AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 22 – Open Documents

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One more feature that’s crammed into the Menu Browser pane’s limited space is the Open Documents list. This allows you to switch between the drawings you currently have open. It has a similar interface to the Recent Documents list, including the persistently pale preview:

AutoCAD 2009 Open Documents

Unlike Recent Documents, the filenames are displayed in the correct case, although this is not true in the preview where the name and path are all in upper case. Another glitch in the preview can be seen above, where it says Currently Oper instead of Currently Open By:. This only happens intermittently and doesn’t concern me greatly.

In the same way that Recent Documents doesn’t eliminate the equivalent feature in the File pull-down menu, Open Documents doesn’t eliminate the equivalent feature in the Window pull-down menu. Note that this applies only to the traditional pull-down menus you get if you set MENUBAR to 1; the File and Window menus in the Menu Browser are missing the lists of documents.

If you want to switch between open documents quickly without looking under the red A, the Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab keyboard combinations still work in AutoCAD 2009, as they have ever since the multiple document interface was introduced by AutoCAD 2000.

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 21 – Recent Documents

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Another thing you will find lurking under the big red A is the Recent Document list. This is a mixed bag too, but most of it is good. It differs from the traditional list that still lives under the File menu in several ways:

  • Although the default maximum list length is 9 items, you can allow up to 50 items into the list by changing a setting in the Options command’s Open and Save tab.
  • If the list exceeds the space available, a scroll bar appears. This has the same problems as elsewhere in the menu browser: more clicks are required and there is no auto-scroll.
  • If you hover over a document in the list, it displays a preview image along with some other useful document information. Unfortunately, that preview image always has a white background, despite the fact that the first thing most of you are going to do in AutoCAD 2009 is turn the background black.

Menu Browser Document History

  • The file and path names are ALL DISPLAYED AS UPPER CASE, NO MATTER WHAT CASE THE NAMES ACTUALLY USE. THIS HARMS READABILITY AND MAKES THE WORST POSSIBLE USE OF THE LIMITED SPACE AVAILABLE. SORRY, AM I SHOUTING? Is that better?
  • Using the cute little push pins at the right of each document name, you can pin documents in place to prevent them being pushed off the end of the list.
  • You can change the order in which the documents are displayed using this menu:

Menu Browser Document History

  • You can also change how the documents display using this menu:

Menu Browser Document History

Using the last three features together, your document list could end up looking something like this:

Menu Browser Document History

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 20 – Menu Browser Search

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So if the Menu Browser isn’t much use for browsing menus, what is it good for? Searching menus, for one thing. Let’s say you’re a very occasional 3D user trying to make a 3D model look pretty. You want to access commands for placing lights, putting the sun in the right place, and changing visual style settings. You don’t really know where to look in the Ribbon or menus. What to do? Click on the red A and just start typing what you think the command is called. With a bit of luck, the appropriate menu item will present itself and you can click on it.

This video shows three successful Menu Browser searches by typing in “light”, “sun” and “vis”.

Searching using the Menu Browser

The whole thing is over in 14 seconds. That’s quite impressive in comparison to a manual click-and-hunt search. It’s not foolproof, though. It’s a menu search, not a command search. That means the command you’re after has to be in the menus before it can be found. If you type in something like “osnap” or “oops” you’ll be out of luck, even though they are both valid AutoCAD commands.

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 19 – Menu Browser

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You have undoubtedly noticed the large red A in the top right corner of the AutoCAD window. Personally, I don’t like the look of it. The concept is rather Fisher-Price and the execution is poor. No competent graphic designer would align the top of the red A exactly with the top of its surrounding button area like this:

The Big Red A

There are so many examples of poor graphic design in AutoCAD 2009 that the overall visual effect is close to that of a rather amateurish shareware product. That’s not what you might expect of a multi-billion dollar company that can undoubtedly afford to pay talented people to do much better, but it’s a relatively trivial matter. You probably want to know how it works, rather than what it looks like.

