previous acad versions

Hello,

This company I started with use an old version of AutCAD lite. I was messing around with the settings and am having some trouble. There are not any panels or drop downs. All the annotative, drawing, modifying tools are all shown at top. Are there not any drop down in older versions? I like to hit the tab that I am dealing with (annotative for example) and only there tools are shown. Most versions now have a little arrow at top right that changes this.

Any help or some hints of how to approach this would be great.

Tnx!

Which version(s) specifically? AutoCAD didn't have the Ribbon interface until the 2009 release.

damn. I think it is 2004. Does that mean all of every tool (line, arc, dims, fillet, chamfer, trim, etc) have to take up all that room at the top. Im just so use to hovering over the drop down and picking what to see when i want to see them. I still recognize them as far as now but it is a little frustrating. I dont think the program works works as proficient either.

2004LT

Used to use it a lot. You dont have the modern ribbon menus.

You can change the old classic toolbars around the sides of your screen, add and remove toolbar buttons and so on.

I used to have all my line and modify buttons down the left of the screen, all my dimensioning and text down the top right with some custom commands below those.

My plotting, layer, and text stuff was across the top below the dropdown menus, with another toolbar below that with extra plotting buttons and some other custom stuff.

The menu system was different in those days we had .mns, .mnu, and .mnc instead of the cui and cuix.

I once did a write up on how they all worked back then I'll try and find a link to it.

damn. I think it is 2004. Does that mean all of every tool (line, arc, dims, fillet, chamfer, trim, etc) have to take up all that room at the top. Im just so use to hovering over the drop down and picking what to see when i want to see them. I still recognize them as far as now but it is a little frustrating. I dont think the program works works as proficient either.

Yes, 2004 definitely only has toolbars (and menus) as a graphical interface, but I believe your perception is skewed about how much "room" toolbars occupy. The screenshot below shows two rows of toolbars across the top, two columns on the left and two columns on the right, and those 200+ tool buttons actually take up less screen real estate on 1920x1080 or better display than the Ribbon which displays only about 25% as many tools at any one time. With regards to proficiency, that's a matter of choice/preference. I guarantee I can pick tools from on-screen toolbars faster than anyone can change Ribbon tabs and pick tools from panels.

Wow you have a lot of toolbar buttons there.

Do you use all of them all the time? I would guess not.

I used to have about 20 down each side and maybe another 20-30 across the top, this covered most things.

A lot of the little used options/commands can be removed from the toolbars and accessed through the dropdowns or typed into the commandline when needed.

Anyway I found that link: it is a bit dated now, well it would be for the old menu system, and talks more about customising the dropdowns than the toolbars.

Hope it may be of some help.

http://www.cadeverything.com/help/showthread.php/6518-Please-help-restore-settings-on-new-computer

I'm going to fire up my old PC with 2000i on it and see just how many buttons I did have on each side of the screen.

Wow you have a lot of toolbar buttons there.

Do you use all of them all the time? I would guess not.

There are a few that I probably "never" use, but that's the same basic configuration I've used since around 2000. I know where everything is and there's no hunting around or pausing to figure out which tab/panel the tool is on. Once you learn the locations, everything is based on muscle memory and you can basically pick tools without "looking" the same way you can type without looking at the keys. You can't do that with the Ribbon, at least not when the needed tool is not on the current Ribbon display.

I didn't mean proficiently that way. I meant the program glitches a lot. Might be machine too. I just started today. What do I do just grab and drag toolbars and they just dock like many other versions and other such programs. I don't have that here so I want to fly right into things tomorrow. Also, might be something through revit where older versions aren't very compatible with newer but I haven't had any problem opening anything so far with ACAD04 lite. Hmm! Im guessing most people use newer versions though. I think you can save as older version. I would like just to use my pc.

I guarantee I can pick tools from on-screen toolbars faster than anyone can change Ribbon tabs and pick tools from panels.

And remember, the Ribbon can be completely customized. It's very well done out of the box (in later versions, unlike the introduction back in 2009) but I can see an enormous amount of potential in a heavily customized Ribbon. Before I finally gave up on AutoCAD almost completely I started a Ribbon from scratch and was only going to have it two icon's height rather than the default three icons height. I finally got bored with it and gave it up.

I will say that the Ribbon makes so much sense for AutoCAD Architecture and MEP. Using object based tool selection versus drafting based definitely utilizes the Ribbon much better in my opinion.

Yes, customizing the Ribbon certainly makes it more efficient, (just as customizing toolbars and menus make them more efficient) but it can never be more efficient at displaying tools than toobars even if all the large icons, text and flyouts are removed because at best, it simply becomes one large "toolbar". I'm not saying the Ribbon is all bad, in fact I quite like the contextual tabs, I was just making the point that it generally uses more screen space than toolbars and will almost certainly require more clicks and mouse movement to access the same number of tools.

I felt just a little bit older when reading about someone who hadn't seen toolbars before.

2004 LT will have drop down menus and toolbars. That's it. Not even the "Dashboard" which was the precursor to the Ribbon. And you won't be finding any reference to annotative scaling as that was not introduced until 2008 I believe.

Learn the command line for more common tasks. Pretty quick to hit L, PL, C, A, CO, custom shortcuts, etc. and works across several versions. Lots of good info around for custom button macros as well.

Learn the command line for more common tasks. Pretty quick to hit L, PL, C, A, CO, custom shortcuts, etc. and works across several versions. Lots of good info around for custom button macros as well.

QFT

I used to use toolbars exclusively, until I realized how much faster it is to use the keyboard. I pretty much have every command at one keystroke or two. I'll tell you it was hard to make the switch, but now I've guaranteed increased my speed 25-30% I don't have to hunt buttons, even tho I knew where they were. I also like to use the right click menu for a few select commands which also make things easier. Its second nature to do the keyboard now, and I made the switch after drafting on CAD for 10 years.

AR - Array

RO - Rotate

SC - Scale

M - Move

CH - Chamfer

R - Fillet (I think Radius)

P - Pan

O - Offset

L or LI - line

TR - Trim

EX Extend

X - Explode

E - Erase, if not just delete which is mostly used)

C - Copy

S - Stretch

MI - Mirror

DI - Dimension

CD - Continue Dim

DA - Angled Dim

RE Regen All

SS - Select similar

DO Draw order

MM - Match property

CC - Make objects layer current

LO - Layer Off

ISO - Isolate layer

AS - Attsync

B - Make block

I - Insert Block

J - Join

AA - Area

A - Add Selected

ATT- Attribute

T - Multiline Text

DIV - Divide

REC - Rectangle

PL - Polyline

My personal favorite is A for add selected. So much efficiency in that, I love it! Add selected is the greatest command.

The only toolbar buttons I use are custom ones I've created, for the most part. If anyone is interested in the macro, I've been thinking of making a thread for this

Wipeout frames ON - ^C^C_wipeout;f;on

Wipeout frames OFF - ^C^C_wipeout;f;off

Clip frames ON - ^C^C_xclipframe;1;

Clip frames OFF - ^C^C_xclipframe;0;

Clip, polyline - ^C^C_clip;n;i;p;

Clip, rectangle - ^C^C_clip;n;i;r;

Delete clip - ^C^C_clip _d

Select all of an object and draw order back - ^C^C_SelectSimilar;\;;_draworder;;

Recreate hatch boundary - ^C^C_LAYER;M;Viewport;;_color;t;128,128,128;^C^C_-hatchedit;\b;;;_LAYER;M;Text;;_-color;bylayer;;;