To customize AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT, you edit a text file, use the Customize User Interface Editor, or use the Customize dialog box. To edit files in text-only (ASCII) format, you need a text editor, which is like a word processor but does not place any formatting codes in the file. For most of the ASCII files, you can use Notepad, which comes with Windows. All major word processors let you save documents as text documents — just remember not to click that Save button until you've specified the right file format. Files that are not in ASCII format generally have an interface, such as a dialog box, in the program for editing them.

Before editing any preexisting files, back them up. The system of editing menus and toolbars in a dialog box helps to protect your system from errors that you might make when customizing, but if you want to undo all your changes, you need a backup. You should back up in three stages:

Note

To find acad.cuix or acadlt.cuix, choose Application Button

This means that you should have two disks, one with the original customizable files and one with your most recent versions of them. At the very least, these disks should contain the following files:

You may also want to back up templates that you've created.

You'll use these disks not only when you make a mistake, but also whenever you need to reinstall AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT, whether due to hard-drive failure, a virus on your system, the replacement of your old computer with a new one, or some other reason. Also, when you upgrade AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT to the next release, you can usually continue to work with your familiar, customized files.

For many customization tasks, you need to work with commands. When you create a script file, which is a series of commands, or when you edit the menu file, you need to type out the commands that you want to execute. In these cases, the customizable files can only contain the command-line form of the commands. As a result, you need to learn a whole new way of working — the old-fashioned way, by typing commands on the command line.

A number of commands have a non-dialog-box version. Many commands can be executed in their command-line version by placing a hyphen (-) before the command name. For some commands that have no command-line equivalent, you can use system variables to create the same effect. Table 29.2 lists command-line versions of commands that you can use for customization.

In addition, you can use the dimension variables to format dimensions in place of using the DIMSTYLE command, which opens the Dimension Style Manager dialog box. Chapter 15 discusses DIMSTYLE command.

The FILEDIA system variable determines whether a dialog box opens for commands, such as SAVEAS and OPEN, that request filenames. When FILEDIA is set to 1, the default dialog boxes open. The CMDDIA system variable affects the display of command-related dialog boxes or in-place editors for such commands as LEADER and QLEADER.

Placing comments in customized files to explain how you customized them is standard practice. Although your customizations may seem obvious at the time, if you go back to a file later, you may not understand what you were trying to accomplish. Also, other people may need some explanation.

You can place comments in many of the customizable files by placing a semicolon (;) before any line of text.

Now that you know the basics of customizing files, you can move on to creating keyboard shortcuts and customizing toolbars.

In AutoCAD, you can use the acad.pgp file to create shortcuts to Windows programs. For example, you may often open Notepad while customizing files. The acad.pgp file includes the following three shortcuts to Windows programs:

EXPLORER, START EXPLORER, 1,,
NOTEPAD,  START NOTEPAD, 1,*File to edit: ,
PBRUSH,  START PBRUSH,  1,,

The first column is the command name that you type at the command line. The second column is the command that you want Windows to execute. The number 1 specifies to start the application but not to wait until you've finished using it. This lets you return to your drawing at any time. After the 1, you can finish with two commas. However, notice that the Notepad entry has *File to edit: before the last comma. This is a prompt that you see on the command line. Type the name of the file to edit, and Windows opens it in Notepad. (You need to type in the complete path of the file.) To open Notepad without a file, press Enter at the *File to edit: prompt.

Most of the acad.pgp or acadlt.pgp files contain aliases, or keyboard shortcuts, for common commands. You can change these or add your own. After you become used to them, it's often faster to type shortcuts at the command line than to click the ribbon button or menu item, especially if your hands are already on the keyboard. You cannot include a command option in the acad.pgp file. To do that, you need to create a ribbon button, a menu item (accessible from the menu bar), a toolbar button, or an AutoLISP routine. Remember that the menu bar and toolbars are not displayed in the default AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT workspaces.

Note

The Express Tools contain an Alias Editor that enables you to edit the acad.pgp file through a dialog box interface. Choose Express Tools tab

The format for creating an alias is as follows:

Shortcut,*Full command name

Refer to Figure 29.1 for some examples of command aliases. Note that the space between the columns is not necessary — it simply improves readability.

You can use an alias transparently if the command itself can be used transparently. Aliases in script files or menus can fail when used on an installation of AutoCAD that doesn't have those aliases defined. Note that you cannot use control or function keys in command aliases in the PGP file.

STEPS: Customizing the acad.pgp File

How many times have you found yourself typing a command because you couldn't quickly find an equivalent button on a toolbar, or because it was on a flyout that required too many clicks to access? In addition, think of how often you start a command with a toolbar button, only to return to the keyboard to type in a simple option.

You can customize the toolbars to make your work easier and faster. You can create new toolbars from scratch, or edit existing ones. You can even create your own toolbar buttons. When you create a toolbar button, you can attach any sequence of commands to it, such as a complex macro, the command name defined by an action macro, or even an AutoLISP expression (for AutoCAD only).

Although classic toolbars do not appear in the default workspace in AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT, you may want to use the Classic workspace, which includes toolbars, or add a toolbar to the default workspace or a custom workspace. Therefore, the skills for customizing toolbars are very useful.

You can customize any existing toolbar by removing buttons that you rarely use. To remove buttons from a toolbar, follow these steps:

You may want to create your own toolbar from scratch that contains buttons for commands that you use often. To avoid changing the main menu, you should use the custom.cuix file. If this is not be loaded by default, you can find it in the Support folder with the main customization file, although that comes with AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT. This file is a separate partial customization file. Using a partial customization file helps you to keep your customization files separate from the standard menu file (acad.cuix or acadlt.cuix). For more information on partial customization files, see Chapter 33.

