INTERFACE

Alright, today let’s get a closer look at our First Group located in the Top Horizontal Band.

• This Top Horizontal Band comprises of 4 elements –

1. Title Bar – The topmost horizontal bar running along the length of the screen, normally with a blue background, is the Title Bar. As the name suggests it is home for the titles – Name of the Application (with version if applicable) we are running – AutoCAD in our case – followed by the Name of the Particular File (If unspecified, ‘Drawing1’ being the default). At the right end the Title Bar has THREE icons that are for minimizing, maximizing and closing the application window.
2. Menu Bar – Again it is obvious that Menu Bar holds Menus that in turn has commands required to work with AutoCAD. This menu could be compared to the Menu card in the hotel as it is similar in terms of categories, varieties and cost we will pay – the only difference being the mode of cost. We don’t need currency here but would need Skill and Time as currency…! We will taste each and every item on this menu from Appetizers to Deserts as we progress. Fasten your seatbelts.
3. Standard Toolbar – No prizes for guessing that this bar has the most commonly used, ‘standard’ as they normally referred, tools required frequently while working. This toolbar id fully customizable and we will try to learn only the most common, most appropriate and absolutely inevitable tools.
4. Object Properties Bar – This is AutoCAD Specific bar and from here we will control all the physical properties like Layer, Color, Line-weight, Line-type etc. of our objects. We will discover everything about the Assigning and Managing Object properties to objects in the following chapters.

• The left vertical bar(s) are the optional toolbars like ‘Draw’, ‘Modify’ which can be turned on or off as required in first place. When they are without title and seem to be locked in a position they are supposed to be ‘Docked’. When they are moved by grabbing their handle at the top, they display their title in a box. This position is supposed to be ‘floating’ as we can move them freely anywhere on the screen as we wish. There are normally TWO bars at this position but it can vary as per the user setting.
• The right Vertical Bar is the Scroll Bar to navigate (Panning) the drawing in the Up-Down direction. Although it is default and unmanageable bar provided by AutoCAD, its use would be quite negligible in presence of the powerful and efficient viewing commands like ZOOM and PAN.
• This Bottom Horizontal Bar comprises of 5 elements –

1. Space Tabs – The buttons used to switch between Model and Layout spaces and also between different layouts. We will learn more about Drawing Spaces in due course.
2. Horizontal scroll bar – Placed in line with space tabs, this is also meant for navigating the drawing area sidewise. Again PAN can entirely replace its purpose efficiently.
3. COMMANDLINE – In this place a Command Prompt is displayed which is AutoCAD’s means of communication to the user. This is the area where the actual dialogue happens and that makes it the most powerful element of the AutoCAD Interactive Interface. By default there are only 3 command lines and the full-screen version of this can be viewed in ‘AutoCAD Text Window’ which can be opened / closed by pressing the F2 key.
4. Status Bar – The extreme left lowermost corner of AutoCAD window displays a Dynamic bar with THREE values separated by commas. These are the values for X,Y and Z co-ordinates related to the position of cursor (Crosshair) in the drawing area. These values keep changing as the cursor (pointing device – mouse) is moved within the work area.
5. The radio buttons at the center in line with the status bar are the Drafting Settings about which we will learn as we start the drafting phase.

Tomorrow we will proceed to understand more about the Model Space and its elements.

Stay tuned…