The Quick Tools Menu

Increase your productivity by quickly accessing many commonly used tools and tool groups from the Quick Tools menu in MicroStation.

There are a variety of ways to access the tools you work with. These range from selecting the workflow, ribbon tab, ribbon group, and tool to accessing a tool from a tool box or even a key-in. At Bentley, we want you to work the way you want. This is why we provide access to tools using a variety of different methods, allowing you to choose the method that works best for you!

Another option for quickly accessing many of the most commonly used tools is through the “Quick Tools” menu. The keyboard shortcuts <Q> or <[> open the quick tools menu. This pop-up menu contains shortcuts to frequently used tools and ribbon group pop-ups. By having two shortcuts, the Quick Tools menu is easily available from the left or right side of the keyboard, helping accommodate left and right-handed users.

 (Left - Pop-up menu displayed when you press <Q> | Right - Pop-up menu displayed when you press <[>)

Once the Quick Tools menu is displayed, the desired tool or tool group may be selected by either pressing the associated character displayed next to the name or by clicking on the tool with the mouse.

For example, you can press <QE> to activate the Copy Element tool.

To use the Quick Tools menu, do the following:

1. Verify that the input focus is set to Home. This can be observed by looking for the “house” icon located on the status bar in the lower-right corner of the MicroStation application window. (see Illustration 1)
2. Press the Quick Tools menu hot key (<Q> or <[>).
3. Pick the desired tool or tool group.

Give this productivity-enhancing feature a try today!

(Illustration 1)

Note: An easy way to return the input focus to Home is through the use of the <ESC> key. This key can easily be activated through User Preferences.