Niggly Problem

[Brian O'Hanlon]

Have any of you encountered a problem in 2006, whereby the use of 'less than' sign on keyboard to specify an angle in AutoCAD, causes the program to lock into some kind of constrained vertical/horizontal mode, when you so much as press the shift key on your keyboard?

 

Has some guy installed some weirdo bonus tool in my AutoCAD setup,

or is this an actual conflict in AutoCAD 2006, that can be resolved through switching some variable or something.

 

If anyone has some simple solution for this it would save me a lot of frustration.

 

B.

[chiquito]

you mean orthogonal contraint? If its that, the key to that should be f8 not less/more than... check hotkeys configuration on costumize?

[Brian O'Hanlon]

You are right though about the customisation area to search in,

I tend to stay away from it, and just edit my pgp file as I desire,

because I can transport the pgp file around with me easily from

job to job, and computer to computer.

 

I did find the culprit though, of this niggling problem in the customisation dialogue box, which must have about 18 million different settings and switches at this stage. I just find it off putting, compared to the ease

and simplicity of the older school pgp file editing.

 

They are called temporary override keys.

 

And the particular temporary override key which causes me the problem, is the Toggle Orthogonal Mode, which is set to the shift key.

 

Note: It is also set to F8 key, but set to shift key too.

 

So, basically what these temporary override keys allow one to do, is set multiple key shortcuts to the same basic ortho on/ortho off command of old.

 

All I did was to delete the SHIFT variety and I will stick to my old fashioned F8 key, which is short cutted through my Set Point Logitech mouse driver to one of my thumb buttons.

 

But really - I mean like holy cow!

 

Can you believe how stupid is that - attach something like ORTHO ON/OFF to the shift key itself! ! ! ! !

 

And that seems to be the default set up for all AutoCAD 2006 installations.

 

I know that guys who are used to using Vectorworks, intuitively press shift to lock into axes, so I won't knock it as a bad feature straight off.

 

I won't even knock Temporary Overide keys straight off, because they are probably useful to some people - newbies to CAD maybe who like these features - older school guys like myself, should be able to access a master switch to turn off all these features if so desires.

 

Like take for instance a feature introduces as far back as 2000, in the right click menu, I have never used it and never will.

 

I think Autodesk should issue a list of system variables, which automatically allows the older experienced user to remove all of the eye candy and bs that the newer versions tend to want to force on their users.

 

I don't know, what the solution is really, because every time I switch computers these days, I spend nearly a day trying to reduce the interface back down to the basic features I actually wish to interact with.

 

Yeah, I'm a minimalist like more guys here. STRAT I know is with me on this.

 

I would really like something digital, that could live on a server maybe as an object, a virtual representation of me, and could automatically 'kick in' on whatever autocad installation i happened to be using at a time.

 

A profile or virtual BOH, that could live on AutoDesk's website too perhaps, in case I was moving country or jobs, or even doing weekend work at home, and I could download back down my profile to whatever local machine I was using.

 

People with a lot of contacts put into PDAs and I-mobiles face the same difficulty - of having to go through some roundabout way, to transfer their details and contacts from a PDA to a computer, as they move around and switch devices etc.

 

We have had Java now for years, and still this doesn't seem any closer on our horizon.

 

I think that AutoCAD and similar programs are quickly going down the same road as PDAs and iPhones, with the difficulty now in moving from one system to another and carrying on working the way you feel most comfortable with.

 

Brian.