Quick Properties has been around since AutoCAD LT 2009, but it’s received a few tweaks since then, the biggest of which happened this year.
When you double-click an object, you now get Quick Properties instead of the full Properties palette (unless that object has a different double-click action already). In keeping with this change, the QP palette was also revamped so that it shows you the most relevant properties for that object.
Here’s what you get when you double-click on a circle:
By contrast, in AutoCAD LT 2011, you only saw color, layer, and linetype. All the other information was hidden by the sliding portion of the palette.
If you want to use QP the old way, just turn it on from the status bar. Then the QP palette will show up when you select an object, and close when you clear your selection.
But either way, double-clicking still brings up Quick Properties instead of Properties. To change this, head for the CUI and the “Double Click Actions” section.

I’ve expanded two items here to show you a couple of the options.
Notice that when you double-click an arc, you get Quick Properties.
But when you double-click a block, you get “Block – Double Click” (which happens to be BEDIT).
To change an object’s double-click action, just find a new command in the command list (just below the portion of the CUI shown here) and drag-and-drop it onto the object name. An object can only have one double-click action at a time, so dragging-and-dropping automatically replaces the old command with the new one.
You can use this method to replace all the Quick Properties with Properties if you want, or with other relevant commands. (You could set it up so double-clicking on an arc launches the Rectangle command, for example, but I wouldn’t recommend it.)
Some object types have pre-defined non-QP double-click actions. These include:
- Attributes
- Blocks
- Dimensions
- Images
- Polylines
- Splines
- Text
- Xrefs
Others that you might expect to have non-QP double-click actions actually don’t, because they have a contextual ribbon tab that’s activated by a single click or selection instead. The two that I’ve found in this category are:
I hope you like the new behavior, but if you don’t, at least you know now how to set it back.
Social Media