Drawing Window (Screen Elements)

Malz++Kassner CAD6 can work with up to four drawing windows open at the same time. A different view of the same drawing can be displayed in each window. To do this, a separate coordinate system can be allocated to each drawing window (see Coordinate Systems > Edit). The drawing windows are the application's actual work space. All point entry is carried out in drawing windows. Many commands and keyboard commands are only available when the mouse pointer is within a drawing window.

The mouse position in a drawing window is indicated by a cross hair and not by a pointer. The crosshairs make it easier to recognize horizontal and vertical movement. The intersection of the crosshair's lines is the current drawing position. The coordinates of this point are shown in the Status Window if it is turned on. In addition, the mouse position can be read from both Rulers.

The number of drawing windows is controlled with the command Drawing Settings > Screen. Several layouts are available which all have one thing in common. All drawing windows in a layout have the same height/width relationship. This has the advantage that the contents of two windows can easily be swapped. (e.g. see Enlarge Window 2). The size of the drawing windows changes automatically if the size of the main window is changed. Individual drawing windows cannot be resized.

If several drawing windows are visible, then one of them will always be "active". Which window is active can be seen by the way the rulers are displayed. A window is activated by clicking on its rulers with the left mouse button. Most commands which modify window-specific settings (e.g. Zoom > Section) relate to the window in which the mouse cursor currently resides. If the mouse cursor does not reside in any drawing window, the "active" window will be used instead.

If only one drawing window is displayed, it is automatically the active window.

Context Menu

The drawing window has a context menu from which certain settings relating to it can be changed. Right-click the window's scale to open it. The following commands are available (partly depending on the clicked position):

Select Coordinate System

Use this submenu to select the active coordinate system for this drawing window (see Manage > Coordinate Systems > Edit).

Edit Element

Use this command to edit the elements associated to this button (layers, pens, coordinate systems, hatchings, or pages) in the appearing dialog.

Display

Use this submenu to determine for which of the five elements (layers, pens, coordinate systems, hatchings, or pages) a selection button shall be displayed along with an insert of the element's name next to it. In addition, you can choose to display the current zoom along with a zoom menu available on left-click.

Opacity

Use this submenu to determine the opacity of the element names' insert, i.e. how much the drawing area shall be concealed.