Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
3.
You are going to select the entire door. First click and drag (or double-tap and drag) from
a blank area below and to the right of the door.
4.
Move the cursor to a location above and to the left of the rectangular portion of the
door and release the mouse button or tap the trackpad. Because you went from right to
left, you created a crossing window. Recall that the crossing window selects anything
enclosed and crossing through the window.
5.
Click the lower-left grip of the rectangle to turn it into a hot grip. Just as before, as you
move your cursor, the corner stretches.
6.
Right-click (or two-finger tap) and choose Move from the shortcut menu. The Command
Line palette displays the following:
**MOVE**
Specify move point or [Base point/Copy/Undo/eXit]
Now as you move the cursor, the entire door moves with it.
7.
Position the door near the center of the screen and click. The door moves to the center of
the screen. Notice that the Command prompt returns but the door remains highlighted,
indicating that it's still selected for the next operation.
8.
Click the lower-left grip again, right-click, and choose Rotate from the shortcut menu. The
Command Line palette displays the following:
**ROTATE**
Specify rotation angle or [Base point/Copy/Undo/Reference/eXit]:
As you move the cursor, the door rotates about the grip point.
9.
Position the cursor so that the door rotates approximately 180° (see Figure 2.27). Then
B-click the mouse (hold down B and press the left mouse button). A copy of the door
appears in the new rotated position, leaving the original door in place.
10.
Press ↵ to exit Grip Edit mode.
You've seen how the Move command is duplicated in a modified way as a hot-grip command.
Other hot-grip commands (Stretch, Rotate, Scale, and Mirror) have similar counterparts in the
standard set of AutoCAD commands. You'll see how those work in Chapters 11 and 13, “Using
Dimensions” and “Copying Existing Drawings into AutoCAD.”
After you complete any operation by using grips, the objects are still highlighted with their
grips active. To clear the grip selection, press the Esc key.
In this exercise, you saw how hot-grip options appear in a shortcut menu. Several other
options are available in that menu, including Exit, Base Point, Copy, and Undo.
You can access many of these grip edit options by pressing the spacebar or ↵ while a grip is
selected. With each press, the next option becomes active. The options then repeat if you con-
tinue to press ↵. B acts as a shortcut to the Copy option. You have to use it only once; then, each
time you click a point, a copy is made.
