Symbols

[Joe Carrick]

But you can't have:

B = Box
BF = Build Foundation
BR = Build Roof

because B would activate before the F or R was entered. As I said before, this would eliminate single letter Hotkeys. But I'm not saying that would necessarily be bad.

[Glenn Woodward]

Glenn, I can adapt to your 2 key method. The 3 key hot keys that CA has is ridiculous, never use it, I would convert any 3 key method they use to one or two keys.

d dot,

The currently implemented 2 key shortcuts are ridiculous!!!!!!

[Glenn Woodward]

But you can't have:

B = Box
BF = Build Foundation
BR = Build Roof

because B would activate before the F or R was entered. As I said before, this would eliminate single letter Hotkeys. But I'm not saying that would necessarily be bad.

Joe,

The 2 key short cuts are so fast, easy and logical, that you wouldn't care about loosing single key shortcuts.
It is probably hard to convince someone just how efficient these are unless they have used them.
I guarantee there would be no argument from any Chief user that has used Generic Cad (or Visual Cad) previously.
I think Basic Cad??? used this method as well.

[Levis]

Joe,

The 2 key short cuts are so fast, easy and logical, that you wouldn't care about loosing single key shortcuts.
It is probably hard to convince someone just how efficient these are unless they have used them.
I guarantee there would be no argument from any Chief user that has used Generic Cad (or Visual Cad) previously.
I think Basic Cad??? used this method as well.

Autocad has both single and 2 key shortcuts. You have to press 'space' or 'enter' to make the command active though.

[Joe Carrick]

Glenn,

I'm not arguing - just stating that it might (if implemented) cause some existing functionality to not work. For example, the infamous 'H' or 'h' Hotkey would need to be changed to a 2 letter code.

The existing Ctrl, Alt, Shift combinations are know as extended keycodes and are essentially standard Event Message processing. OTOH, trapping any 2 character combination and comparing it against a table of Hotkeys should be fairly straightforward.

[Kilgore Trout]

Chief is probably never going to change the current hotkeys because there are too many people that would freak out. It doesn't matter if they don't make sense to anyone. They have been set in stone for many versions now.
Also, you can already change them to be what ever you want using the customize hotkeys dialog.

Or you can use the keyboard to navigate the menus. Just hit the alt key and look for the underline.

Build Roof - alt-b, r, b
Build Foundation - alt-b, o, f
Box - alt-c, b, b
etc.

[johnnyprc]

But you can't have:

B = Box
BF = Build Foundation
BR = Build Roof

because B would activate before the F or R was entered. As I said before, this would eliminate single letter Hotkeys. But I'm not saying that would necessarily be bad.

You could solve this by double tapping the letter, which would mean for B you would do "BB". Personally I would prefer that much more since the sequence would be more memorable.

Taking it one step forward, you could have "B" represent everything for "building" and then whatever after. It would take some thought but you could coordinate commands with rational corresponding letters.

"B" = Build

BB = Build Box
BL = Build Line
BF = Build Foundation
BR = Build Rood

or I would take out "line" and place it in Draw commands...

"D" = Draw

DL = Draw Line
DC = Draw Circle
DR = Draw Rectangle

Obviously D could be for dimension, so that is what I mean by it could take some time to map out best letters for functions. I think in some ways combinations like that would be easier to memorize due to a sequence of logic intermixed with memory. That is always best.

[rcole]

When I started out using AutoCAD years ago I knew someone who let me use is 3 key Auto Lisp file. I would much rather have to press 3 keys and enter or space in order to have a system of naming that works rather than only one key and be limited on meaningful keys.

Once you get used to it, you really don't even think about how many keys are pressed. You just do it without thinking about it because the key sequences make sense and you have quick access to the commands that are needed.

I would think that 2 keys would be adaquate for most situations though.

As far as the one key consideration. If you want to use only one alphabetical key, then what I have seen done is to place a leading number in front of it for a particular group of commands. Such as 1B 1A. Just something to consider.

It is true that one instant key is by far the fastest way to access commands. The problem is that it is not the best way to organize and commit to memory a great many commands.

[Glenn Woodward]

It is true that one instant key is by far the fastest way to access commands. The problem is that it is not the best way to organize and commit to memory a great many commands.

And you soon run out of keys!

[dshall]

And you soon run out of keys!

Nuts, unless you consider over 200 combinations as not enough. And that is counting only one stroke and two stroke keys.

26 LETTERS
10 NUMBERS
10 NUMERIC NUMBERS
8+ MISC KEYS

that give you 54 single stroke keys
Add a SHIFT or a CNTRL or a ALT as a precursor, and now we are over 200 different combinations..................
we won't even go into the 3 key combos

if that ain't enough hot keys, by all means we should go to the double keystroke method............... with CA's blessing of course.

[Glenn Woodward]

d dot,

When I said

And you soon run out of keys!

I was referring to using only single key shortcuts.
You have told us that 54 is the max number - not nearly enough.

I wanted to keep it simple and didn't mention that Generic Cad also allowed for 3 key shortcuts (sequential keys - not all at once, and no Enter or Space).
This allows for even more shortcuts. It just means that you have to be more careful with the assignments because if there is a 2 letter shortcut with the same first 2 keys as a 3 key shortcut, the 2 key shortcut is used.
eg:
DMT,DimTextSet
DMV,DimTextVect
DMA,DimArrowSet
DMX,DimExtSet
DML,DimLineSet
DMO,DimTolSet
DME,DimLeadSet
DMS,DimStrSet
DMD,DimDispSet
DMZ,DimScaleSet