3.10. Command Line

The command line strip at the bottom of the window serves two purposes:

1. Output — IQcad writes operation prompts, results, and messages here.

2. Input — type a command alias and press Enter to activate a tool or run an operation.

While a tool is active, the command line shows the current prompt (e.g. “Specify start point:”). Type coordinates as X,Y and press Enter to supply a precise point.

3.10.1. Command Suggestions

As soon as you start typing at an idle Command: prompt, a suggestion popup opens below the input box (AutoCAD-style), listing matching commands as name (aliases) — description. Matches are ordered exact name/alias hits first, then name/alias prefixes, then plain substring matches, each group alphabetical and case-insensitive; up to 8 rows show at once with the rest reachable by scrolling.

• Up / Down — move the highlight between suggestions.

• Enter — run the highlighted command, or submit the typed text as-is if nothing is highlighted.

• Tab — fill the input with the highlighted (or first) suggestion without running it, so you can keep editing or add options.

• Esc — dismiss the popup first; press again to clear the input.

• Click a row to run that command immediately.

The popup only appears while the command line is idle — it stays out of the way during an active tool’s sub-prompts (e.g. PEDIT’s option letters). It has no on/off setting; it is always available.

3.10.2. Command Reference

3.10.2.1. Drawing Commands

Command	Alias	Action
LINE	L	Start the Line tool.
POLYLINE	PL, PLINE	Start the Polyline tool.
MULTILINE	ML	Start the Multiline tool.
ARC	A	Start the Arc tool.
CIRCLE	C	Start the Circle tool.
ELLIPSE	EL	Start the Ellipse tool.
SPLINE	SP	Start the Spline tool.
RECTANGLE	REC	Start the Rectangle tool.
HATCH	H	Start the Hatch tool.
TEXT	T	Start the Text tool.
MLEADER	MLD	Prompt for label text, then start the Multileader tool.
POINT	P, PT	Start the Point tool.
XLINE	XL	Start the XLine (infinite construction line) tool.

3.10.2.2. Modify Commands

Command	Alias	Action
ERASE	E	Erase selected objects. If nothing selected, prompts “Select objects:” — pick then right-click to confirm.
MOVE	M	Move selected objects.
COPY	CO	Copy selected objects.
ROTATE	RO	Rotate selected objects.
SCALE	SC	Scale selected objects.
OFFSET	O	Offset an entity by distance or through point. Supports Line, Circle, Arc, XLine, Polyline, Ellipse, Spline, Rectangle. Options: T = through, E = erase source, U = undo. Phantom preview shown.
MIRROR	MI	Mirror selected objects.
TRIM	TR	Two-phase: select cutting edges (or ALL), then click objects to trim.
EXTEND	EX	Two-phase: select boundary edges, then click the end of a line to extend.
CHAMFER	CHA	Pick two lines to chamfer. D sub-option sets distances ($CHAMFERA / $CHAMFERB).
FILLET	F	Pick two lines to fillet. R sub-option sets radius ($FILLETRAD).
BREAK	BR	Break an entity between two points. F = re-pick first point, @ = break at a single point with no gap.
JOIN	J	Join lines, arcs and polylines that touch into a single entity.
ALIGN	AL	Align objects using 1–2 source/destination point pairs, with optional scaling.
DIVIDE	DIV	Place point entities dividing an entity into N equal segments.
MEASURE	ME	Place point entities along an entity at a fixed interval.
ARRAY	ARR	Rectangular, polar or path array of selected objects.
PEDIT	PE	Edit a polyline. Sub-options: Close/Open, Join, Width, Edit vertex (Next/Prev/Move/Insert/Delete/Straighten), Spline, Decurve, Reverse. Converts Lines, Arcs and Circles to polylines (a circle becomes a closed three-vertex polyline, start point repeated as the end point, with bulge 1 on both halves).

3.10.2.3. Super Tools Commands

See Super Tools for full descriptions.

Command	Alias	Action
FLATTEN	—	Set Z = 0 on selected objects (or the whole drawing).
PLSIMPLIFY	PLSIM	Simplify polyline vertices (Douglas–Peucker); prompts for tolerance.
PLGETZ	PGZ	Get Z from surface/PC on polylines and lines (multi-select).
BESTFITLINE	BFL	Best-fit 3D line through selected points/vertices.

3.10.2.4. View Commands

Command	Alias	Action
ZOOM	Z	Sub-options: E = extents, W = window, + / - = in/out.
PAN	—	Activate real-time pan (middle-mouse drag).
REGEN	—	Force a full redraw of the canvas.

