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1991-01-05
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ACDCHORD is an "ADI mouse translater" driver. ADI stands for
Autodesk Device Interface, the standard method for AutoCAD to
communicate with third party device drivers.
ACDCHORD allows the use of "chords", or multiple button presses,
on a mouse. With ACDCHORD, a two button mouse acts like a three
button mouse (left, right, and left-right) and a three button mouse
acts like a seven button mouse (left, right, middle, left-right,
left-middle, right-middle, and left-right-middle). A "multiple
button press" is defined as pressing more than one button in such a
way that at some instant more than one button is pressed. ACDCHORD
doesn't consider any button as pressed until all buttons are
released. For example, if you press and hold the left mouse button,
press and release the middle mouse button, and then release the left
mouse button, that's a "left+middle" chord.
ACDCHORD requires MOUSE.COM or MOUSE.SYS or your mouse
manufacturer's driver installed in order to operate.
ACDCHORD has been tested with AutoCAD release 10 and AutoCAD
386 release 10.
ACDCHORD is public domain, and is distributed with source code.
Jon Fleming
144 Nagog Hill Road
Acton, MA 01720
BIX: jfleming
PCBOARD BBS's: Jon Fleming
host, PCBRelay CAD conference
MOUSE.COM PROS AND CONS
The AutoCAD documentation is not particularly detailed in its
explanation of how various options for configuring your mouse work.
In order to understand the pros and cons of using a mouse driver,
some explanation is necessary. This explanation is written mostly
for the Logitech C7/C9 mouse user (since that's the only kind of mouse
I have), but some of it will be applicable to other mice.
The Logitech mouse can be installed for AutoCAD in three ways.
Each has advantages and disadvantages.
Method 1. Tell AutoCAD that you have a Logitech "R5 or R7"
mouse. MOUSE.COM must NOT be loaded, and AutoCAD runs the mouse
directly. Advantages: minimum memory usage. Disadvantages: you
can't run ACDCHORD; mouse response may be jerky if background
programs such as print spoolers are running; running mouse
applications in a shell from AutoCAD may leave the mouse disabled
when you return to AutoCAD.
Method 2. Tell AutoCAD that you have a Logitech "C7" mouse.
MOUSE.COM must be loaded, but AutoCAD will only use MOUSE.COM to
initialize the mouse and will run it directly thereafter (as if you
had told AutoCAD you have an R5 or R7 mouse). Advantages I don't
know of any. Disadvantages: same as method 1 with the addition of
higher memory usage.
Method 3. Tell AutoCAD you have a Microsoft mouse. MOUSE.COM
must be loaded, and AutoCAD runs the mouse through MOUSE.COM.
Advantages: you can run ACDCHORD, mouse response will be smooth even
with background programs running, running mouse applications in a
shell will rarely interfere with AutoCAD's mouse operation.
Disadvantages: higher memory usage; the meaning of the right and
middle buttons will be swapped relative to methods 1 and 2 which may
confuse users. (Using methods 1 and 2, with the standard AutoCAD
menu, the middle button is "ENTER" and the right button is "OSNAP
pull down menu". Using method 3, the meaning of these buttons is
reversed.) This can be changed by editing your menu file (see
below).
INSTALLING ACDCHORD
ACDCHORD is a TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) or "memory
resident" program. It uses some of your memory space, but few of us
will miss the 512 bytes (1/2 K) that it requires. It must be loaded
before your run AutoCAD. It can be loaded before or after MOUSE.COM,
but MOUSE.COM must be loaded before you run AutoCAD. I have
successfully loaded ACDCHORD and MOUSE.COM "high" on several machines
using QEMM v5.0.
The command line for ACDCHORD is as follows:
ACDCHORD [/Inn] [/Myy]
The switches in brackets are optional. "/" may be replaced by "-" if
you wish.
The /I switch specifies the interrupt that AutoCAD is to use to
communicate with ACDCHORD. The default is 79 hexadecimal. Few
people will need to change this; if it must be changed, deciding what
to change it to is beyond the scope of this documentation. If you do
use the /I switch, the number that follows it must be two digits in
hexadecimal without any "h" or other base specifier; for example,
"/I79".
The /M switch specifies a multiplier for "mickeys" or units of
mouse motion. Any mouse motion is multiplied by the multiplier
before being passed to AutoCAD. The default value is 24. The
multiplier can be changed after installation (see below), so don't
use it when you first install ACDCHORD. Try ACDCHORD with the
default of 24. If you don't like it, adjust the multiplier until you
find a value you like, then modify your installation command line
accordingly.
When ACDCHORD starts up, it will either report memory usage,
interrupt, and multiplier, or it will display an error message.
BALLISTICS
When running the mouse directly (methods 1 and 2 above), AutoCAD
moves the cursor farther when the mouse is moved quickly than when it
is moved slowly. This is called "ballistic effect". When you run
ACDCHORD, AutoCAD won't do this. Most mouse drivers offer ballistics
as an option, and mouse driver ballistics will work with ACDCHORD.
SETTING UP AUTOCAD: BASIC INSTALLATION.
After installing MOUSE.COM and ACDCHORD, start AutoCAD. From the
main menu type 5 and press "Enter" twice. Then type 4, "Enter", y,
"Enter". Select "ADI driver" or "Autodesk Device Interface" from the
list (do NOT select "ADI P386 digitizer). Then enter the interrupt
to be used (most will want the default 79h). Save your configuration
changes and try it out!
SETTING UP AUTOCAD: MENU FILES
The standard AutoCAD menu file assigns the following to the
buttons:
BUTTON ACDCHORD ACDCHORD ACTION
(2-button (3-button
mouse) mouse)
-1 left left pick
0 right middle "Enter"
1 left-right right OSNAP pull-down menu
2 N/A left+middle "Cancel" (twice)
3 N/A middle+right SNAP toggle
4 N/A left+right ORTHO toggle
5 N/A left+middle+right GRID toggle
If you don't like these assignment, you can change them by editing
the menu file. Button "-1" can't be changed. The others are defined
in ACAD.MND (or ACAD.MNU; ACAD.MND is transformed to ACAD.MNU by the
preprocessor MC.EXE that is supplied with AutoCAD). The section to
change looks like this:
***BUTTONS
;
$p1=*
^C^C
^B
^O
^G
^D
^E
^T
Each line after "***BUTTONS" defines what is done when a particular
button is pushed; the first line is for button 0, the second is for
button 1, and so on. See the AutoCAD documentation or any of the
third-party books on customizing AutoCAD for how to write menu files.
CHANGING THE ACDCHORD MOUSE MOTION MULTIPLIER AFTER INSTALLATION
At any time, the multiplier may be changed (if you are at the DOS
prompt, not from within AutoCAD. You can change the multiplier from
within AutoCAD by typing "shell" at the AutoCAD "Command" prompt.) If
you did not specify a /I switch when installing ACDCHORD, or if you
specified /I79, type:
ACDCHORD /Myy
where "yy" should be replaced by the new multiplier. "yy" may range
from 1 to 99.
If you specified the /I switch when installing ACDCHORD, and the
interrupt specified was not 79, you must specify the SAME interrupt
number when changing the multiplier:
ACDCHORD /Myy /Inn
where "yy" should be replaced by the new multiplier, and "nn" should
be replaced by the SAME number used when installing ACDCHORD.