Quick Keys can provide an enormous time savings on initiating keyboard commands. One frustration of using AutoCAD is when your command initialization cannot keep up with your train of thought, and you are constantly seeking the fastest way to initiate commands. Quick Keys provides numerous command aliases that are already set up for you, which you can customize easily. You can also add any new commands quickly and easily using the Quick Keys editor, without leaving AutoCAD. The Quick Keys are so productive, that even dedicated menu users appreciate and use them.
The Quick Keys Editor can be broken down into areas. The list box at the top of the screen, edit fields, list control buttons, and program control buttons. Each area and button is explained below.
List Control contains a list of the loaded quick keys. There are usually more items than will display on the list box. Use the scroll bar to move up and down through the list. Picking on an item in the list box makes it the current item, which can be affected by nearly all edit commands explained below.
When an item on the list box is picked, its record is displayed in the Edit Fields. Each record item consists of up to a 5 character quick key (the portion typed in at the AutoCAD command line), and a long command or AutoLISP expression. Note that if you are adding a shortcut to a lisp function, you must use the following syntax: (C:FUNC) where FUNC is the command name. There are several examples of this included with Quick Keys.
If you intend to make changes in an item, use standard editing
procedures, including the use
of arrow keys along with the tab key and/or pointer movements to make
changes. Once changes
to a key have been made, you must use the
Update or Add options explained below. Pressing
enter on either field will have no effect on the item in the list.
Choosing the CLEAR button at the
end of the edit fields erases the contents of both edit fields allowing
you to enter new fields not
based on existing records. However, it is fairly efficient to select an
item that has nearly what you
need in a command, make changes, then add the modified record as a new
item.
Changes made to items are not automatically changed in the list, you must use the UPDATE or ADD button to record changes to be saved.
When changes have been made to an existing record, the Update button must be pressed to make the changes effective in the list. Pressing enter on the edit fields do not record changes. After the changes are made the item will remain the highlighted item in the list.
When a new item has been created in the edit fields, you must click the Add button to add the item to the list. Pressing enter on the edit fields do not add new items. The newly added item will appear at the bottom of the list and will be highlighted.
Highlight the item you wish to delete in the list box, then press the Delete button to remove it from the list. In the event you accidentally delete items, simply choose Cancel to exit without saving changes.
At any time during processing of Quick Keys (except during a UPDATE or ADD operation), you may choose the Sort button to sort the list of Quick Keys. The most common use of sort will be after adding several new items to the list.
The buttons on the bottom row are used to control files. Changes made to the Quick Keys table are stored when exiting the dialog with the OK button. The original key definition file supplied is called Carlson.QKS. However, when you make changes for the first time and use the OK button to exit the dialog, the program writes changes to a file called CUSTOM.QKS. The Quick Keys editor looks for the existence of the file CUSTOM.QKS when loading, and will use this file when available. This approach will shelter your (CUSTOM.QKS) from overwrites if you reinstall Carlson.
When all changes are complete, choose the OK button to save changes, which will automatically build and load the run time file. Any Quick Keys added or updated will be immediately available at the command prompt. However, if a key definition was deleted, it will not be removed from memory until another drawing is loaded or you begin a new drawing.
The Cancel button exits the Quick Keys dialog without making any changes to your system.
This Print option is used to obtain a printed list of the Quick Keys currently loaded. First consider sorting the list, then use this option and enter a filename. The program will write the list to a file that can be brought into any editor or word processor, then printed.
Pulldown Menu Location: Settings
Keyboard Command: quickkey
Prerequisite: None
File Name: \lsp\quickkey.lsp