COMMAND NAMES
Names of commands can be one of the biggest problems facing both CAD users and programers. Autocad has something like 700 commands and a similar number of system variables and as the programs become more sophisticated with time this number keeps growing. Many of the names are quite long and complex BAUTHORPALETTECLOSE others quite simple COPY.
Although no more than about twenty commands are used regularly, one hundred from time to time and the rest rarely if at all nevertheless the problem is how to identify and issue these commands to the program. Learning the commands is the best option but Command MENUS have become the standard solution with both graphic and text input options but both suffer from the problems of user distraction, search, recognition and selection.
Originally direct text entry at the command line was the only method of input. Most advanced users believe that it is still the best method; particularly since the introduction of short command aliases. It is the ONLY method that provides every command.
If one accepts command aliases as the way forward then the next problem that arises is how to create aliases for in excess of 1500 commands. (including system variables (settings) now treated by Autocad as regular commands).
Autocad and other CAD programs provide lists of aliases but these rarely cover all commands (quite reasonably so when one considers potential frequency of use). The problem with these program supplied aliases is that they evolved over time and being largely abbreviations of the commands are unstructured, frequently quite long and often provide little or no advantage over the full command word.
AutoCAD Command Structure
AutoCAD commands fall into recognisable groups: Work Environment Object creation, Object Editing. Objects newly created will adopt the properties of the current environment – LAYERNAME. If the objects properties are optionally defined BYOBJECT then those properties are fixed to the object. Otherwise if an object’s properties are defined BYLAYER the object aquires the prioperties of the LAYERNAME that they are given. Existing objects may have their properties changed, one of which is LAYERNAME . Most commonly Layername and thus the Layer’s properties or
MycadHELPER’s MycadEYS or ALIASES have been deliberately designed to manage almost every command (including variables) in a structured and logical way never using more than two characters for common commands or three for complex or rare commands. Single character aliases are reserved for the most commonly used editing commands. Only occasionally will you find a MycadKEYS alias overwriting a program alias. MycadKEYS aliases access many improved versions of the commands so in order to use a generic command…type AutoCAD’s full command name or ‘HELPER’s alias prfixed with a dash/hyphen, e.g. -C instead of C, o, if available, select from a graphical menu.
Please note that although MycadKEYS aliases have been defined for virtually every command some aliases are not yet functional due to the large number of infrequently used commands. (work in progress). Most CAD programs, including AutoCAD have not provided a full list of aliases. In this case select the wanted command in the normal way from a menu or type its name at the command prompt. Undefined aliases will be activated upon request. Go to “Contact”.
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;Back to BAUTHORPALETTECLOSE – Block Edit authOr Palette close – MycadKEYS alias “BEOP-” Autocad does not provide an ;;;;;;;;;;;alias. (why the E for Edit? – for consistency, since BE is alias for Block Edit.)
;;;;;;;MYCADKEYS assumes NOUN–VERB order rather than VERB–NOUN i.e. COPY-select-objects rather than SELECT- objects Copy.
The best aliases are naturally single characters but how does one create the over 900 aliases provided by MycadKEYS (or even the 650 required by AutoCAD) with an average of two and never more than three characters from 50+ keys?
Have a look at the easy reference lookup tables that display Aliases to Commands and Commands to Aliases. The list is being constantly updated as new commands appear.
MycadKEYS commands are of three types:
‘HELPER commands e.g. L Starts LAYER command with multiple standard and enhance options.
Generic AutoCAD command e.g. -L LAYER. (note the prefixed – dash/hyphen)
Generic AutoCAD command with predefined option e.g.LM LAYER MAKE
;;;;;;;;;;;;INSERT screenshot of rompt line
There are also many MycadKEYS commands that do not have generic command equivalents particularly with regard to OVERLAY drafting and WorkZONES.
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Thus you can see that by inventing a few new command words for groups such as Place, Join and Query a very large number of commands can be given recognizable two character aliases. Thus one and two character aliases are available for just about every command that you will commonly use.
