AutoCAD 2009 Released

Today, March 25, Autodesk released AutoCAD 2009. It is compatible with 2007 and 2008 (same drawing format)

The primary thrust of this update is the User Interface, or UI. It has been completely revamped (and not all for the better, in my opinion). The plan was to mimic Microsoft's Office 2007 UI. I don't care for the idea myself.

 

Three things are going to impact you right away

1. The most noticeable addition is the Ribbon Menu. This menu first appeared a few versions ago as the Dashboard. We didn't use it then and probably won't right away now. It allows access to all of the AutoCAD commands in a task-oriented manner. The problem is that it is slow to switch between tabs and flyouts. It is also difficult to program as it appears this part of the Ribbon package is not quite done yet. We will be customizing new HydraCAD task-oriented tabs as some point in the future, if we can overcome some of the inherent difficulties with that.

2. The other big change is that the pulldown menus are shut off by default and replaced by a Big Red A. Clicking on the Big Red A will give you the pulldown menus but in a vertical format, not a horizontal one. Personally, I hate this.

3. The Model space/Layout tabs are not turned on by default. Why? who knows.

So here are the solutions:

1. Type in RIBBONCLOSE to turn off the Ribbon menu or type in RIBBON to turn it on

2. Type in MENUBAR and enter 1 to see the pulldown menus

3. Right click on the Model icon and select Display Layout and Model Tabs to see those.

The 45.05 update on the website will automatically take care of the first two for you. You will have to handle the third on your own.

You are probably also going to want to turn on AutoCAD's Layer and Properties toolbars (for some reason these are also off by default). To display these, right-click next to a docked toolbar and pick AutoCAD and select these toolbars.

 

To be sure, there are some good things in here. I will go over those in the next few weeks.

PS - If you are using SMaRTools, you will need to reinstall them to configure them properly for AutoCAD 2009. Simply download and run the latest SMaRTools update.