Why is this important? If you’ve ever had to go use someone else’s CAD machine for whatever reason, how long does it take you to get your shortcuts set up (not to mention other things?) By defining your shortcuts as lisp in a single file, you can easily migrate to other machines with almost no effort.
So if the PGP file says “L” is for the Line command but your lisp code says “L” is for Lengthen, your “L” wins. If you define your shortcuts with lisp code, then you have at least two advantages: (1) You can define command statements, such as Zoom > Window or Pedit > Multiple, and (2) Lisp definitions will always take precedence over PGP shortcuts. There is another way to approach this issue however. Type in “L” for Lengthen instead of “Lengthen”, or type in “O” for 3dorbit, etc. PGP defined shortcuts are a quick way to shorten a command name.
It will look like this:īoth of the GUI tools in AutoCAD and BricsCAD are easy to figure out. In BricsCAD, go to Tools > Customize > Command Aliases to get to the user interface dialog. If you edit the wrong one, nothing will change for you in AutoCAD.
This will open the proper PGP file in Notepad, proper because if you search for “acad.pgp” (or “acadlt.pgp” for AutoCAD LT), you would likely find multiple copies on your machine. If you prefer to edit the raw file in Notepad, you don’t have to go searching for it, just go to the Manage Tab in the Ribbon, then on the Customization panel, choose Edit Aliases. This will open up a dialog that looks like this. On the Express Tools Ribbon tab, in the Tools panel, click Command Aliases.
AutoCAD provides a user interface for editing the shortcuts, provided you have Express Tools installed. In AutoCAD, this file is named “acad.pgp”, in AutoCAD LT, this file is named “acadlt.pgp”, and in BricsCAD, this file is named “default.pgp”. One way to add your own keyboard shortcuts is by editing the PGP (Program Parameters) file.