What’s living under that big red A? It’s called the Menu Browser, and it’s a mixed bag. There’s some useful new stuff under there, which I’ll cover later. In this post I’ll just describe using it to browse menus. Frankly, it’s not very good at that. The video below shows you why, and here are some notes to go with it.

  • On a fast machine, the reaction times are slightly sticky. Users of slower machines will experience some frustration; I have waited over three seconds for a reaction. Just like the Ribbon, it’s the initial click that hurts the most, with subsequent clicks on the red A being rather quicker.
  • Because the menu structure is one level deeper than traditional pull-down menus, you need a minimum of one extra click to do anything.
  • Because the Menu Browser is artificially limited to a small section of the screen (no, you can’t resize it), the menus don’t all fit. That means you not only need to perform extra actions to select certain commands, you need to perform extra actions to even see them. That is, if you’re browsing the menus, this new interface is markedly inferior to the old one.
  • With pull-down menus, you need a click to start with, then you can hover (or optionally click) to burrow down until you get to the command you’re after. In the Menu Browser, you need a click, then a hover (or optional click), then it’s all clicks from then on. That is, it’s close to the exact opposite of what you might expect, it’s not even self-consistent, and there is more clicking required than before.

Menu Browser - not so good for browsing menus

If you regularly use pull-down menus, you may as well type MENUBAR 1 as soon as you install your new AutoCAD. You will lose a strip of screen real estate, but you will have your old menus back.

If it’s an unhappy experience using the Menu Browser to browse menus, what else can you use it for? Among other things, you can use it to search menus. More on that later.

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 18 – Another Interface Option

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There’s one screen-based user interface mechanism in AutoCAD 2009 that you probably won’t see bragged about in Autodesk marketing materials. That’s a shame, because it has some strong points:

  • It can be docked on the side of the screen or allowed to float free.
  • While floating, it can be resized to the desired width and height.
  • If you do dock it on the side, any unused height can be used to place either docked or floating toolbars.
  • Out of the box, it provides access to a large number of the most commonly used AutoCAD commands.
  • In default form, it is context-sensitive, providing you with the options relevant to the command you’re using.
  • It can be modified (using CUI, unfortunately) to provide access to any commands or macros you like, using a tree or sequential structure as you see fit.
  • The interface reacts more quickly to user input than the Ribbon or Menu Browser.
  • Rather than cryptic graphics, it uses plain text labels that are easily understood. This is particularly useful if you have a block library where part numbers are used to identify parts that are visibly similar to each other.
  • It provides an interface that users of old AutoCAD releases will be instantly at home with, and I mean old.

Have you guessed yet?

AutoCAD 2009 Screen Menu

I seem to remember first hearing about the imminent demise of Screen Menus around the Release 12 timeframe. I wonder how long they can survive into the 21st century?

Autodesk deserves credit for keeping stuff like this going after all this time, a long time after it has gone seriously out of fashion. I’m sure the amount of resources it consumes is minuscule compared with the more modern interface elements. I know there are still some people who have a use for screen menus, and the same applies to image menus. All the tablet stuff is still there too, although I haven’t tested it.

Seriously, I’m more impressed by Autodesk’s retention of the Screen Menu than I am by the introduction of, say, the Steering Wheel. Autodesk is unlikely to brag about it, but maybe it should.

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 17 – Ribbon Performance 2

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Testing performance under Vista can be an interesting experience. The trouble is, Vista tries to improve its performance by observing what you do and caching it for later use in case you do it again. This leads to something akin to the observer effect in science, where the very act of observing something has an effect on what it is you are observing.

Every time I test Ribbon tab switching performance in Vista, the results improve. In XP, the worst tab switching time I saw on my Core2 PC was 1.6 seconds for the first exposure of the Tools tab. In Vista, the same thing took 1.2 seconds the first time I tried it, but subsequent attempts (after closing and restarting AutoCAD but not rebooting) gave results in the 0.5 to 0.6 second range.

