Tips and Techniques

Customizing CATIA V5 with Accelerator Keys

A standard installation of CATIA comes with pre-assigned accelerator keys - also referred to as hot keys. Some commonly used hot keys are CTRL+S for File+Save, CTRL+Z for Undo, F1 to launch CATIA help etc. You can program your own accelerator keys for functions that you frequently use. This would provide quick access to the function with a key stroke combination.

In this example, we will outline how to program the "Up Arrow" and "Down Arrow" keys to perform graphics Zoom In and Zoom Out.

From the Tools pull down and select Customize

Figure 1 Tools + Customize pull down

A Customize window is displayed as shown in the following figure.

Figure 2 Customize Window

Select the Command tab. In the Categories column select "View". In the Commands column scroll down the list and select "Zoom In". Pick the "Show Properties" button.

Figure 3 Sequence of steps to select the Zoom In function

The "Customize" window will expand to show the command properties in the bottom part as shown below.

Figure 4 Assigning the Up arrow key to the Zoom In function

Select the "Other…" button. A "Key" window is displayed as shown in the figure above. Scroll down the list and select "Up". Notice that "Up" is now shown as the accelerator in the "Customize" window. Pick the "Close" button in the "Key" window and then pick the "Close" button in the "Customize" window.

The "Up" arrow key on your keyboard can now be used to Zoom In the graphics window. In a similar fashion you can assign the "Down" arrow key to the Zoom Out function. See figure below.

Figure 5 The Down arrow key is assigned to the Zoom Out function Note: For faster zooming you may wish to deselect "Animation during viewpoint modification" under Tools + Options + Display.

Figure 6 Deselecting animation during viewpoint modification

Important Note In a standard CATIA installation the Up and Down arrow keys are assigned to Pre-selection Navigator.

Figure 7 Pre-selection Navigator By performing the above customization you will re-assign the arrow keys to the zoom functions. You will lose the pre-selection navigator functionality from the keyboard. You can turn on the appearance of the "Pre-selection Navigator after " option under Tools + Options + Display.

Figure 8 Selection automatic appearance of the pre-selection navigator The pre-selection navigator will come on automatically after the preset time (2 seconds in this case) and the mouse can be used instead of the arrow keys to navigate.