An interesting group of commands are those that change the properties of things thus G for chanGe results in the Command line prompt. e.g. GC chanGe Color
(uppercase names indicate generic commands)
`G CHANGE/`GP CHPROP/`GP# PROPERTIES/`GP*/MATCHPROP/<<point/orthopoint>> /Clr/Elv/Fld/Grph/thK/#lngth/|ltype/ltype%scale/Mledit/Obj/Pline/Rad/Txt/Xtrd/Wdth/Lyr
Some MYCADKEYS commands include a command option such as Change Layer hence GL and this function can be extended by adding a further option such as Color hence GLC chanGe Layer Color.
One of the more interesting compound aliases that you will come upon when you get into MYCADLAYERS is GFC chanGe Field Color that chanGes the Color Field in a MYCADLAYERS Layer name (while at the same time chanGing the Color of the Layer.
So let’s have a look at the command groups and see how the aliases are generated.
Complex Objects:
Dimension, Text, Leader, Mleader Attribute, Hatch, Bhatch. Insert, Attach, Overlay, Mesh, Table
There is a whole bunch of commands related to Text so they are grouped under T thus just about every command related to Text can be initiated with a two character command alias. e.g. TJ Text Justify
`T TEXT/Auto/Bounds/Dtext/brK/Case/File/Ht/Incr/Just/Ldr/Mtxt/Rot/Spell/$tyle/Upd/sWap/=settings/<<ldr/no-ldr
3D objects: e.g. 3DB 3DBox
Box/Cone/Cylinder/Mesh/Poly/Sphere/Helix/Polysolid/Pface/Region/Rulesurf/Solid/Tabsurf
EDITING COMMANDS
Modify:
Move, Rotate, Scale, Stretch, Extend, Trim, Chamfer, Fillet, Align, Break, Erase, Pedit, Explode, Chprop, Change
Construct commands:
Copy, Offset, Mirror, Array, Divide, Measure, Block
Drawing aids and settings:
Ortho, Snap, Grid, Snapbase, UCS, Osnap, Grips, Preferences, Dwgprops, Grips, Ltscale, Lineweight
Viewing aids:
Zoom, RTZoom, Pan, RTPan, View, Dview, Vports, Mview, Layer, Vplayer, Plan,
Redraw(all), Regen(all). Mspace, Pspace, Ltscale, Psltscale, Tilemode
Utility functions:
Open, New, Plot, Exit, Save/autosave, Undo, U, Redo, Cancel, Oops, Purge, Help.
Properties:
Layer, Color, Linetype, Elev, Thickness, No-plot, (Width – Pline).
Queries:
List, Area, ID, Dist, Status, DIM-status
Workspace & Menus:
CUI, Sheetset, Customize, Toolbar, Showpalettes, Wssave, Menuload
File commands:
Open, Attach, Dxfin, Olelinks
COMMAND GROUPS
Drawing commands:
Simple Objects:
Command aliases for all simple objects such as Lines, Arcs and Circles use a command prefix P for Place such that PA means Place Arc, PL means Place Line.
The command alias P by itself initiates a Place command with options thus:
?/<<Qikik/3d/Arc/Bdry/Circ/Donut/Elipse/Face/Helix/sKetch/Line/Mline/Node/Offset/pGon/Pline/sYmbol/Rect/revcloUd/Surf-or-Solid/Trace/Wiggle/Xline/Zigzag/ALTMENU:>
You will notice a number of additional options to those provided by generic AutoCAD such as <<Qikpik; an Autolisp function that will draw a selected object possessing the same properties of Color Layer etc.
You will also notice when you start to draw something a prompt different from the generic AutoCAD prompt thus:
PL <enter> or other MYCADKEYS draw command produces an extended range of Object-Snaps.
OSNAPS: <:undo/App/Cen/noD/End/From/Gmid/Home/Int/Kwik/parL/Mid/Nea/Per/Qua/inS/Tan/Xval/Yval/Zval/|ine
From point: <repeat>/[done]/<<point/OSNAP/kwiksnap>> NON:
For example Gmid seeks the General midpoint between two further specified points while Jmid seeks the midpoint between the ends of two lines.