I tried turning off Vista’s pretty Aero interface and saw improvements of about 0.1 seconds in every measurement. With Aero off and testing a second time, I saw first tab switches from 0.2 to 0.6 seconds and second tab switches between 0.3 and 0.5 seconds. Most switches were around the 0.3 second mark.

While I hesitate to base any firm conclusions on such shaky ground as these rather unscientific tests, I can say this with some confidence: it is possible to have a system running AutoCAD 2009 under Vista where the Ribbon tab switching performance meets in most cases, and is close to meeting in all cases, the 0.3 second mark that most users perceive as instant response. However, your mileage may vary. Correction: your mileage will vary.

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 16 – Ribbon Performance 1

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One of the things I like least about AutoCAD 2009 (at least in Release Candidate form) is that I find it very “sticky”. That is, I find myself having to wait for an instant here, then again there, yet again over there. Most of my testing has been on a middle-aged Pentium 4 (3.0 GHz dual core – not too ancient), and it is particularly noticeable there. On my newer Core2 machine, things are better.

When AutoCAD 2009 starts shipping, I suspect your perception of it will be strongly influenced by your hardware. Top gun users on slow machines are going to feel frustrated; slower users on fast machines will wonder what the problem is.

I made a video that shows Ribbon tab switching performance. This is an important aspect of the new interface. Because the Ribbon hides tools behind different tabs, quick access to those tools relies on near-instant tab switching. How well does AutoCAD 2009 do at that? Let’s have a look on a fairly quick PC (Core2Duo E6600 with 4 GB RAM, under Windows XP SP2 32 bit). I intend to do the same in Vista later.

Ribbon tab switching performance in XP

Measured on a faster machine and viewed objectively, it looks rather better than my perceptions from the slower machine had led me to believe. The real problem is the first exposure of each tab, because after that the tab contents can be retrieved from cached memory. The Tools tab is tardiest; 1.6 seconds here translates to 3 seconds or more on an older PC. For the most part, the tab switching speed is acceptable after the tab has been exposed for the first time. For most users, a delay of 0.3 seconds between input and response is quick enough to be considered instant, and most tabs switch in a time fairly close to that after the first exposure.

One way of avoiding or reducing tab switching frustration is to make your own custom Ribbon with a home tab full of the things you use most of the time. How easy is that? Unfortunately, it’s not. Using CUI to make Ribbon parts is not a pleasant experience. That interface makes the Ribbon look super-snappy in comparison. The Ribbon’s more complex internal structure combines with CUI’s snail-like performance, bugs, restrictions and design errors both old and new, to make custom Ribbon creation a loathsome task.

Grammar and AutoCAD

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I have a lot of posts about AutoCAD and a few about grammar, but I expect this will be the only post I ever make that combines the subjects.

Autodesk founder John Walker, a very prominent figure in AutoCAD’s history, has written an article about the correct use of the apostrophe. While I enjoyed it, I think it’s too insulting to be useful. People struggling with the correct use of the apostrophe are unlikely to get past the part where they are called morons, to read the useful advice below.

If you just want simple apostrophe advice without being belittled, I suggest you look at the main page of the The Apostrophe Protection Society instead.

AutoCAD tip – more on the Oops command

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In a comment on my Five More Simple Tips for AutoCAD post, Jeremy had some questions about the Oops command. I thought I would explain the command in more detail in another post so more people will see it.

The first thing to understand is that Oops varies from Undo/U in that it only reverses those commands that erase objects. The Erase command is obvious, and the same applies to pre-selecting objects and hitting the Delete key, but the Block and Wblock commands can also erase the objects that go to make up the block. In such cases Oops can be used to restore those objects without undoing the block creation step.

Another difference is that unlike Undo, you can only go back one step with Oops. If you erase one set of objects and later erase another set, issuing two Oops commands will not restore the first set of objects. Where Oops has the advantage is that it can unerase something that you erased 100 commands ago, without undoing the intervening 99 commands.

