How to use your keyboard to execute shortcut actions

We can use keyboard to quickly start options or commands in menu, command panel and dialog box. There are three main ways.

1. Use keyboard in menu

For those who are more accustomed to using GstarCAD Classic workspace, shortcut keys are available in menu. Have you seen the underlined character N in New which is red circled below? The character is the shortcut key for that menu item, the same goes to other menu items.

This is not as convenient as mouse clicking, but you could try it when you’re using a laptop or when there is no mouse available.

2. Use keyboard in command panel

We normally click icons in the command panel to use commands. Actually, we can also use keyboard to execute some commands.

By default the command panel doesn’t display those shortcut keys, just press ALT key, and those shortcut keys will show,

Press the shortcut key as prompted such as H, and the panel will display command shortcuts, shown as below,

3. Use keyboard to set up dialog box parameters

Shortcut keys are usually available in dialog options and parameters and sometimes it might be more efficient to use shortcut keys than mouse clicking. Take the following Object Snap dialog box as an example, shown as below,

As we can see in the above picture, most options provide shortcut keys except for only a few options that don’t support shortcut keys. Shortcut keys F3 and F11 can be used without opening this dialog box.

For example, we can turn on or off Midpoint by pressing M.

Please note: The dialog box must be activated for shortcut keys to function.