The AutoCAD program window

The AutoCAD Window
The AutoCAD program window is divided into six parts:
◆Menu bar
◆Toolbars
◆Drawing area
◆Command window
◆Status bar
◆Dashboard

Figure 1.1, shown earlier in this chapter, shows a typical layout of the AutoCAD program window. Along the top is the menu bar, and just below that are the Workspaces and Standard Annotation toolbars. At the bottom are the Command window and the status bar.
To the right is the Dashboard. The drawing area occupies the rest of the screen. AutoCAD calls the window layout a workspace ; you can save and recall a workspace at any time using the Workspaces toolbar. The workspace in Figure 1.1 is called the 2D Drafting & Annotation workspace.
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Your screen may show the drawing area in black. You can set the drawing area background
color by using the Options dialog box. Appendix A describes how to do this. The figures in this
book show the drawing area background in white for clarity.
Figure 1.2

shows AutoCAD’s 3D Modeling workspace, which has a different set of screen elements.
Figure 1.2 also shows a standard AutoCAD drawing file with a few setting changes to give it a 3D
appearance. Beneath these external changes, the underlying program is the same.

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The menu bar at the top of the drawing area (as shown in Figure 1.3) includes drop-down menus
from which you select commands in a typical Windows fashion. The toolbars and Dashboard provide
a variety of commands through tool buttons and drop-down lists.





The drawing area occupies most of the screen. Everything you draw appears in this area. As you
move your mouse around, crosshairs appear to move within the drawing area. This is the drawing
cursor that lets you point to locations in the drawing area.
At the bottom of the drawing area is a set of tabs. These tabs give you access to the Layout views of your drawing. These views let you lay out your drawing as in a desktop publishing program. You’ll learn about the Layout tabs in Chapter 8. The arrows to the left of the tabs let you navigate the tabs when there are more tabs than can fit in the AutoCAD window.




The Command window, located just below the Layout tabs, gives you feedback about AutoCAD’s
commands as you use them. You can move and resize this window just as you move and resize toolbars.
By default, the Command window is in its docked position, as shown in Figure 1.4.



Below the Command window is the status bar (see Figure 1.4). The status bar gives you information at a glance about the state of the drawing. For example, the coordinate readout toward the far left of the status bar tells you the location of your cursor. Picking Points in the Drawing Area Now that you’ve seen the general layout of AutoCAD, try using the coordinate readout and the drawing cursor to get a sense of how the parts of the AutoCAD screen work together:
1.
Move the cursor around in the drawing area. As you move it, notice how the coordinate readout
changes to tell you the cursor’s location. It shows the coordinates in an X, Y, Z format.
2.
Place the cursor in the middle of the drawing area, and click the left mouse button. Move the
cursor, and a rectangle follows. This is a window selection; . You also see a coordinate readout following the cursor and a message asking you to Specify opposite corner:. This display at the cursor is called the dynamic input.


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If you don’t see the dynamic input display, click the button labeled DYN in the status bar to
turn it on.
3.
Move the cursor a bit in any direction; then, click the left mouse button again. Notice that the
window selection disappears, as does the dynamic input display.
4.
Try picking several more points in the drawing area. Notice that as you click the mouse, you
alternately start and end a window selection.
If you happen to click the right mouse button, a shortcut menu appears. A right-click frequently
opens a menu containing options that are context sensitive.
This means the contents of the shortcut
menu depend on the location where you right-click as well as the command that is active at the time of your right-click. If there are no appropriate options at the time of the right-click, AutoCAD treats the right-click as an
↵
. You’ll learn more about these options as you progress through the book. For
now, if you happen to open this menu by accident, press the Esc key to close it.
The UCS Icon In the lower-left corner of the drawing area, you see an L-shaped arrow. This is the User Coordinate System (UCS) icon, which tells you your orientation in the drawing. This icon becomes helpful as you start to work with complex 2D drawings and 3D models. The X and Y arrows indicate the X and Y axes of your drawing. The little square at the base of the arrows tells you that you’re in what is called the World Coordinate System.
For now, you can use it as a reference to tell you the direction of the axes.