What happens if you use Oops when there is nothing to unerase? Nothing. Oops simply returns to the Command prompt. Also, there is no short form of the Oops command in standard AutoCAD. O invokes Offset, OO does nothing and OP invokes Options.

Finally, the U and Undo commands interfere with Oops. I suspect this is what Jeremy was seeing when the command wasn’t working for him. To see what I mean, select and right-click > Copy the following commands. In an empty drawing, right-click > Paste them into the Command prompt area:

_.Zoom _Win 0,0 10,5
_.Line 1,0 1,2

_.Line 2,0 2,2

_.Line 3,0 3,2

_.Line 4,0 4,2

_.Erase 1,1 2,1

_.Line 5,0 5,2

_.Line 6,0 6,2

_.Move 5,1 6,1  5,3 7,3

This command sequence zooms to a suitable area, draws four lines, erases the first two, draws another two and then moves them to the right. If you use Oops immediately after that, the first two lines will return. However, if instead of doing that you first undo the Move command and then use Oops, the lines will not return.

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 15 – Background

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You may have noticed that the default AutoCAD background is an off-white shade. In a comment, Tim asked if this is the same as the Block Editor background. No, not quite. This image shows the different backgrounds and some linework, with black as a comparison:

AutoCAD 2009 Backgrounds

Paper space is pure white (Red, Green, Blue is 255,255,255), Model space is very pale cream (254,252,240) and the Block Editor is a slightly darker cream (255,252,229). In common with most people in my experience (and most people who need to use drawings with yellow linework), my backgrounds are all going to be 0,0,0 (black). I don’t want to make a big fuss about this, because it’s very easy to change, but I find it kind of funny how this has flip-flopped over the years. There’s a poll about this to the right if you haven’t already seen it.

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 14 – What do you think?

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I’m interested in people’s perceptions of the forthcoming AutoCAD release. Based on what you’ve seen so far, how good a release do you think it will be? Please speculate using the poll on the right. If you feel the poll doesn’t give you the opportunity to adequately express yourself, feel free to add a comment here.

I intend to follow this up in a few months with a similar poll when people have had a chance to use the shipping product. It’s not scientific, but it will be interesting to see if actually using the product changes people’s opinions.

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 13 – ViewCube

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For many 3D users of AutoCAD, the ViewCube is likely to be the most useful new thing in AutoCAD 2009. There are a couple of problems with it, at least in the Release Candidate:

  1. It does not work in 2D wireframe mode (which is, paradoxically, where 90% of my 3D work is done). You need to choose another visual style before it will appear.
  2. It seems to slow things down quite a lot in complex drawings.

That said, if you have more than enough computing power for the drawings you usually deal with, then this is a very, very nice interface addition. You can just pick intuitively on the various parts of the ViewCube and your view of the model changes accordingly. You can also click and drag on the cube, and it will move where you place it, while snapping on to the various 45 and 90 degree view directions when you get near them, in the same way that Polar snap works. There is a right-click menu with a bunch of useful options, including a quick and easy switch between parallel and perspective views.

Messing with the ViewCube

You can also easily switch between User Coordinate Systems using the little menu thing under the cube. Unlike some of AutoCAD 2009’s new user interface elements, the ViewCube looks like a finished, polished tool and provides a genuine boost to productivity. Beautiful.

Music – Top 3 Debut Albums. Number 3: Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin

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For this review of my third favourite debut album of all time, I dusted off the trusty old turntable so I could hear it as it was originally heard.

Led Zeppelin on the turntable

It seems that certain stock phrases must be included in all Led Zeppelin reviews. So before we go any further, here they are: primal scream, origins of heavy metal, The New Yardbirds, Keith Moon, supergroup, plagiarism.

I must declare a personal interest here. My late father knew John Bonham’s father. Dad once told me about “snotty-nosed little Johnny” running around in shorts in his dad’s garden. The man who would become the model for generations of rock drummers, the man whose sampled snare you will find on countless modern recordings, was born in the same town as myself and lived a couple of miles from where I spent my childhood. On the day of his funeral, I kept looking out of my high school’s windows to try to catch a glimpse of the funeral procession, but I never did. His grave lies about four miles north of my old home. Robert Plant is another local boy made good.

