Long-time tipster Leonid Nemirovsky shares with us an AutoCAD customization tip that will enable double-click editing of dimension text.

"Here is a tip to activate DDEdit when you double-click on mtext. First, initiate the CUI (Customize User Interface) by typing CUI on the Command line. Make sure you are working in the All Customization Files setting, as shown below.



"In Customizations, in All Files, highlight Double Click Actions and right-click on it. Select Create New Double Click Action. Name it something like DimEdit. In the Command List pane, locate the DDEdit command and drag it to the newly created DimEdit. Click Apply and close the CUI. Now if you double-click on any dimension, you will see the MText dialog box. Use the same method to add more double-click actions to other objects; just check the list if it is not already in the CUI."

Notes from Cadalyst Tip Reviewer Brian Benton: This is a powerful tip, or at least it can be. Imagine being able to edit or modify any object in AutoCAD with a double-click of the mouse! This customization is very easy to do.

I suggest you give the new action a unique name, because DimEdit (which the tipster recommends) is already an AutoCAD command. After you do so, enter the Object Name — this step was missed in the tip and is important. This tells AutoCAD what type of object to execute your Double Click command on. If you don’t specify Dimension, as shown below, then AutoCAD will not be able to Double Click dimensions, because you haven’t told it to.



Keep in mind that only a single command can be associated with a double-click action at a time. Once you assign a double-click action to dimensions, you cannot add any others. This limitation makes sense, because if you add a Double Click Action for an object that already has one, your new action won’t work. Make sure to look at all of the CUIx files too to make sure there aren’t any other Double Click Actions already there. If there are, you can always modify them; just find a command and drag it to the Double Click Action.