A flyout is a toolbar that appears as a single icon on a toolbar, until you click on it and drag down. You can identify flyouts because they always display a tiny triangle in the lower-right corner . You can use flyouts to combine several toolbars into a single toolbar, if desired. In this exercise, you add the Reference toolbar to the Nuts and Bolts toolbar you created in previous exercises.

1. Right-click on any toolbar, then select Customize.

2. Select Customize.

3. From the Categories list, choose Custom.

4. Drag the Flyout icon into your toolbar. The flyout icon is the blank icon with a triangle in the lower-right corner. See figure 1.

5. Right-click on the flyout icon.

6. Type Reference Toolbar in the Name box.

7. Type Displays a flyout with Image and Xref commands in the Help box.

8 .From the Associated Toolbar list, choose ACAD.Reference. See figure 2.

9. Choose Apply to make the change to the toolbar take effect.

10. Close the Flyout Properties dialog box.

11. Choose Close to close the Customize Toolbars dialog box.

12. Choose Close to exit the Toolbars dialog box.

13. Click on your new flyout icon and drag down to display the flyout. See figure 3.

As you can see, adding flyouts to your toolbars is a relatively simple process. If you wish, you could create several toolbars, then use this technique to create a single "master" toolbar that treats them all as flyouts. Now that you have learned to create tools, toolbars and flyouts, you are ready to add your own menu macros and symbol libraries to AutoCAD's user interface.

PART 1

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