to go. They capture both video audio and commands. see this example screen cast.
CADnoob
@MarkFitz wrote:
...
Perhaps what I need to do rather than watch videos, is make one myself, filmed over my shoulder or whatever, of what I do and how I work, then have people make suggestions...?
This is a pretty good idea. Just get some examples together and ask people to volunteer to critique or draft. as @pendean mentioned screencasts are a pretty good way to go. They capture both video audio and commands. see this example screen cast.
CADnoob
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