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AutoCAD Productivity

‘Sign Language’

by Michael Beall

From: AutoCAD Productivity Articles #136
Originally published: October 2014

Infer ConstraintsSelection CyclingFor the last few versions we have seen icons next to the cursor for Geometric Constraints (left) and Selection Cycling (right), as well as the little icon for a Locked layer and the Match Properties paintbrush.

Those icons are displayed when the related feature is enabled.

Cursor Badges

But AutoCAD 2015 now has included a ‘cursor badge’ for several editing commands, such as Rotate and Erase (see figures below), along with Measure and even the Window and Crossing selection direction badges.

Badge examples

Some of you, however, may prefer not to see the new badges beside the cursor. If so, set the variable CURSORBADGE to <1>, which will disable all badges.

See all the articles published in October 2014

Michael's Corner

Between 2003 and 2016, Michael Beall (and one or two guests) wrote almost 600 articles for CADTutor. The focus of these articles is AutoCAD productivity, and although some of them are now more than a few years old, most remain relevant to current versions of AutoCAD. The article above is just one example. Check out Michael's Corner for a full listing.

Tip of the Day

Layer States and Viewports

Did you know that Layer States can be saved and used to control visibility of layers per viewport? If you create and save a couple of layer states within an active viewport, you can then toggle them back and forth without affecting any other viewports, or model space. The changes only occur within the active viewport.

Try this:

Create a bunch of random objects in model space on different layers. Now switch to paper space and create two viewports so that you can see all the model space objects in both viewports. Now activate one of the viewports and open the Express Tools LMAN layer states manager. Create and save a new layer state. Now close LMAN and freeze some of the objects within the viewport. Open LMAN back up and create another new layer state. All of this must be done within the active viewport. You can now toggle back and forth between the two layer states within the active viewport without affecting model space or any other viewports. You can also switch to another viewport and use the same layer states on it, or create new ones.

Today's tip is by Cad64

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