LT Unlimited

Text editor settings

You know, every time I think I’ve seen in all in AutoCAD LT, I’m proven wrong. (That’s not to say that I know it all…just that I’d like to think that anymore I’m rarely surprised by the existence of a feature.)

So what punctured my illusion this time? An overlooked right-click option in the Multiline Text Editor: Editor Settings.

I admit, I’ve never poked around in here before, but there are some pretty useful options in that list! You can also find most of them in the contextual ribbon tab, but they’re scattered in a few different places.

You can turn the ruler on and off, display a floating formatting toolbar next to the editor, even change the color of highlighted text.

So, now that you know about these settings, which ones will you change?

(And if you’re wondering where I found this little gem of knowledge…where else but the Autodesk forums.)

Where'd My Viewports Go?

If you’re working in a layout in AutoCAD LT 2013, and go looking on the View tab for Viewport tools, you might get a bit of a surprise.

The “Viewports” panel there is now called “Model Viewports”, and as you might guess from the title, is only for arranging views in modelspace. All its tools are greyed out in a layout.

Instead, hop on over to the new Layout tab.

There you’ll find the new home for rectangular, polygonal, and object-based viewports, as well as naming, clipping, and locking tools.

So in case you were wondering what happened to your viewport tools, now you know!

Updated Command Line

Have you ever counted how many ways there are to access commands in AutoCAD LT? I count six: the ribbon, grips, the command line, tool palettes, menus, and toolbars. (Did I miss any?)

Of all those methods, the command line has been around the longest, so it’s probably the most deserving of an update.

This new & improved version now floats transparently in your drawing window, freeing up a few extra pixels of real estate.

But just because you only see one line now, that doesn’t mean that’s all you get. As soon as you start entering commands, a scrolling history appears above the command line. And this is where it really gets interesting. You won’t believe the number of new things there are to talk about just in this screenshot.

At the very left are the drag bar and the close button. Reposition the bar anywhere on your screen, or even dock it back at the bottom where it used to be.

Next up is the wrench icon for Settings, where you can control the AutoComplete display, the Lines of Prompt History (more on that in a second), the Transparency, or go to the Options dialog.

The next icon—the small square actually in the command prompt—brings up your most recent commands.

Let’s go back to the command-in-progress command line:

Notice that there’s now an icon and the command name itself displayed in the command line, to help you keep track of what you’re doing.

Also, the capital letters that indicate command options are now blue, and what’s more, they’re clickable, so you can activate them either by typing or with the mouse. (Does that count as a 7th way of accessing commands?)

Back to the prompt history. By default, you get 3 lines at a time, and they fade away after a few seconds of inactivity, helping to keep your screen clear. If you want to see more, you can press F2 or click the arrow at the far right of the command line. And if you want the full text window as in previous releases, that’s now Ctrl+F2.

I hope you enjoy this revamped command line—happy typing!

Another year in the books

If LT Unlimited were a person, it’d be ready for kindergarten. That’s right, today is the blog’s 5th birthday. (They grow up so fast…)

Thanks to all of you for reading, commenting, and contributing.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to find a piece of cake. You can’t have a birthday party without cake!

Customization Sync in AutoCAD LT 2013

One of the really handy new features in AutoCAD LT 2013 is Customization Sync—the ability to upload your settings to the cloud and have them available wherever you go.

I already posted about this on the AutoCAD Insider, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t repeat myself here, but just send you there.

Part 1
Part 2

Have you tried this yet? Is it a helpful addition?

Hide or Display Model & Layout Tabs

If you like to set up your drawings with lots of layouts in them, you probably find the Model & Layout tabs along the bottom of the screen pretty handy.

But maybe you’re the type to only ever have Model and Layout1—nothing else. In that case, you might like to turn off these tabs to get them out of your way.

To do this, just right-click on a tab and choose “Hide Layout and Model tabs”. After you do this, the more observant of you may notice two extra icons on the status bar, sandwiched between the MODEL/PAPER toggle and Quick View Drawings and Layouts.

These are to help you quickly switch between model and paper space without the tabs. They’re also where you’ll find the setting to turn the tabs back on if you miss them.

The inspiration for today’s tip was provided by the April edition of the excellent Michael’s Corner newsletter—definitely worth a read if you’re not already a subscriber.

Control your tray settings

I was printing a drawing the other day (repeatedly), and finally got tired of closing the little “successful plot” notification window:

Fortunately, I remembered there’s a way to make the bubble disappear all by itself. I right-clicked on the Status Bar and chose Tray Settings.

In that dialog, I changed the setting from “display until closed” to “display time 5 seconds”.

Ahhh, success. Now I still get the little windows/bubbles to let me know that everything worked (this also controls notifications for situations like changes to an external reference), but they’ll fade quietly away after I’ve had a chance to see them.

If you’d like a shorter or longer display time, you can choose from anywhere between 1 and 10 seconds, or you can even turn notifications off entirely. (A “notification” is the bubble window; an “icon” is, for example, the little printer icon that appears in the status bar while a plot job is processing.)