Datasheet

Tweaking Windows

Keeping Up Appearances

If your aesthetic sense has long been offended by the saturated blues and greens of the default

Windows XP interface, then rejoice, for relief is on its way. The Appearance tab of the Display

Properties dialog box makes it possible to alter many of the UI components under Windows’

control. In turn, these affect how AutoCAD appears — because, after all, AutoCAD runs on

Windows.

The first drop-down list allows you to toggle between the classic look of Windows 2000

and the updated look of XP. We’d go with XP, but only on the provision that you choose the

silver color scheme rather than the default blues or olive green (yuck). The advantage of this

color scheme lies in its neutrality — it’s not likely to influence your perception of color as

much as the other options.

The Font Size drop-down lets you boost size

to Large or Extra Large, which is useful if you’re

doing client demonstrations with an LCD projec-

tor and you want text to be readable in a presen-

tation. Because I (Lynn) spend most of my time

doing presentations, I use the extra-large font

so the audience can easily read the words. I also

change the text color to black on yellow because

that is the easiest color combination to see (think

of construction signs).

If you want to get into the nitty-gritty, then

click the Advanced button. In the resulting dialog

box, you can control individual interface com-

ponents. One pet peeve I have is with the extra-

large title bar in the XP style. Why must it take

up so much room? Whoever designed the default

XP style clearly wasn’t using AutoCAD, because

they don’t value screen real estate as much we

typically do.

Select Active Title Bar from the Item drop-

down, and change Size to 21. Doing so brings the

title bar down to a reasonable scale while match-

ing the size of the application and drawing caption

buttons in AutoCAD.

The size and font of text on the tool palettes

in AutoCAD are controlled by the ToolTip item in

the Advanced Appearance dialog box (it’s in the

84545c01.indd 1184545c01.indd 11 10/13/06 2:45:18 PM10/13/06 2:45:18 PM