How to Lock down the AutoCAD User Interface

Did you ever go to grab some AutoCAD geometry and accidently ‘Nudge’ a control instead?

I was trying so show my colleague Steve some cool stuff today, when I accidentally moved one of his toolbars. Thankfully, Steve had saved his workspace, so no harm done.

However it did prompt Steve to ask the question:

‘How do I lock the position of my toolbars?’

I thought that this would make a good subject for a quick tip, and I cooked up this video to go with it – enjoy!

‘I just want it to stay how I set it!’

The Autocad User Interface or ‘UI’ – is Unlocked by default. You can move any of the controls (Toolbars, Palettes, floating ribbon tabs) anywhere you like.

Once you have it all set up how you want it you can lock the UI by clicking on the padlock icon in the bottom right hand side of your screen.

If you don’t see the Padlock, click on the arrow at the extreme right hand end of the status bar to pop up a list of elements that you can add or remove. The padlock is activated by checking the ‘Display locking’ option.

Now everything is locked down and you won’t accidently mess up your cool stuff!

But, what if you just need to budge that one Palette over just a little? You don’t need to unlock the UI, just hold down the control key to override the UI lock down and move or resize your controls.

Find out more about locking the AutoCAD UI in this post I wrote for Ellen Finkelstein’s Blog.