- [Instructor] We're staying in our
zero zero ground floor plan .DWG file.
And you can see I've left it
in the same state as it was at the end of the last video
where we placed these two view ports using our named views
in our AutoCAD drawing.
What I'd like you to do now is jump back
into the model tab down here, bottom left,
so we're back into the model space.
And we're going to look at some of the mouse
and mouse settings in AutoCAD.
Now up until now,
obviously you use the mouse to move around,
move the crosshair and the cursor around.
So when you're in your drawing area, you see it's crosshair.
When you come up over the ribbon it's a pointer,
standard Windows based technology
because this is AutoCAD for Windows.
Now, what we're going to do is start looking
at some of the mouse technology
and how the mouse can help us when we're working in AutoCAD.
Now there's one little trick
that not many people teach you about Windows
that is really, really clever.
Did you know that when you click on anything in Windows,
it's the release of the mouse button
after you've clicked that executes the command?
So let me show you a neat trick.
If I go over here to the draw panel on the home tab
on the AutoCAD ribbon and I hover over the line command,
if I click, release the mouse button,
and come into the drawing area,
it's asking me for the first point of my line.
If I just hit escape to cancel the command
and go over the line command again, click,
but do not release the mouse button,
and come back down into the drawing area and release,
you'll notice there's no line command.
So it's that release of the mouse button
after you've clicked on the icon that executes any command
and that's the same across all of Windows, not just AutoCAD.
It's a nice little one that not many people know about.
Let's get back into AutoCAD now.
So AutoCAD, it's very, very simple.
You move the pointer
over something you want to do, and you click once.
Come away and you can see there's my line command.
So what I've got there is the ability to draw a line.
So if I click and I drag,
you can see there I've got a line segment.
Click again, drag, click again, drag, click again.
Now, if I just right click now,
I can close back to the first point I started from.
So I've now closed the shape there.
They are just individual line segments.
If I click on one of them you can see
it's an individual line segment.
So if I click on that one, another individual line segment
and I'm just hitting escape each time to deselect as I go.
Now, one of the neat things about the mouse
is if you've got a group of objects selected like that,
if I hold down the shift key and left click with the mouse
it removes that object from the selection set.
Which is really rather handy when you've got a whole group
of objects and you don't want some of them selected.
So just hold down shift
and click on an object to deselect it.
Now the mouse itself is a very useful tool,
as I'm sure you already know, but in AutoCAD
there are various ways of doing things.
So the right click can sometimes be used
as an Enter, the equivalent of the Enter key.
It can also be a shortcut menu.
So you'll notice when I'm just moving around
with no commands, no object selected,
if I right click, that brings up
the default right click context sensitive shortcut menu.
Called the shortcut menu for short for obvious reasons,
I don't want to keep sayin' that all the way
through this course.
It's the shortcut menu.
So when you right click, you bring up the shortcut menu.
Now there's various tools available when you right click,
you can repeat the last command,
you can look at your recent input,
you can look at the Windows clipboard,
you can use hide and isolate,
there's undo, pan, zoom,
there's steering wheels that I mentioned.
There's also a thing called action recorder
that we don't actually cover in this course.
But you've got things like quick select, calculator, count,
find and replace, and also options
that we talked about previously.
And that's just on the default shortcut menu.
What happens though if I've got an object selected?
I'm just going to hit escape a couple of times
to close the menu.
If I select one of the lines that I've just drawn here,
and then I right click,
you'll notice the shortcut menu looks different
because what it does is it allows me
to perform other AutoCAD commands based
around my object selection.
So you'll notice now I can move the line.
I can copy it.
I can scale it.
I can rotate it.
I can also select similar.
So, if I hit select similar,
notice it selects all the other lines on the same layer.
The current drafting layer is view ports,
and I wouldn't normally draw a view port there
in the model space, but you can see there
that it's selected all the other objects,
so all the lines that are on a similar layer.
So what I can do now is I can right click again,
and based on my object selection,
I've got a contact sensitive shortcut menu.
So I can either move, copy, rotate.
I'm going to erase, like so.
And there you go, I've erased the lines.
I don't actually need them there, so I've erased them.
So that's the mouse just working as normal.
The left click on the mouse is normally selection
or you're executing a command.
So I can go over here, use the little pick box
on the crosshair, left click on the mouse there,
and I've selected that dimension.
I'll just hit escape to deselect it.
The mouse as well, rolling up on the wheel zooms in,
rolling back on the wheel zooms out, like so.
I can also hold down the wheel on the mouse
and use it as a button and pan.
I can also double click on the wheel as a button
and that will zoom to the extent
of the visible drawn objects.
Lots going on with that mouse, isn't there?
So, what we're going to do is we're going to have a look
at the mouse settings in AutoCAD as well.
These are really important.