I remember as a teenager listening to this album while being driven by my brother in a Mini van at silly speeds in the dark along narrow English country lanes through that very area, and being impressed by the raw emotional power of the music and lyrics. Enough navel gazing, on with the review.

Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin


Amazon link (see disclosure)

Led Zeppelin’s eponymous debut album was recorded in 1968 and released in early 1969. It shows a variety of different influences including folk, psychedelia and even world music, but is primarily a blues-rock album. To say that it was a hugely successful and influential album would be understating the obvious, so I won’t say that. Instead, I’ll give some brief impressions of the tracks.

Good Times Bad Times
This short blues-influenced rocker includes a couple of short but fine Jimmy Page solos.

Babe I’m Gonna Leave You
A slow acoustic blues cover? Yes, but not just that. With Page driving the strings and Plant’s uniquely powerful yet emotional voice controlling the ebb and flow to perfection, this goes beyond the confines of traditional blues.

You Shook Me
More blues, a cover written by Willie Dixon this time, with a call-and-response section that became a live favourite. It features an interesting backwards echo production technique, where the echo is heard first!

Dazed and Confused
Another slow blues number in 12/8, this is essentially a leftover from Page’s Yardbirds days. The song contains an experimental psychedelic section with Page using a cello bow on his guitar. If listening without the aid of recreational substances (as I do), this drags on a bit. But all is forgiven when it leads into a blistering cymbal-driven guitar solo.

Your Time Is Gonna Come
At the time, this was something like a pop number, despite starting with an extended Jones organ solo. Not an outstanding track, it’s not a bad one either.

Black Mountain Side
This (arguably) stolen acoustic guitar instrumental with tambla drums is, for me, the weak point on the album. I think it would have been a better album without it.

Communication Breakdown
If this song isn’t the origin of the phrase “machine-gun riff”, it should be. Simple, heavy, fast, sweet. Another fine Page solo is crammed into this short song.

I Can’t Quit You Baby
A slow blues cover, again written by Willie Dixon. The fluid bass work is a standout here, but an otherwise unremarkable track.

How Many More Times
This track was listed as 3:30 long on the original record sleeve, apparently deliberately in order to trick radio stations into playing the song. It’s actually 8:28 long, and at the time that represented quite an epic. Shuffle, riffage, soaring guitar work, buildups, wind-downs, pauses, more psychedelic bowed guitar and snare-free drumming, inserted blues covers, sexually charged lyrics delivered with gusto, this song has the lot. If you’re of the opinion that an album should finish with a barnstormer, you should be happy with this one.

The album as a whole showcases Page’s varied guitar work, Bonham’s powerhouse drumming, Jones’ precise and fluid bass work, but more than anything, this is the album that introduced Robert Plant to the world. Things were never quite the same after that. The artwork is great too. Simple, iconic, brilliant.

Criticisms? The album was recorded in a hurry (35 hours) and in places it shows. Jimmy Page wasn’t as scrupulous as he should have been in giving credit to other people’s songwriting work. A couple of later Led Zeppelin albums reached greater heights than this. Jimmy Page, for all his towering achievements as a session musician and “guitar god”, was prone to be sloppy (especially live) and was technically bettered by several contemporaries (not to mention a million unheard guitarists today: guitar standards have come a long way in 40 years). Oh, and the rear cover would have been better (if less amusing) if John Bonham had been wearing something other than a cable-knit sweater that looks like it was a gift from his mum.

None of that matters enough to knock this debut album out of my top three. It’s still a great album.

[Disclosure: Amazon links have been provided to give easy access to further album information, samples and other opinions. However, the link includes an ID referring to this site. If you follow the link and do actually buy something, Amazon pays me 4%. This arrangement has no editorial influence whatsoever. However, if you object to it, feel free to navigate to Amazon or any other site yourself without using my link.]

