Creating your own keyboard shortcuts.

This chapter explains how to create your own keyboard shortcuts. A keyboard shortcut maps a key press (e.g. F5) to a particular menu (e.g. "This Design" - "Room Settings"). You can only use the function keys (F1 though to F12). Some of these keys already have shortcuts assigned to them.

Creating a shortcut.

Shortcuts are stored in C:\articad\accelerators.txt. By default it should open in "Notepad", though you can use any text editor.

NOTE - Exit from ArtiCAD before editing the accelerators.txt file. You should also make a backup copy of the original version supplied.

Below is the standard accelerators.txt supplied with ArtiCAD:

c67 = 5025    Ctrl+C to copy selection in drag drop
c88 = 5024    Ctrl+X to cut selection in drag drop
c86 = 5026    Ctrl+V to paste selection in drag drop
c87 = 6009    Ctrl+W to run a wizard
c90 = 7500    Ctrl+Z to undo
sc90 = 7501   Shift+Ctrl+Z to redo
46 = 7506     Delete to delete
120 = 7507    F9 to duplicate
39 = 7508     Right arrow to move along
37 = 7509     Left arrow to move back
38 = 7510     Up arrow to go up a level
40 = 7511     Down arrow to go down a level
112 = 7512    F1 to edit
114 = 7513    F3 for measurement cursor

A shortcut consists of three parts:

key code = menu code     description

• key code - the number corresponding to the key you press e.g. pressing "F5" generates the number 116. See the Key Codes table below.
• menu code - the number corresponding to a menu within ArtiCAD e.g. "Mode" - "Drag and Drop" has the number 7054.
• description - anything after the menu code is treated as a description. Can be left blank.

As an example we will create a shortcut for "F6" to be the equivalent of clicking "View" - "3D Perspective" - "Normal View". From the key code table we see the number for "F6" is 117, and from the menu code table we see the code for "Normal View" is 7009.

Putting this information together, we would add the following line to accelerators.txt:

117 = 7009       F6 for normal view

Should you need more keys than F1 through F12, you can specify a key pressed with "Control"/"Ctrl", "Shift" or both.

• a key code with "c" infront denotes having "Control"/"Ctrl" pressed at the same time.
• a key code with "s" infront denotes having "Shift" pressed at the same time.
• a key code with "sc" infront denotes having "Shift" and "Control"/"Ctrl" pressed at the same time.

For example:

s117 = 7010       Shift + F6 for back against selected wall

sc117 = 7011       Shift + Control + F6 for bird's eye view

NOTE - F1 and F3 are already defined in the standard accelerators.txt.

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