Datasheet

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ZOOMWHEEL The ZOOMWHEEL system variable controls the direction you rotate the wheel to
zoom. AutoCAD has forever been set to zoom in when you rotate the wheel away from you
(forward direction). You’re moving the camera toward the objects on the screen by scrolling
forward and away from the objects by scrolling backward. It’s now possible to reverse that
behavior by setting this system variable to 1.
Why would you want to do that? To make it easier on your visual cortex as you switch
between AutoCAD and Autodesk Inventor, Google Sketchup, and/or Google Earth. All these
apps (and probably many others) use the reverse mouse-wheel zoom direction, so that rotat-
ing the wheel forward (away from you) zooms out. The objects are moving away from the
camera and vice versa. Now power users will be less disoriented as they switch between 3D
programs (although old habits are hard to break).
ZOOMFACTOR ZOOMFACTOR controls how quickly your mouse wheel zooms in and out when
it’s rotated. The zoom factor is a number that represents a percentage of the maximum pos-
sible speed. Set
ZOOMFACTOR to a number between 1 and 100 to govern zooming speed. Lower
speeds give you finer control, but it can take all day rolling the wheel to get anywhere. This is
a personal setting that you’ll need to choose for yourself.
Customize the Right Mouse Button
If you’ve been using AutoCAD for a long time, then you’ll remember how efficient it was
when a right-click meant Enter. You could draft much more quickly with the mouse instead
of having to use the other hand to hit the Spacebar or Enter key to end and repeat the last
command.
Somewhere along the path of AutoCAD’s continual evolution, a shortcut menu began to
appear when you right-click instead of our good friend Enter. Although the shortcut menu
often has Enter as one of its many options, it’s clearly
a compromise situation. Right-clicking for Enter is
faster.
To be fair, the right-click shortcut menu has
advantages, too. Some people have even grown to rely
on it. We swear that there are commands in the short-
cut menus that we have yet to find anywhere else! The
good news is, you can customize right-click behavior
so you can have the best of both worlds.
Use the Options command, and select the User
Preferences tab. Click the Right-Click Customization
button to bring up a dialog box of the same name.
Here you can choose exactly how you want the right
button to behave.
Inputting with the Keyboard and Mouse
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