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AutoCAD Productivity

‘Sign Language’

by Michael Beall

From: AutoCAD Productivity Articles #136
Originally published: October 2014

Infer ConstraintsSelection CyclingFor the last few versions we have seen icons next to the cursor for Geometric Constraints (left) and Selection Cycling (right), as well as the little icon for a Locked layer and the Match Properties paintbrush.

Those icons are displayed when the related feature is enabled.

Cursor Badges

But AutoCAD 2015 now has included a ‘cursor badge’ for several editing commands, such as Rotate and Erase (see figures below), along with Measure and even the Window and Crossing selection direction badges.

Badge examples

Some of you, however, may prefer not to see the new badges beside the cursor. If so, set the variable CURSORBADGE to <1>, which will disable all badges.

See all the articles published in October 2014

Michael's Corner

Between 2003 and 2016, Michael Beall (and one or two guests) wrote almost 600 articles for CADTutor. The focus of these articles is AutoCAD productivity, and although some of them are now more than a few years old, most remain relevant to current versions of AutoCAD. The article above is just one example. Check out Michael's Corner for a full listing.

Tip of the Day

Keeping the UCS icon in its place

By default, AutoCAD always displays the UCS icon at the drawing origin (0,0) unless the origin is off screen, in which case, the UCS icon sits quietly in the bottom left-hand corner of the drawing area.

If you find the UCS icon distracting when it's floating in the middle of the screen, you can force it to be displayed in the bottom left-hand corner using the ucsicon command.
Enter an option [ON/OFF/All/Noorigin/ORigin/Properties] <ON>:
Use the "Noorigin" option to force the icon into the bottom left corner and the "ORigin" option to set it back to the default.

See the UCS Icon tutorial for more details.

Today's tip is by David Watson

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