The Quad cursor menu

The Intelligent Quad Cursor

Customize the Quad to your workspace

Placing Associative Dimensions Using the Quad

How to edit poly lines with the Quad

The Quad cursor menu, aka the Quad is an alternative to grip-editing of entities, offering a (much) richer set of editing operations while requiring fewer clicks, without cluttering the screen with loads of grip-glyphs.

While the Quad was initially conceived for easy and fast editing of 3D solids, the Quad is extended to allow enhanced editing of all entity types.

If the Display the Quad on right click flag of the QUADDISPLAY system variable is set, all commands that exist in the No Selection command group in the Quad can be launched. Edit the No Selection command group to customize the available commands (see To edit the workspace command groups).

To activate the Quad

Activation of the Quad is controlled by the QUADDISPLAY system variable.

To toggle the Quad On/Off, do one of the following:

• Click the QUAD field in the Status bar.
• Press the F12 function key.
• Edit the QUADDISPLAY system variable in the Settings dialog.
• Type quaddisplay in the command bar, then choose an option.

Editing the Quad settings

1. Right click the QUAD field in the Status bar, then choose Settings in the context menu.

The Settings dialog opens, showing the Quad settings:

2. Quad Display: Determines when the Quad displays.
3. • 1: When the cursor is over an entity. The entity under the cursor highlights.
   • 2: When entities are selected
   • 4: On right click when no entities are selected and there is no entity under the cursor.
4. Quad aperture size: Distance in pixels to search for neighboring entities.
5. Quad default command launch: Sets the action to launch the default Quad command.
6. • 0: Click the button.
   • 1: Right click
7. Quad command sorting:
8. • 1: Sort commands within groups: most recently used command first.
   • 2: Sort command groups: morst recently used group on top.
9. Quad: Controls the Quad display.
10. Quad Width: Defines the number of commands in a row. Default = 4 commands.

11. Quad icon size: Small icons (16 x 16 pixels) or Large icons (32 x 32 pixels)

    Small Icons	Large Icons

12. Quad icon space: Defines the size of the Quad tool buttons: small, normal or large.

    Narrow	Normal	Wide

13. Quad show delay: Sets the time lap in milliseconds between the highlighting of the entity and the Quad display.
14. Quad hide delay: Sets the time lap in milliseconds to hide the Quad when the cursor is outside the Quad hide margin limit.
15. Quad hide margin: Sets the distance in pixels the cursor can move away from the Quad. If the cursor moves outside this limit, the Quad is hidden.
16. Quad go transparent: Defines whether the Quad becomes transparent when the mouse moves outside the Quad, but within the Quad hide margin.
17. Quad tooltip delay: Sets the delay time in milliseconds to display tooltips. If the value is negative, no tooltips display.
18. Quad expand group: Defines when a Quad command group is expanded: on mouse enter or on mouse click.
19. Quad warp pointer: Defines what to do to keep the position of the pointer and the cursor in sync when a command group expands or collapses: move the Quad or move the pointer.

2. To edit a setting, select the setting then do one of the following:
3. Type a new value.
4. Click the check box.
5. Choose an option.

3. Close the Settings dialog.

The Quad layout

The layout of the Quad cursor menu depends on:

• The entity type under de cursor.
• The current Workspace.
• Geometric events such as intersection or tangency.

In general the Quad has three appearances: last command, command history and full.

• When the cursor hovers over an entity, the entity highlights and the Quad displays the command most recently used with this entity type.

Right click to launch the command.

• Move the cursor to the Quad, to display the most recently used commands with this entity type.
  The number of commands is controlled by the QuadWidth user preference.

Click an icon to launch the command.

• Move the cursor over the blue field below the icons to expand the Quad cursor menu.
  The first command group expands.

Click an icon to launch a command.

Depending on the current value of the QuadExpandGroup user preference either click another command group or move the cursor to another command group.

• (option) Click the Close icon () of a command group to hide this command group in the Quad for the current workspace.
  Click the OK button on the Confirm dialog box to hide the command group.

See To edit the workspace command groups to switch closed command groups on.

Using the Quad

1. Move the cursor to the entity you want to manipulate.
   The entity highlights and the Quad cursor displays the most recently used command with this entity type.
2. (option) Select more entities.
   See Selecting multiple entities.
3. Do one of the following:
4. Depending on the value of the QUADCOMMANDLAUNCH system variable, either right click or click the Quad to repeat the most recently used command.
5. Move the cursor to the Quad and select a different command.
   See The Quad Layout.

3. Execute the command.

Selecting multiple entities

1. Move the cursor over the first entity, then click when the entity highlights.
   The entity is selected and remains highlighted.
2. Move the cursor to another entity, then click when the entity hightlights.
   The entity is added to the selection set and remains highlighted.
3. (option) Repeat step 2 to select more entities.
4. (option) Move the cursor to a selected entity, then press and hold the Shift key and click.
   The entity is removed from the selection set.

Selecting edges of faces or solids

Command: DmSelectEdges

1. Select the faces and or solids.
   See Selecting multiple entities.
2. In the Direct Modeling command group of the Quad cursor menu, click the Select Edges tool ().
   All edges of the selected faces and solids are selected.
3. (option) To remove edges from the selection set: press and hold the Shift key, then click the edge(s).

Customizing the Quad

The number of available command groups in the Quad is defined through the current workspace.

Only the content of the Custom command group can be modified. The content of the other command groups is hard-coded and cannot be modified.

To edit the workspace command groups

1. Move the cursor over a toolbar, then right click and choose Customize in the context menu.
2. Click the Workspace tab on the Customize dialog box.
3. Expand the workspace you want to edit.
4. Expand the Quad Group Order list.
   Command groups that are currently switched off display in grey.

5. To edit visibility state of a command group, right click a command group then choose Switch On or Switch Off in the context menu.

To edit the Custom command group

1. Move the cursor over a toolbar, then right click and choose Customize in the context menu.
2. Click the Quad tab on the Customize dialog box.
3. Expand the Custom command group.

4. (option) Add a Quad Item Group:
5. Do one of the following:
6. • Right click the Custom command group name, then choose Append quad item group in the context menu to add a new group at the bottom of the list.
   • Right click a group item name then choose Append quad item group in the context menu to add a new group above the selected item group.

The Add Quad Item Group dialog box displays.

• Type a name in the Group name field.

• Do one of the following:
• • Select On all entities to apply the new group to all entity types, and click the OK button to create the new item group.
  • Select On Specific entities to apply the new group to one or more specific entity types, and proceed with the next step.
• Click the Entity Type(s)... button and select one or more entity types.

• Click the OK button to create the new item group.

5. (option) Add a command to an item group:
   Select a tool in the right hand pane of the Customize dialog box, then drag the tool to the item group.

6. Click the OK button on the Customize dialog to save the changes.