© 2002 Joe Tilman
This quick reference is provided for experienced AutoCAD users who have made, or are considering making the leap to TurboCAD. The change is mostly one of "paradigm" -- of pattern or even habit -- AutoCAD is a command-line driven program, while TurboCAD is purely GUI. Many AutoCAD crossovers feel almost at a loss without the command line, but the keyboard is well used by TurboCAD, and can actually speed drafting greatly once one learns how to master the concept of "SEKEs".
Single Entry Keyboard Equivalents (SEKEs) are hotkeys that you can customize to your liking, giving you access to nearly 500 possible combinations (from the average 104-button keyboard). Of those 500, I would guess that 250 would be convenient and even meaningfully used as shortcuts to TurboCAD's tools. TurboCAD comes with 160 SEKEs predefined -- you have no reason to keep them, if you can think of preferable keystroke combinations. As an example, TurboCAD's default SEKE to bring up the Properties dialog box is CNTL+F -- but I am a Lotus user and prefer ALT+Enter, while Microsoft users may prefer CNTL+1. To customize the SEKEs, use the pull-down menu Tools | Customize, and in the dialog box under Keyboard, you can customize almost every tool in TurboCAD. Be sure to save your SEKEs in a new configuration file. Also, be sure not to use combinations that are Windows default hotkeys, such as ALT+Space, ALT+[-], CNTL+TAB, etc. TurboCAD keeps a list of SEKEs -- including your customizations -- under Help | Keyboard.
The references below refer specifically to versions 7.x and 8.x of TurboCAD and AutoCAD 2000 and 2002 (as denoted), although they are reasonably useful for TurboCAD versions 4.1 (LE) through 9.x and AutoCAD releases 12 through 2004.
Most system variables are contained under the Options | Program Setup and Options | Drawing Setup, while others are localized in the Inspector Bar, Selector Properties, or tool specific Properties dialog boxes. Also, most can be configured (with surprising recognizability) in the TCWxx.INI file.
I welcome and will gladly answer questions at joe@tilman.us, but I encourage questions to be posted on IMSI's TurboCAD Forum, the ITUG Forum, or the TurboCAD File Library's Message Board where A) other users will benefit from the knowledge you seek, and B) more brains will wrap around your question to help squeeze the correct answer(s) out.
Respectfully,
Joe Tilman
AutoCAD 2002 to TurboCAD v8.x Quick Reference (PDF-99KB)
AutoCAD 2000 to TurboCAD v7.x Quick Reference (PDF-32KB)
Users of AutoCAD release 14 that are testing TurboCAD using the free Learning Edition can find the original AutoCAD to TurboCAD reference on IMSI's TurboCAD documentation page.