Hot Keys and Cursors
Speed-up and ease your workload!
Design Intuition makes special use of the spacebar, shift, alt, and control keys. Experiment with them; you'll find that they can speed up your work and make many tasks much easier. Also, the cursor changes to indicate what's possible at the moment. Sometimes it tells you that the object it can move is a dimension, sometimes an object's corner. Sometimes it tells you that you're about to clone an object. Here's a complete summary of what the special keys can do for you, and all the various cursor states:
Create
| Keys |
Cursor |
Action |
|
 |
create a block |
| |
 |
create a cylinder |
 |
 |
create blocks with square cross-section |
|
 |
create cylinders with circular cross-section |
Movement
| Keys |
Cursor |
Action |
| |
 |
select an object this cursor shows up whenever you move the mouse position over an object |
|
 |
constrain object movement to horizontal and vertical only |
 |
 |
while moving, toggle object snap (if object snap is on, this key turns it off, and vice-versa) |
Dimension
| Keys |
Cursor |
Action |
| |
 |
select a dimension this cursor shows up whenever you move the mouse position over a dimension |
|
 |
constrain dimension movement to horizontal and vertical only |
Clone
| Keys |
Cursor |
Action |
 |
 |
clone an object hold down the alt key before clicking on the object you wish to clone. dimensions can't be cloned |
| |
 |
constrain clone movement to horizontal and vertical only |
Resize
| Keys |
Cursor |
Action |
| |
 |
resize an object in all directions |
| |
 |
resize an object vertically |
| |
 |
resize an object horizontally |
|
 |
constrain object resizing to preserve its aspect ratio |
Select a Sub-component
| Keys |
Cursor |
Action |
| |
 |
select a sub-component of the object, where "the object" is either "whatever is currently selected" or "the object that would be normally be selected if you weren't drilling down" and where a sub-component of a group is an object contained within it and a sub-component of an object is a face of that object. |
Move the Background
| Keys |
Cursor |
Action |
 |
 |
shift the drawing, useful for (a) bringing objects into view, or (b) moving the zoom center to a different part of your drawing to zoom in on a detail and edit it |
| |
 |
constrain movement of drawing to horizontal and vertical only |
See the Constraint
These cursor appear once you begin moving objects, dimensions, clones or your drawing: informing you in which direction movement is constrained.
| Keys |
Cursor |
Action |
| |
 |
movement of your object is constrained to horizontal only |
|
 |
movement of your object is constrained to vertical only |
| |
 |
movement of your drawing is constrained to horizontal only |
| |
 |
movement of your drawing is constrained to vertical only |
Explore 3D
| Keys |
Cursor |
Action |
|
|
tilt drawing forward or backward |
In addition to the capabilities summarized in the above table, when you hold down the control key and press the mouse button, a menu giving you access to the following features displays:
- Align objects to the grid or to each other in several ways
- Move the center of the outermost group (or of the selected objects) to the center of the crosshairs
- Add an Attribute to the Document (or add an attribute to the currently selected object, if one is selected)
- Resize the selected object or objects
- Open the Grid control strip, or control grid visibility or grid snap
- Group the selected objects, or ungroup a selected group
- Open one of the Design Intuition Inspectors
- Cut, copy, or delete the selected objects, or paste those objects which were previously cut or copied
- Select or deselect all objects
- Print your drawing exactly as you see it in the drawing view (2D only)
Hold down the shift key and use the mouse to select and deselect multiple objects.
