Customizing The Marking Menu in AutoCAD Electrical

First we should discuss what the marking menu is and how it works. If you recently upgraded from 2012 or previous, you noticed the right click menu has changed into a circle of commands instead of the usual menu.

This menu can be used exactly like the previous one. By first right clicking and then left clicking the desired command. However once you know the location, or direction, of the commands, simply hold right click and drag in the general direction and the command in that direction loads.

Depending on your workflow, you may find that several of the options on the marking menu are not used that often. In my case I use Copy Wire Number far more than Bend Wire. In this example I will replace the Bend Wire command with Copy Wire Number.

For the most part, everything about the user interface is driven by the .cuix file. Modify this file by selecting CUI at the command line. There are may things that can be done here but we will focus on modifying the right click menu on this post.

The marking menus are found under the heading “Shortcut Menus.” Expanding one of them shows the commands that would be shown on the marking menu when that menu was called for.

Not the number of menus… this isn’t as simple as changing one menu and your done. These menus are context sensitive. So there are several of each type.

For wires there are the following menus: Wires, Hot Wire menu only – Wires, and Hot Wire menu only - Wires with no gaps. So all three may need to change depending on the command.

Next we need to make sense of the order of the commands. The CUI editor shows them in list form. But the right click menu is a circle. I know we can simply swap out the one being replacing but its good to know the order. From the Electrical help I found the following.
 
So that translates into the following.
  
On to making the command swap. I have found the command I wish to swap out…

And now to find the command I wish to replace it with. Simply type the name of the command into the command search bar of the CUI window.

Next drag the command from the search results up into the menu above.

After Removing the Bend Wire command I’m done with this menu. On to the other wire menu with Bend Wire.

             And finally test the menu.