Topic Title

From a personal message I've extracted this tutorial.

Miguel,
Can you tell me how to use the Alt Extended Keys to create shortcuts ?
I would like to create a shortcut that will toggle off the aperture. That is just one of a few short cuts I want to create. It appears I will need to use the shortcuts to do this.
Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
David Darr - DataCAD 11

Sure David.

While DATACAD do not give us a gift for an automatized engine for creating and personalizing 'short-cuts' I can teach a routine to get the extended characters to be used as short-cut keys.

With DataCAD shut down, and using Windows Explorer, enter on 'Support files' folder, inside DataCAD installation, where you will find the 'DCADWIN.MCR' file.
Open it with 'notepad' and you will search all short-cuts that works with the 'Alt' key on your keyboard, together with the letters 'A' thru 'Z'.
As you can learn with the written lines, there is a syntax for every command to be called with 'Alt+key'.

But, I must call your attention for don't confusing the 'Alt+key' in your keyboard (for calling a command using this short-cut), with the 'Alt+Extended characters' from the ASCII table which means typing a special character, usually employed for text purposes.

There is another table, which presents all ASCII extended characters on DataCAD that can be used for short-cuts. This requires a little more work for turning usable.

Suppose you want to redefine the 'Alt+Y' that is in my case currently set to call the 'Drawing Report', replacing its function with 'Snap Aperture Off'. The 'snap aperture off' is not in the built-in internal codes table but it is in the ASCII 'extended' codes.

Let's see it closely:

Y^!^34#^
//menu Drawing Report
This '34#' code is a DataCAD 'internal' code from the table of built-in codes: http://www.datacad.com/ddn/built-in_function_numbers.htm

The other table, which includes the 'Alt+Extended characters', also can be used in short-cuts or toolbars. But, they must be inserted with their 'SIGN' and not with the numbers that appears on this table. Here is the table of extended characters:
http://www.datacad.com/ddn/extended_character_codes.htm

Now you will ask the question: "How can I get the real code 'sign' ?"
You will get it in a text-only editor, like 'notepad'. Open a blank file in notepad and keep pressing 'Alt' key, and, using the numerical keypad, type the number of the table that corresponds to the command you want to access.

Here fits a warning: This table is not actually updated (what I will require from Dave) because it shows the extended characters only with their significative numbers, but the ASCII extended codes recognition requires four (4) numerical digits, what means that for getting the extended code for '31' (extents) you should type 'Alt+0031'.

The 'Snap Aperture Off' command is located on number '0207'. Keep the left 'Alt' pressed and type 0207 on numerical keypad. You will get the sign 'Ï'.
Copy it and paste it in the command line as here below. Don't forget to remove the '#' sign.

Y^!^Ï^
//Snap Aperture Off

Save the DCADWIN.MCR file and enter DataCAD. It will read this file once, on start up.
Since then, the 'Alt+Y' short-cut is available to you, for turning Off aperture.

The change and creation of screen toolbars is a bit more elaborate, but it follows this same logical action.

Hope this helps.
Miguel