3.10.2.5. Settings Commands

Command	Alias	Action
UNITS	—	Opens a multi-step wizard to set linear units, precision, and angular units.
SETVAR LTSCALE	SV	Set the global linetype scale factor ($LTSCALE).
LAYERS	LA	Opens the Layer Manager dialog.
MAKELAYER	—	Create a layer from the command line. Usage: MAKELAYER name [color]. Colour is either an AutoCAD Color Index (1–255) or a named shortcut (RED / YELLOW / GREEN / CYAN / BLUE / MAGENTA / WHITE). Defaults to white when omitted. Use this for scripted layer setup; the GUI LAYERS dialog covers the rest of the management workflow.
CURRENTLAYER	CLAYER	Set the active drawing layer. Usage: CURRENTLAYER name. Frozen layers are refused.

3.10.2.6. Inquiry Commands

Command	Alias	Action
LIST	LI	List selected object properties.
ID	—	Click a point — report its world X, Y, Z.
DIST	DI	Measure distance between two points.
AREA	AA	Measure area (pick points or select object).
ANGLE	AN	Measure angle (vertex + two points).

3.10.2.7. Surface Commands

Command	Alias	Action
CREATESURFACE	CS	Create a TIN surface. If survey points exist they are triangulated automatically; otherwise an empty surface is created for later population.
ADDSURFACEPOINTS	ASP	Add all survey points in the drawing to a named surface and build/rebuild the TIN.
ADDSURFACEENTITIES	ASE	Add selected drawing objects (3DFace, Line, Polyline, Point) to a surface.
REBUILDSURFACE	RS	Rebuild an existing surface TIN from current survey points.
ADDSURFACEBOUNDARY	ASB	Add a boundary to a surface (select a closed polyline).
DELETESURFACE	—	Delete a surface by name.
DECIMATESURFACE	DS	Decimate (simplify) a TIN surface.
SURFACEPROPERTIES	—	Display surface statistics.
SPOTELEV	SE	Place a spot elevation label on a surface.
ADDCONTOURLABEL	ACL	Place contour labels along surface contour lines.

3.10.2.8. Alignment Commands

Command	Alias	Action
ALIGNMENT	ALG	Create a horizontal alignment by picking PI points.
ALIGNREVERSE	—	Reverse the direction of an alignment.
ALIGNPROPS	—	Display alignment properties in the command line.
ALIGNFROMPOLYLINE	AFP	Create an alignment from a polyline.

3.10.2.9. Profile Commands

Command	Alias	Action
QUICKPROFILE	QP	Quick profile along a line or polyline.
CREATEPROFILEVIEW	CPV	Create profile view from alignment + surface.
DESIGNPROFILE	DP	Create design profile (vertical alignment) in profile view.
PROFILEPROPS	—	Display profile view properties.

3.10.2.10. Cross-Section Commands

Command	Alias	Action
CREATESECTIONSHEET	CSS	Create a cross-section sheet from alignment + surfaces (command-line wizard; retained for scripting and power users).
CREATESECTIONSHEETDLG	CSSD	Open the Create Section Sheet dialog — a two-tab modal GUI that gathers all parameters at once: alignment, one or more surfaces each with a per-surface line color, station interval, left/right width, optional station range (From / To), columns and rows per sheet, optional cut/fill base + comparison surfaces with cut/fill colors, and advanced display settings (vertical exaggeration, grid major/minor intervals and colors, auto-fit elevation band, area labels, title). After clicking OK the user picks an insertion point on the canvas and the sheet(s) are created. Per-surface colors, cut/fill colors, grid settings, title, and station range are saved in the .iqz file and survive alignment edits and resample. The CSS command-line wizard is retained unchanged. This command is also reached via the Civil → Section Sheet ribbon button.
EARTHWORKVOLUMES	EWV	Compute earthwork volume table (average end area method).

3.10.2.11. Coordinate Transformation Commands

Command	Alias	Action
CSTRANSFORM	CST	Global coordinate transformation (Helmert, Affine, Polynomial).
RUBBERSHEET	RBS	Non-uniform rubber-sheet transformation (Linear or Smooth TPS).

3.10.2.12. Layout Commands

Command	Alias	Action
LAYOUT	LO	Sub-options: N = new, D = delete, L = list, S = set active.
MVIEW	MV	Create a viewport in paper space (must be on a Layout tab).
PAGESETUP	—	Open page setup dialog for the active layout.
PLOTPDF	PDF	Export the active layout to PDF (EXPORTPDF is the older equivalent).
PLOT	PRINT	Open the Print dialog (Ctrl+P).
PLOTALL	—	Export all layouts to a multi-page PDF.