A selection of command aliases:
| PA | Area | QA | Array | A | attedit | @ | Block | B | |
| Blockname | QB | Boundary | PB | breaK | K | Circle | PC | Copy | C |
| change | G | Dim | D | Dist | QD | Donut | PD | Draworder | VO |
| Ellipse | PE | Erase | E | explode | * | extend | JE | pFace | PF |
| Files | F | fillet | J | change | G | group | & | Help | ? |
| ID | QP | Insert | I | Join | J | Break | K | Layer | Y |
| Leader | TL | Length | QL | Line | PL | Linetype | | | list | QO |
| Layer | L | Mirror | / | Plan | VL | reverse | \ | Massprop | QM |
| Mline | PM | Move | M | Mtext | TM | mspace | F12 | mvieW | W |
| rename | N | Offset | PO | Design C. | < | Osnap | O | pan | Z |
| Place | P | Pline | PP | Point | PNode | polyGon | PG | pspace | F12 |
| Query | Q | Dist | QD | Qwikdraw | PQ | Ray | PXR | Rectang | PR |
| redraw | F4 | regenall | F5 | action… | > | Rotate | R | reName | N |
| scale | % | sKetch | PK | Solid | S | stretch | ¬ ~ | $tyle | $ |
| Text | T | tilemode | F11 | Time | QH | Trace | PT | Trim | JT |
| Units | =U | UCS | U | Undo | – | View | V | Vpoint | VP |
| vpLayer | WY | vports | W | Window | W | Xline | PX | Xref | X |
| Layer | L | Zoom | Z |
Non-alpha aliases:
| ~ | stretch | ¬ | stretch | % | scale | / | mirror | \ | reverse |
| * | explode | > | action… | < | design c. | $ | $tyle | & | group |
| = | settings | 3 | 3D | | | |inetype | ^ | select | { | custom |
| # | cal | + | render | – | undo | @ | attedit |
A selection of Layer aliases:
(A dot . indicates an additional <enter>) (Many commands have both left and right pick option for normal or nested objects)
| `L | Layer AutoCAD dialog | L | Layer ACADUI | L. | UILAYERS dialog |
| L<< | Layer set normal | L.>> | Layer OFF nested | L+ | Layer ON |
| L+X | Layer ON eXcl. | L+* | Layer ON all unfrozen | L= | Layer ON |
| L=P | Layer ON Previous | L#orL3 | Layer ON all unfrozen | L- | Layer OFF |
| L-X | Layer OFF eXcl. | L.<< | Layer OFF normal | L.>> | Layer OFF nested |
| L-* | Layer OFF all | L? | Layer list | L?A | Layer list Alphabetically |
| L?C | Layer list Chrono. | L0 | Layer ON THAW SET 0 | L*orL8 | Layer THAW and ON all |
| LC | Layer Color | LC*N | Layer Color all by Name | LD | Layer Dialog (UILAYERS) |
| LE | Layer SET dEfpnts | LF | Layer Freeze | LFX. | Layer Freeze eXcl. |
| LF* | Layer Freeze all | LGorF7 | Layer length | LH | Layer Highlight (Hide all but) |
| L| | Layer Linetype | LL | Layer Lock | LL*N | later Line-type *all by Name |
| LM | Layer Make | LN | Layer New | LP | Layer Plot |
| LP+ | Layer Plot ON | LP- | Layer Plot OFF | LR | Layer Resolve |
| LR+ | Layer Resolve add | LR- | Layer Resolve remove | LS | Layer Set |
| LS | Layer Set Previous | LT | Layer Thaw | LT* | Layer Thaw all |
| LTP | Layer Thaw Previous | LU | Layer Unlock | LU* | Layer Unlock *all |
A selection of chanGe aliases:
| G. | chanGe AutoCAD version | G. | chanGe ACADUI version |
| GFO. | chanGe Field Object | GFC. | chanGe Field Color |
| GFL. | chanGe Field Line-type | GFS. | chanGe Field Status |
| GFD | chanGe Field Drawing-type | GFD+ | chanGe Field Drawing-type +add |
| GFD- | chanGe Field Drawing-type –remove | GFV | chanGe Field View |
| GFI | chanGe Field I.D. | GY | chanGe Layer |
| GC | chanGe Color – DOES NOT ADJUST LAYER NAME | GC*Y | chanGe Color all byLayer |
| G| | chanGe |inetype – DOES NOT ADJUST LAYER NAME | G|*Y | chanGe Line-type all byLayer |
A selection of drawing aliases:
