Michael’s Corner

Michael's Corner is a monthly publication written by Michael E. Beall, Autodesk Authorized Author and peripatetic AutoCAD trainer. Michael travels all over the USA, bringing his fantastic experience and great understanding of AutoCAD to his clients. Michael's Corner brings together many of the tips, tricks and methods developed during these training sessions for the benefit of all users.

Michael's Corner provides something for every AutoCAD user. Every month, a number of articles cover a wide range of topics, suitable for users at all levels, including "The Basics" for those just starting out. Essentially, the aim of Michael's Corner is to help all AutoCAD users work smarter and faster.

This month…

From the Vault

Originally published June 2009

Edit the Shortcut Menu

Those of us from the old school like to right-click to repeat the previous command when there is no command current. To that end, you folks are the target audience for this exercise. For reference, on the User Preferences tab in Options, you will find the Right-Click Customization button where you can set the Default Mode as shown.

The reason this is important to clarify, is because those of us using right-click to repeat the last command will find it easier to customize our object snap cursor menu (Shift + right-click) in the Main CUI rather than Partial which is where I typically encourage you to do your customizations.

In the following exercise, we create a new item for the Object Snap Cursor menu that runs the Endpoint snap twice. This is something you may use when querying a Distance between two points, such as between the panels of a workstation and the lateral files, another panel run, or a wall.

Instructions to Customize the Object Snap Cursor Menu

1. Open the CUI, then expand the Shortcut Menus node.

2. Expand the Object Snap Cursor Menu node.

3. Right-click on the Endpoint item, then click Duplicate (essentially a Copy & Paste in one routine).

4. Click on one of the Endpoint items, then modify the Properties for the Name and the Macro as follows:

   Name:  &2X_Endpoint
   Macro:  _ENDP;\ENDP;

   Legend:  (many of you know this from previous articles)
   ;  Press Enter
   \  Pause for user response

   The name must have the ampersand preceding whatever you want have displayed when the cursor menu is called up. Whatever you call it is up to you. In the macro, I am partial to using a semi-colon to indicate [Enter] rather than a space. The backslash pauses the macro so you can pick the point using the incurred endpoint snap. Neither the Name or the Macro are case-sensitive.

5. Click OK to apply, save, and close the CUI, then try out your customized Object Snap cursor menu with Shift + right-click!

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