Marking Menu

In all the years I’ve been using Inventor, nothing has gotten me more excited than the new marking menu for 2012. It’s a tool that Autodesk pulled from the Alias product line, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it included in all the software within the next two releases.

The new marking menu takes the tools from the menu and moves them to cardinal directions around the mouse at the moment of right-click. For example, Finish Sketch is always south when I have a sketch active; or Done (Esc) is nine o’clock on the dial whenever a tool is active. This gives me the ability to simply remember the location on the dial and not its location in a toolbar, ribbon, or menu list.

The other, and more important aspect of the tool, is that I don’t have to wait for the list to appear. If I click and hold the right mouse button down and slide in the direction of the tool that I have memorized, it will perform the action without the marking menu or the menu list even appearing.

Here is how to interact with the marking menu and how to customize it.

Using the marking menu is easy; simply right-click. Once the menu appears, move your cursor to the tool you need and select it. If you accidently right-clicked, or you find that the tool you are looking for is not there, click inside the menu without any tools highlighted. Depending on where you are within the software, different menu options will appear.

Standard Sketch MM

Standard Part MM

Extrude Command MM

My favorite part of the marking menu is the speed at which I can work. I don’t have to wait for the tools to become available, and I don’t have to hunt through a list of tools I seldom use.

To customize the marking menu, go to the tools tab of the ribbon and select Customize (ironically this is not part of the marking menu set). From here, switch to the marking menu tab and then select the type of environment you are working in, along with the sub-environment if needed. Most of the time, the “None Selected” is the sub-environment you are looking for.

In my case, I made an easy change. I switched the position of Extrude and Revolve, since I don’t use Revolve as much and wanted Extrude to be my three o’clock choice. To do this, simply select the location you want to change, then select the new tool from the list, which is filterable and searchable.

My customized marking menu.

You can also restore defaults from here and change what displays as well as Import/Export these settings for others to use.

The biggest piece to this tool is the speedy way to use it once you are familiar with the location of the tools. Right-click and drag into the direction of the tool. In my example, I am already finished with my sketch and I want to Extrude, so I drag the right-click to the right, and…Voila! It starts the tool without showing me the menu. This allows me to work incredibly fast within the software, accessing tools that I would normally span the screen to find. This limits my mouse/hand movements and, ultimately…simplifies my workflow!

Dragging a right click.

I hope you find this handy tip to be informative and useful.

This page last edited on Friday, September 09, 2011