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 12 – Controlling Screen Elements

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How do you turn the new screen elements on and off using the keyboard? How about the not-so-new ones? See this table:

Element On Off Toggle
Advanced Render Settings RPPREF RPPREFCLOSE  
Clean Screen CLEANSCREENON CLEANSCREENOFF Ctrl+0
Command line COMMANDLINE COMMANDLINEHIDE Ctrl+9
dbConnect DBCONNECT DBCCLOSE Ctrl+6
DesignCenter ADCENTER ADCCLOSE Ctrl+2
Layer palette LAYER LAYERCLOSE  
Lights LIGHTLIST LIGHTLISTCLOSE  
Markup Set Manager MARKUP MARKUPCLOSE Ctrl+7
Materials MATERIALS MATERIALSCLOSE  
Menu bar MENUBAR 1 MENUBAR 0  
NavCube NAVCUBEDISPLAY 1 NAVCUBEDISPLAY 0  
Properties palette PROPERTIES PROPERTIESCLOSE Ctrl+1
Quick calc QUICKCALC QCCLOSE Ctrl+8
Ribbon RIBBON RIBBONCLOSE  
Rollover tool tips ROLLOVERTIPS 1 ROLLOVERTIPS 0  
Sheet Set Manager SHEETSET SHEETSETHIDE Ctrl+4
Status bar STATUSBAR 1 STATUSBAR 0  
Status bar
tray icons		 TRAYICONS 1 TRAYICONS 0  
Tool palette TOOLPALETTES TOOLPALETTESCLOSE Ctrl+3
Tool tips TOOLTIPS 1 TOOLTIPS 0  
Visual Styles VISUALSTYLES VISUALSTYLESCLOSE  

Music – Best Debut Albums?

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With all this AutoCAD 2009 stuff, I haven’t given much attention to some of the other things this blog is supposed to be about, such as music. I will rectify that soon with posts about my three favourite debut albums of all time. In the meantime, have a think about this: if you could only have three debut albums in your collection (or on your iPod, or whatever), what would they be? I’m sure if I asked 1000 people I would have a list of nearly 3000 different albums.

My set of three has one album that stands a good chance of being on a few people’s lists because it’s from a band that was huge in the 70s, one that stands a marginal chance because the band had a UK number one album in the 80s, and one band that is very current but which very few of you will have heard of.

Feel free to state your own top three, or speculate on mine. 🙂

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 11 – Docked Vertical Ribbon

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This video shows how the AutoCAD 2009 vertical Ribbon behaves when it is docked on one side. The labels explain what is going on.

AutoCAD 2009 Docked Vertical Ribbon

The main thing that used to drive me batty with the Dashboard was the way in which expanding one panel would contract another. The vertical Ribbon doesn’t do that, it leaves panels how you left them, which I much prefer.

Something else you may have noticed is that when there is no docked horizontal Ribbon, the red A in the corner shrinks. I’ll describe what’s lurking beneath that A in future posts.

Five More Simple Tips for AutoCAD

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More simple AutoCAD tips, as promised:

  1. If you erase some objects, draw a few things and then want your erased objects back without losing the things you drew in the meantime, enter OOPS rather than undoing the commands.
  2. At any Select objects: prompt, you can select using a triangle, non-orthogonal rectangle or other odd shapes, by entering the WPolygon (WP) or CPolygon (CP) options.
  3. If you have a paper space viewport entirely inside another one, it can be hard to make that viewport current just by picking in it. Try Ctrl+R to cycle through viewports instead.
  4. Move some objects, rotate them to match something and optionally even scale them to match too, all with the ALIGN command (Modify > 3D Operations > Align). Despite the menu location, this command is great for both 2D and 3D work.
  5. The ID command tells you where a point lies in space. In many cases you can do that without a command. Select the object, hover over a grip, look at the coordinate display in the bottom left corner. For this to work, the coordinate display can’t be frozen. If it is, double-click on it to free it up.