Following the current instruction, the command line prompt may display command options. The current instruction describes drawing area operations or immediate input of values. The command options describe toggles, or command branches. These options should be enclosed in square brackets and separated by slashes. If appropriate, the word “or” may precede the bracket. The bracket, slashes, and the word “or” should be suitably localized.
The format for options is as follows:
[Option1/oPtion2/opTion3...]
The brackets are designed to help the user to identify the available command branches. They are also used by AutoCAD to process the keywords for presenting in the context (right-click) menu while the options are displayed on the command line.
Each option keyword must have a shortcut key, indicated in uppercase and unique to that string of options. When necessary, an option may have two keys used together to indicate that option.
Example:
Command: -rename
Enter object type to rename [Block/Dimstyle/LAyer/LType/Material/multileadeRstyle/Style/Tablestyle/Ucs/VIew/Vport]:
Capitalization of options should follow standard user interface guidelines as used in menu accelerators (single mnemonic characters, consonants preferred to vowels, and so on) for new commands. Existing commands should retain their current shortcut keys.
Options should be listed or grouped by function. A suggested logical order would be most-often-used option, options related to that one, other options that can be grouped, and exit (if necessary).
Example:
Command: grid
Specify grid spacing(X) or [ON/OFF/Snap/Major/aDaptive/Limits/Follow/Aspect] <0.5000>:
Only when no logical order is apparent are the options listed in alphabetical order. This would be true in cases where all the options are equally likely to be used, and do not bear any relationships to each other.
Example:
Command: zoom
Specify corner of window, enter a scale factor (nX or nXP), or [All/Center/Dynamic/Extents/Previous/Scale/Window/Object] <real time>:
Because option keywords for native commands are presented in the same order regardless of language, alphabetic organization tends to break down when the command is translated.