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 August 2009

Customizing Quick Properties

The difference between the regular Properties window and the Quick Properties window is one of customizability and how quickly it can be accessed. Since a significant portion of our AutoCAD life is spent editing drawings, Quick Properties may serve to provide the productivity boost you need.

Note: If you would like to have words back on the Status bar, rather than the icons, right-click on any icon on the Status bar — Snap, Grid, Ortho, etc. — then click “Use Icons” to effectively disable the icons and display words.

To see how Quick Properties works, open a drawing you have been working on recently and then take a look at the feature reviews.

Reviewing Quick Properties

1. On the Status bar, click QP to enable the Quick Properties feature.

2. Select an object in the drawing. In this example I clicked on a dimension.

3. In the upper right corner click the small Options icon to display the shortcut menu.

4. The default Location Mode of Cursor is very convenient, but I would suggest you turn off the Auto-Collapse mode; it just seems counter-productive for a feature that's "Quick".

   

   Note: The Quick Properties window can be moved by clicking and dragging from either of the side borders (curiously, not from the bottom border).

5. Press Esc, then click on another object in the drawing to display the quick properties exclusively for that object. If you select more than one object while in the Quick Properties, similar to the Properties window, the word "All" will be displayed and the selected objects will be available from the drop-down list.

6. Down on the Status bar, right-click on the QP item, then click Settings to open the Drafting Settings dialog box on the Quick Properties tab. Now that you understand a bit more about the Quick Properties mechanics, you can adjust those settings as you see fit.

Customizing the Quick Properties Content

1. To customize the Quick Properties content based on the object selected, click the Customize icon in the upper right corner to open the Customize User Interface dialog box with the Quick Properties information displayed on the right.

2. Similar to configuring the content displayed for Rollover Tips (see Michael's Corner, June 2009), select an object type from the list on the left to display the various property groupings. In this example, I clicked on the object type Block Reference.

3. For many of my customers, it would be convenient to see attribute-related information. In the figure, in addition to the Layer information that I have checked under General, I refined the properties under Misc. and checked the box for Attributes.

In addition to being informative about the object selected, I think you will find it easier to change the values for the enabled property fields than you can from in the default Properties window.

Top of page

Local Navigation