AUGIWorld Magazine - March/April 2008 - (Page 10) Re-envisioning Design with AutoCAD 2009 There are a few things in life that we can all count on: the sun rising and setting each day, Shaan Hurley on a quest to find a piece of AutoCAD’s past, and a new release of AutoCAD® software. A year has passed since the last version of AutoCAD and it is time for Autodesk to unveil the next release of AutoCAD to the world outside of those who braved the beta program to get a glimpse at what was to come. AutoCAD 2008 evolved the way we annotated our drawings with annotation scaling, viewport overrides, and multileaders. AutoCAD 2009 introduces a re-envisioning of the user interface. When you first open it you will find that it will look somewhat familiar—if, that is, you are using Microsoft Office 2007. This release contains a wide spectrum of drafting and viewing enhancements, along with a feature called the Action Recorder, but the most noticeable change is the look and feel of the software’s user interface. Over the last few releases, the user interface has received a nip here and a tuck there, and gained some new features in the sense of Workspaces and the Dashboard palette. One might expect that the user interface would get a few more minor tweaks this time as well, but that is not the case with AutoCAD 2009. The user interface in 10 Figure 1: The new user interface Environment overhaul this new release has been given a complete overhaul (Figure 1), and for some, the change might be shocking at first. The first thing you might notice is the lack of toolbars or menus, but in their place is the ribbon, a button with a red letter “A” on it, and a toolbar known as the Quick Access toolbar. The ribbon is a tabbed interface that is displayed along the top of AutoCAD and is used to organize tools by drafting task. Clicking on a tab allows you to access the associated panels of that tab. A panel is the interface element that is responsible for organizing commands and controls that you used in previous releases. Which w w w. A U G I . c o m http://www.augi.com
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