Datasheet

Chapter 1 Arranging the AutoCAD User Interface

You can customize which tool palette group is connected with each control panel. Acti-

vate a particular control panel, and then right-click its icon. From the shortcut menu, choose

which tool palette group you want to associate with the active control panel. Now you have

the ultimate in customizable interconnected UI convenience!

Lock Down the UI

By now, you’ve probably spent numerous hours researching the UI, only to realize you haven’t

gotten any productive work done. Remember that research is an investment in your future

productivity. (Tell that to your boss!) When you’re finally satisfied with all aspects of your

highly customized interface, or you need to get back to work, it’s time to lock down the UI.

You lock it down so that some nefarious individual (most likely yourself) doesn’t acci-

dentally mess up all the organizing that’s been done to make your interface the streamlined

masterpiece it has become. Of course, doing this is more critical if you’ve set the workspace

to automatically save changes (see “Using Workspaces,” earlier in the chapter).

Click the padlock icon in the lower-right corner of the

screen, and choose All

➔ Locked if you’re going for a total

lockdown. If you’re not so sure, lock only toolbars and/or

windows, floating and/or docked. Better safe than sorry.

Recover “Lost” Dockable Windows

Have you ever “lost” one of your dockable windows — for example, the Command Line? It

isn’t visible anywhere on the screen when you toggle it on. Almost immediately, panic sets in.

Why did you ever undock it? How will you live without your command line? You toggle the

window on and off frantically with shortcut keys, and then you try the menu, before dread-

ing that you might have to reinstall AutoCAD. Wait, don’t do that — the fix is easy:

1. Use the CUI command to open the Customize User Interface window.

2. Expand your current workspace in the Customizations In All CUI Files pane.

3. Expand Dockable Windows in the Workspace Contents pane.

4. Select the lost item in the list.

5. Change Orientation to anything other than Do Not Change (Left, for example).

Click OK, and the case is closed.

6. Move the recovered dockable window back to your preferred location.

How is it possible to misplace dockable windows? This can happen when you’ve been

using dual monitors in extended desktop mode. You experience the loss when you’re away

from your second monitor, say with a notebook computer on the road. AutoCAD remem-

bers the position of your floating window but isn’t smart enough to know that you can’t

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