To create a new toolbar, first choose custom.cuix from the drop-down list at the top of the Customizations in All Files pane of the Customize User Interface Editor. Then right-click the Toolbars item and choose New Toolbar.

A new toolbar appears under the Toolbars item, named Toolbar1. You can immediately rename this toolbar or right-click it and choose Rename. If you click Apply, a small, new toolbar appears on the screen. You may need to reposition the Customize User Interface Editor to see the new toolbar.

The new toolbar is just a baby, but with some nurturing, by adding buttons to it, it grows automatically.

Using the Button Editor

The Button Editor, shown in Figure 29.6, enables you to make your own button icons. In the Customizations in All Files pane of the Customize User Interface Editor, select the toolbar command that you want to work with. Open the Button Editor by clicking Edit in the Button Image pane of the Customize User Interface Editor. You can choose one of the provided buttons and edit it — which I recommend — or start from scratch if you have artistic tendencies.

Note

To help you find the right button to edit, each button in the Button Image pane shows a tooltip with the name of its image file. When you click an image, the larger preview also displays the name of the image file.

Figure 29.6. The Button Editor lets you design your own toolbar buttons.

The center of the editing area shows an enlarged view of the button. You see the button's actual size to the right of the editing area of the dialog box. Check the Grid check box to show a grid of pixels — this is just a drawing aid. Choose a color from the color palette and then choose one of the four tools at the top of the dialog box:

• The Pencil tool draws any shape. To draw, click anywhere to draw pixel by pixel, or drag across the editing area.

• Click and drag the Line tool to draw a straight line.

• The Circle tool draws circles and ellipses. You click the center and drag out to the circumference to indicate the radius.

• The Erase tool erases. You can click to erase pixel by pixel, or drag to erase a series of pixels.

Here are the other features of the Button Editor:

• Click Clear to clear the editing area and start from scratch.

• Click Import to load an existing button image that is stored externally of the CUIx file for editing. Button images are stored as BMP files in the CUIx package file.

• Click Undo to undo your most recent action.

• Click Save to save the custom image to a BMP file under a new name in the CUIx file.

• Click Export to save the button image as a BMP file that is stored outside of the CUIx file. The default location is the Icons folder, which you can find by choosing Application Button

  

• Click Close to close the Button Editor.

• Click More to select a standard index color or true color.

If you edited an existing button and saved the changes, then you're done. However, if you saved your button image under another filename, you need to associate the new file with the toolbar button. In the Properties pane, click the Small Image text box, and then select the image from the palette of images or click the Ellipsis (...) button. If you click the Ellipsis button, browse to the BMP file and choose it. Click Open. This action imports the image file into the CUIx file and its name appears in the Small Image text box. You can now click Apply, or if you want to return to your drawing, click OK.

Tip

You can import icon images into the palette of images in the Button Image pane. Right-click the image palette and choose Import Image. After browsing to the image and importing it, you can assign it to any toolbar button.

If you think you might ever want to display large toolbar buttons, do the same for the Large Image text box. By default, when you create a button image, the Both option button is selected in the Button Image pane, so you create both a small and a large image. To display large toolbar buttons, choose Application Button

You can remove custom commands that you added to the customization file and are no longer used. To remove a custom command, follow these steps:

You can create custom Quick Access toolbars to display the commands that you might frequently use and want to access, no matter which toolbars or ribbon panels are currently displayed. To create a new Quick Access toolbar, display the Customize User Interface Editor, right-click the Quick Access Toolbars item, and choose New Quick Access Toolbar. After you create a new Quick Access toolbar, you must assign it to the Quick Access Toolbars node of a workspace in order to display it in the application window. Follow these steps:

You can remove commands that you no longer use from a Quick Access toolbar. To remove a command, right-click over the command on the Quick Access toolbar and choose Remove from Quick Access Toolbar.

Drop-down menus on a Quick Access toolbar allow you to group multiple commands under a single button. They are just like a flyout on a classic toolbar, but the drop-down menu on a Quick Access toolbar is not a reference to another toolbar. To control the appearance and behavior of a drop-down menu, select it in the Customizations in All Files pane, and use the Properties pane.

To add a drop-down menu, right-click the Quick Access toolbar in the Customizations in All Files pane of the Customize User Interface Editor, and choose New Drop-Down. Rename the drop-down menu, and then change its appearance and behavior from the Properties pane. After you have defined the drop-down menu, add commands to it from the Command List pane like you would for a toolbar. If you want to assign a default command to the drop-down menu, drag a command from the Command List pane to the Primary Command node under the drop-down menu.

STEPS: Customizing Quick Access Toolbars

Here's how the pedit macro that you used in the previous exercise works:

Undoing changes to the user interface

To undo the changes that you made, you need to take two steps. To unload a partial customization file that you have created, right-click it in the Customizations in All Files pane and choose Unload <file name>. This file is separate from the main customization file, so it doesn't affect the main customization file directly. The previous exercise didn't create a partial customization file.

To undo the changes that you made to the main customization file (acad.cuix or acadlt.cuix), copy the original file over the new one. To find the location of this file, choose Application Button

Close AutoCAD. In Windows Explorer, locate the backup copy that you made in Step 1 of the previous exercise. Expand the location of the current main customization file. Press Ctrl and drag the backup file to the current file of the same name.

When you open AutoCAD again, it will load the backup copy of the main customization file.