The auxiliary (service) menu contains functions that play an important role in the drawing creation process. The basic, permanent menu items include the following options:
/ Point / - point location in relation to existing objects:
/ Repeating mode / - setting the fixed location mode
/ Endpoint / - indicated end of line or arc
/ Nearest end / - the nearest end of a line or arc
/ Middle / - middle of a line or arc
/ Intersection / - intersection of lines, polylines, arcs, circles, discs, polygons, bezier curves, solids, traces, or their combinations
/ Center / - location point of the center of a circle, disc or arc
/ Perpendicular / - perpendicular to a line, arc, circle or disc, polygon, solid or trace
/ Tangential / - tangent to an arc or circle
/ Adjacent / - intersection point of the indicated object with a line perpendicular to it passing through the center of the target, so the nearest point on the target to the current pointer position.
/ pOint / - to the indicated object of the Point type
/ move to X, Y / - jump to X, Y coordinates
/ move by dX dY / - jump to the point shifted by DX, DY
/ move polar L, a / - jump to a point away by the distance L measured at a given angle to the X axis
/ Screen / - functions controlling drawing display:
/ Save view / - saving editing parameters
/ Find view / - restore editing parameters
/ Refresh / - refresh the screen (redraw)
/ All / - editing the entire drawing
/ Center / - centering the edit field with respect to the cursor
/ Auto Pan / - drawing panning (Yes / No)
/*1.0/, /*0.5/, /*0.2/, /*0.1/ - edition scale
/ Window / - editing the selected part of the drawing
/ Drawing / - editing the entire drawing sheet format
/ Last / - editing the last 10 windows one after the other
/ move to x, y / - cursor jump to X; Y coordinates of the system
/ move by dx, dy / - cursor jump by vector dx, dy
/ move polar l, a / - jump by length l at a given angle
/ Parameters / - setting the basic parameters of objects and editing options. All options are saved in the drawing's source file and restored when it is re-edited. Prototypes sets of these values when editing a new drawing are read from the prototype drawing.
/ pointer step A / - setting the cursor step (or minimum step)
/ grid density / - setting the resolution of the auxiliary grid
/ # grid points / - switching on / off auxiliary grid
/ Perpendicularity / - orthogonal mode on / off
/ Color / - selection of the current color (in the current layer)
/ Line thickness / - selection of the current line thickness (in the current layer)
/ Line type / - selection of the current line type (on the current layer)
/ Point visibility/ - visibility of points, except of “Junction” point types
/ point size / - size of the "point" type object in [mm]
/ get color / - selection of the current color by selecting an object
/ get type / - selection of the current type and thickness of the line by selecting an object
/ get layer / - selection of the current layer by selecting the object
/
free block / - if this
option is enabled, the blocks marked with the window are moved
completely. This option is usually used for operations on catalog
blocks, e.g. electrical symbols.
If this option is disabled, the
block can be stretched, ie the ends of the block components not
marked with the window remain in place. This option is usually used
when creating or modifying directory blocks.
/ free Text / - texts in the edit function / Text edition / are edited depending on the setting of this option in such a way that the position of the text can be changed (free text - YES) or not (free text - NO), which makes it easier to edit descriptions library blocks. For example, the text of the "Normal" or "Symbol" type can be moved to any place after the edit function has been started, its text value can be changed after pressing the {TAB} key, and all its parameters in the auxiliary menu can be changed. On the contrary, a text like: "? Terminal name *". Only the text value can be changed in the indicated text. The other parameters as well as the position cannot be changed, unless the / free Text / option is set to YES.
/ Dimension block scaling / - if this option is enabled, the dimension block subjected to the editing function / Scale / will be scaled in the same way as any other block. If this option is disabled (by default), only the dimension line and extension lines and the block insertion point will be scaled. The size of the remaining block elements, i.e. the delimiters (points, points or slashes) and the dimension text will remain unchanged, only their position will be modified, matching other elements of the dimension block.
/ Breaking lines in nodes / - if the option is enabled, then if the Pin type object (or pin G, pin D, pin S) is placed in the window of drawn elements (or blocks), any lines connected with this point are also stretched ( the point does not break the connection with the line). This option should be active for block operations in electrical diagrams. Pin type objects appear in contact symbols and special objects: node, port, power, slash, etc. In a drawn block, the program takes into account up to 1000 Pin points. The rest will be ignored. This option is used when drawing electrical diagrams.
/ Stretching lines in nodes / - if this option is enabled, the program checks whether there are horizontal or vertical lines at Pin points (also at nodes, ends of slashes and other electrical points) before dragging the elements marked with the window. If these points do not lie at the ends of the line, the lines are automatically cut at these points. The number of points taken into account at one time in the line cutting procedure is 1000. Lines are also cut many times when there are many Pin points on the line. This option is mainly used when drawing electrical diagrams.
/ Hide type / - this option allows to define whether the types of inserted symbols take the "hidden" attribute or not.
/ Hidden text visibility/ - any text can be "hidden", ie it is visible on the screen (although drawn with a dashed line) but it is not printed or drawn. Hidden text is usually used to describe symbol types (e.g. for creating component specifications) but in a way that is invisible on the drawing printout (to avoid redundant descriptions). This option enables / disables the display of hidden texts. Displaying hidden text allows you to edit it. Turning off the display allows you to evaluate the correctness of the drawing before starting the printing.
/ Highlight the current layer / - if set to “Yes”, only the current layer is shown in colors, other layers are “dimmed” into grey color (in case the background is grey, they are dimmed to black color). This rule is not applied to image blocks, assuming those elements create or maps, or maybe geodetic backgrounds, and should be visible always in original colors, as long the layer where image is put, is visible.
/ image buffering / - if set to “Yes”, redrawing all inserted images (bitmaps) is many times faster, due to buffering images on the virtual screen, of the size of whole drawing with set accuracy. Once the virtual screen is created (when images are inserted or edited), no matter the drawing is panning or scaling, images not need to be redrawn, just virtual screen is shrunk or stretched using fast graphic operations.
/ text normalization / - if set to “Yes”, during /Rotate/ editing function performing on the block containing texts, the direction of text is always normalized to be mostly readable (e.g. so never turns upside-down).
/ Layers / - setting attributes of drawing layers (see chapter 8.2)
/ Measure /
indicates the position of a point
indicates the distance between two (or many) points
indicates the angle between three points
opens engineering calculator
lists parameters of indicated object
/ Find / - searching for texts (attributes) with a given text value. The program searches sequentially for texts (attributes) whose initial text value corresponds to a given string of characters. If found, the cursor is positioned at the text insertion point.
Variable menu items include, but are not limited to, the following options:
Draw functions: /Line/, /Circle/, /Arc/, /Text/, /Polygon/, /Disc/, /Polygon/, /Ellipse/, /Polyline/, /Solid/, /Bezier spline/, /Trace/, /Sketch/, /Point/, /Chart/
/ Block / - unique options to the procedure of selecting objects and block functions in /Edit/ and /Block/ functions
/ Change / - option unique to the edit function / Change /
Pressing the F1 key displays the "Help" menu with description of the keyboard shortcuts.