New Options in 2007

One of the topics I always make a point of covering in any training I do is the Options dialog box in any Autodesk product. It's my belief that the more users know about the how's and why's of what is controlled by Options, the more prepared they are to help themselves when they have a problem.

In preparing some new 2007 training material, I thought I'd point out two Options. As a shortcut to get to the Options dialog box (since if varies by pulldown menu depending on the product), I like to right click in the command line and choose Options.



The Display tab controls...well...Display options. This is where you can change your crosshair size (100 if you want full screen), turn off the scroll bars to save space (we do have wheel mice now), and change the background color to your preference (black is mine).

In 2007, the colors dialog has change dramatically. Part of this may be because of all the new light and camera interface elements included with 2007.

You'll notice that when you enter the Drawing Window Colors dialog box by pressing the Colors button in Options>Display, that the box is divided into two main portions. On the left, you have Context. You can choose 2D model space, Sheet/layout, and more. You can control your background as well as your crosshairs and autosnap colors by space. You can also set the Block editor or the Plot Preview to be different colors as well.

On the right side, the choice based on your Context, is Interface element. There are quite a few elements for which you can set the color.

The second change is much smaller, but it gives me an opportunity to talk again about one of the most important user options we have. Right-click Customization is, or should be, very important as a method of speed and efficiency.

To access this from Options, choose the User Preferences tab.


We've had the checkbox for shortcut menus in drawing area for some time now with a button below for Right-Click Customization. When you press the button to do right-click customization, this is where you will want to set the Default Mode to Repeat Last Command. We've done this for years by pressing Enter on the keyboard. Why bother to move to the keyboard when you can simply right click your mouse to do the same thing?

For Edit Mode, Shortcut Menu is what you want. Depending on what object you select, you will have a different right click menu. For example, when you choose a line in AutoCAD, you will not see Mtext Edit. When you select a Wall in ADT, you will have a chance to do cleanups.

Command Mode is one that I confess another user (and a student at that), pointed out to me. When this is set on Enter, you no longer have to put up with choosing Enter from a shortcut menu when you complete a command. I'm done copying objects, so I right click and the command ends just the same as when I press Enter on the keyboard.

You will notice that I skipped the first choice in this dialog box. Turning on time sensitive right-click is a feature in Windows XP as well. It simply allows you to do both if you're quick enough to click fast and slow. I'm not a video game player so this one doesn't do a thing for me.

The new option you will see is right above the Right-Click Customization button. It's Double click editing. This can be checked to enable the DBLCKEDIT System Variable. You can even customize double click actions in the CUI.

The best example I can think of is that if you double click Mtext the Mtext Editor opens. If you look at the existing list in the CUI Editor, you'll see several that you probably take for granted such as hatch and attribute editing. I can't immediately think of a something that I would like to be able to do with a double click, but maybe you can come up with some suggestions. It's a new 2007 feature.