Michael’s Corner

Michael's Corner is a monthly publication written by Michael E. Beall, Autodesk Authorized Author and peripatetic AutoCAD trainer. Michael travels all over the USA, bringing his fantastic experience and great understanding of AutoCAD to his clients. Michael's Corner brings together many of the tips, tricks and methods developed during these training sessions for the benefit of all users.

Michael's Corner provides something for every AutoCAD user. Every month, a number of articles cover a wide range of topics, suitable for users at all levels, including "The Basics" for those just starting out. Essentially, the aim of Michael's Corner is to help all AutoCAD users work smarter and faster.

This month…

From the Vault

Originally published November 2007

Pickadd & Pickfirst

Over the last several months, I have received questions about certain situations and the answers need to be in your default collection of memorable variables.

Picky Variable #1 - When editing objects in AutoCAD (Move, Copy, Rotate, etc.), you are prompted to "Select objects". By default, you can select more than one object, then press Enter to complete your selection and continue on with the prompts of the command.

There may come a time when, as you are selecting objects, you select one object, then select another object and the first object selected is released. Although I can't isolate what may have caused that situation to occur, what I can tell you is that the variable PICKADD has, somehow, been turned off.

Solution: Enter PICKADD at the command line, then enter 1 to turn On the ability of adding objects to the selection set as you pick them.

Picky Variable #2 - By default, when you double-click, say, a circle, the Properties window opens. Double-click an attributed block and the Enhanced Attribute Editor dialog box opens. That ability is only available if the variable PICKFIRST is On. Another feature you may take for granted is the ability to click on any object, and the layer on which that object was created (or Inserted in the case of blocks or Attached in the case of Xrefs), is displayed in the Layer dropdown list.

Solution: If you are going along and double-click on an object and nothing happens or if you click on an object and the layer it was drawn on is not displayed in the dropdown list, enter PICKFIRST at the command line, then enter 1 to turn that feature On.

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