What I've shown you so far is just the basic kind of stuff.
One little trick though;
when you're zooming with your mouse using the wheel,
if you put the cross hair over the area you want to get to,
so I've put the cross hair
over that little conference table,
watch what happens when I roll up on the wheel and zoom in.
Can you see it's using the table as the center of the zoom?
It's a really neat little trick.
I learned that a few years back
and I never really thought about it,
but I thought if I want to be more direct
with my zooming and be more accurate,
I put the cross hair where I need to get to, and then zoom.
And you'll see the center
of the zoom is always based around the crosshair.
Quite handy.
I'll just double click on the wheel there,
just to zoom extent again.
Let's just right click with no commands running,
no objects selected.
We're going to go down to options.
That opens up the options dialogue box.
Now there's lots of different tabs, tools,
settings, et cetera.
I'd like you to go to user preferences.
And in the user preferences tab
you'll see that you've got Windows Standard Behavior.
So double click editing.
If you double click on something, you'll edit it.
Shortcut menus in the drawing area.
Yes please, always have that ticked.
And then we've got our right click customization
of our mouse.
Now this I rarely change.
I have it set to these settings all the time.
And the trick is there's one little setting
that you can change.
So if I turn on the time sensitive right click
with a longer click duration of 250 milliseconds,
by the way, that's quarter of a second to you and I.
So what we've got there is
if I hold down the right click
for longer than a quarter of a second,
it will bring up the shortcut menu.
If I don't, it acts as an Enter.
Let me show you how that works.
I'll Apply and Close,
and I'll also Apply and OK in the options dialogue box.
Let's zoom in on an area where we might draw something.
So I'm going to zoom in on this sort of area here.
It's a bit of an entrance area
with some doors and things.
You can zoom in anywhere you like in the drawing,
it's just going to be a very simple exercise
that I'm going to show you.
Go to the layer dropdown in the layers panel,
we're in the home tab on the ribbon,
and just scroll all the way up to the top
and just select the zero at the top.
There you go, the zero layer.
Click on the zero,
that makes zero the current drafting layer.
Now, what we're going to do,
we're going to draw some lines utilizing that right click.
So, if I go to the line command up here,
just left click on the line command
and go into the drawing area,
there's our specified first point.
So I'm going to click and I'm going to drag to the right
and you'll see a dashed line appear.
If your polar tracking's on
you'll get a dashed line like that.
If you don't, don't worry.
I don't need these lines to be exact,
we're going to erase them in a minute anyway.
So if I do another left click now, like so,
and then start going upwards for another line segment.
So if I left click there I've two line segments, right?
Now, normally a right click would bring up
the shortcut menu, but if I just right click quickly,
that closes the line command.
Let's do that one more time.
I'm going to just delete the lines,
you don't need, well, you can delete the lines
just pick on them both like that
and click on erase up there on the modify panel.
We'll do the same again; line command, and I'll click again,
drag to the right, click, go upwards, click.
So I've got two lines segments.
If I now right click and hold, there's the shortcut menu.
So I can now undo the last segment,
and then right click and hold, select undo,
and it takes me back to the start point.
And then what I can do
is I can just hit escape a couple of times
to cancel the line command.
So do you see the difference there
with that little mouse setting switched on in the options?
A quick right click acts as an Enter.
Also, Enter acts as a repeat last command.
So if I quickly right click,
you can say I'm back to my line command again,
you can see it on the command line
at the bottom of the screen,
and it's asking me for the first point again.
So if I hit to escape a couple of times
just to cancel the line command.
So if I click and hold, it brings up, as you can see,
the shortcut menu, hit escape to lose the menu.
A quick click will repeat the last command.
It's quite a useful tool if you like it.
I'll just hit escape a couple of times
to cancel any commands, click and hold
on the right click there, and go to options.
And what I'm going to do in my right click customization
is turn that off, like so.
And then Apply and Close, Apply, and then OK.
I don't have it turned on
and it won't be on for the duration of the course as well.
That's my personal preference.
That little right click tick box
where you set it up is very much a Marmite thing
for those of you that know what Marmite is.
Marmite is a yeast based spread
that you put on things like toast.
It's a very English thing,
I grew up with it as a kid, and I've liked it ever since.
But Marmite in the United Kingdom is a love or hate thing.
You either love it or you hate it. There is no in between.
So, it's a bit like that little tick box
for the right click on the mouse.
Some people love it. Some people hate it.
I just personally don't like it,
'cause it doesn't work with my AutoCAD workflow.
You might find that it works with your AutoCAD workflow.
If it does, fantastic, tick the box in the options,
set it all up, get it up and running.
Personally, I'm more of a keyboards person,
so I tend to like hitting the Enter key
on the keyboard rather than on my mouse.
So that's just the way it works.
Choices, you've got lots of choices in AutoCAD.