Navigating FlexiCAD

These topics will discuss different aspects and techniques to Navigate through FlexiCAD.

Navigating in the canvas area.

In Touch mode:

• Move the canvas by dragging with 1 finger.
• Use 2 fingers to pinch-to-zoom in and out.
• To select objects in Touch Mode, use the ‘Select Object’ tool

In PC-Mode:

• Click the scroll-wheel on the mouse and move to real-time pan.
• Zoom in and out using the mouse’s scroll wheel.
• Left click to select objects. Hold shift and click to add additional objects to the selection. ‘ESC’ to cancel the selection.
• Right click to open the drop-down menu of the selected element. The pop-up menu changes if no element is selected.
  

Selection boxes:

When you left-click and move the cursor from left to right and click again to create a selection box, only the objects that are completely within the rectangular selection area are selected.
Left to right:

When you left-click and move the cursor from right to left and click again to create a selection box, only the objects that are completely within the rectangular selection area are selected.
Right to Left:

Navigation controls.

• Additional navigation controls are available in the bottom right corner of the FlexiCAD window.
• To automatically zoom the Canvas or page view to show all elements on the page, press the ‘Zoom Borders’ button. (Also known as ‘Zoom Extents’ or ‘Best Fit’)
  

Using the keyboard and mouse

• Depending on the selected command in FlexiCAD, inputs are made with the keyboard, the Flexijet or the pointing device (mouse). Values (coordinates, length) can be entered in the command line with the keyboard, or in the ‘coordinates’ panel. The cursor “jumps” automatically to the command line when inputs are made from the keyboard.
• An active command can be cancelled at any time by pressing the escape key (ESC). In the command window, the message ‘Cancel’ appears. Already drawn objects or elements of the object are not deleted.
• Commands are also terminated if after prompted to enter a value only the Enter key is pressed and no value is typed in the command line. The message ‘Cancel’ does not appear in the command window.
• Keyboard input and mouse actions can be combined. An active command can be cancelled by moving the cursor to the display area and pressing the right mouse button.

*If you haven’t selected a command, but want to select more than one object with the mouse, click each of the objects while holding down the Shift key.

Object Snap

With the help of Object Snap, you can snap points of an object or individual elements in the display area.

*Note: Object snaps behave differently when FlexiCAD is operating using Touch-mode. Click here to learn more about Touch-Mode.

When you start FlexiCAD, certain basic settings are predefined, and can be adjusted as required. Look at the window Draft Settings on the left side. Ensure the Properties window is visible, click left on Draft Settings (at the bottom of the window). From here, you may select the Object Snap settings you wish to turn On/Off.

The selected snap options are generally active and don’t have to be selected via the snap functions in order to use them.
If you deactivate these options, you can still select the appropriate object snap commands for single-use from the Contextual ribbon buttons, available when a command is active.

The snap functions highlighted in the draft settings are only active when a command that needs those has been activated (such as line drawing, dimensioning, distance measure…).

*The ‘F3’ button on your computer keyboard will toggle Object Snaps On/Off and display the new state in the Command Window.

Polar tracking

Polar tracking ‘snaps’ the cursor movement to specified angles when in proximity to those angles. When you create or modify objects, you can use polar tracking to display temporary alignment paths defined by the polar angles you specify.

Polar tracking can be turned on and off under the ‘Polar Tracking’ section of the ‘Draft Settings’ window. Similarly, the interval of degrees at which to track can be specified here, e.g. 45 will snap at every 45 degree interval.

Viewing in 3D

Multiple 2D folders, or true 3D elements can be viewed in 3D in FlexiCAD. The ‘Home’ or Project folder is a 3D folder, and selecting this folder by clicking on the text will show elements in 3D

Within a 3D folder, the view can be rotated using the ‘Dynamic 3D View’ function.

Select the ‘Dynamic 3D View’ function, and then left-click to rotate the 3D view.