3.10.2.13. Scripting Commands

Command	Alias	Action
SCRIPT	SCR	Run a .scr text file of commands. SCRIPT with no arguments opens a file picker; SCRIPT <path> runs the file directly. See Scripting for the file format, examples for each entity type, and limitations.

3.10.3. Entering Coordinates

When a tool is active and waiting for a point you can type a coordinate at the command line instead of clicking on the canvas. The same five forms work for every drawing tool — LINE, CIRCLE, ARC, POLYLINE, RECTANGLE, ELLIPSE, POINT, SPLINE, HATCH, and the rest:

• Absolute 2D: X,Y — e.g. 100,50. Z inherits from the previously-entered point (or 0 if this is the first input).

• Absolute 3D: X,Y,Z — e.g. 100,50,12.5.

• Relative: @dX,dY[,dZ] — e.g. @10,0 (10 units to the right of the last point).

• Polar relative: @distance<angle — e.g. @25<45 (25 units at 45° from the last point, angle in degrees).

• Survey point: #N — e.g. #42, looks up survey point number 42 in the active drawing’s survey database and uses its (Easting, Northing, Elevation).

Press Enter or Space to confirm. Press Escape to cancel the current prompt.

The “last point” used by @-relative and @dist<angle forms is whichever world point you most recently entered into the active tool — whether by clicking on the canvas or by typing a previous coordinate. That lets you mix mouse picks with typed input freely inside a single drawing operation.

Note

IQcad’s drawing tools require two world points for “circle by centre + radius point” — there is no AutoCAD-style shortcut where a bare scalar (e.g. 10) is interpreted as a radius. To draw a circle of radius 10 centred at the origin, follow CIRCLE with 0,0 and then 10,0 (a rim point at distance 10), or @10,0 after the centre.

3.10.4. Running Scripts

The SCRIPT command (alias SCR) plays a text file of commands. This is useful for repetitive setup work — applying view defaults, running a sequence of operations, or replaying a recorded series of inputs.

Invoke it in one of two ways:

• SCRIPT — opens a file picker filtered to *.scr / *.txt.

• SCRIPT <path> — loads the named file directly. Relative paths are resolved against the working directory. Quote the path if it contains spaces, e.g. SCRIPT "C:\Project Setup\boilerplate.scr".

You can also reach the same workflow from Tools → Run Script….

3.10.4.1. File format

Plain UTF-8 text:

• Lines starting with ; are comments (leading whitespace allowed).

• Spaces inside a line act like Enter — the line is split into whitespace-separated tokens and each token is fed to the dispatcher in turn. Matches AutoCAD’s script convention.

• A blank line acts like a right-click — it finishes the active drawing tool (POLYLINE / LINE chain / SPLINE / etc.). At the empty Command: prompt with no tool running, a blank line is a no-op.

• A double-quoted string ("…") is one token even if it contains spaces — useful for file paths. The surrounding quotes are stripped.

• Anything else is fed to the dispatcher exactly as if you had typed it at the prompt.

Example script (samples\scripts\draw_demo.scr):

; Three lines in three commands, two of them on one line each
LINE 0,0 10,0
LINE 0,5 10,5
LINE 0,10 @10,0

; Circle of radius 5 centred at (20,0)
CIRCLE 20,0 25,0

; Same circle using polar
CIRCLE 30,0 @5<0

; Polyline closed by the blank line below
PLINE 0,20 5,25 10,20 15,25 20,20

ZE

While a script is running, each executed line is echoed back to the command line as [script] <line> in grey so you can follow what’s happening. A successful run ends with Script complete. in green.

3.10.4.2. Stopping a script

• Esc cancels both the currently-running CAD command and the script itself — the player exits and the command line returns to the normal prompt.

• The script stops automatically on the first dispatch failure (unknown command name) or unhandled exception, reporting the line number so you can find the bad line: Script stopped at line 9 (dispatch failed).

3.10.4.3. Limitations

• Bare scalar radius / distance — AutoCAD’s CIRCLE / 0,0 / 10 (single number for radius) is not supported. IQcad’s CIRCLE wants two world points, so use CIRCLE 0,0 10,0 (rim point at distance 10) instead.

• Modal dialogs opened by a scripted command (e.g. LAYERS, MAPSETTINGS) block until you close them manually — the script pauses, then continues with the next line.

• Layer creation — use MAKELAYER name [color] to create a layer and CURRENTLAYER name to make it active; the LAYERS dialog itself is modal and blocks playback until closed manually.

Three sample scripts ship under samples\scripts\:

• hello.scr — single-shot view commands, smoke test for the SCRIPT command itself.

• setup_view.scr — reset the view to north-up zoomed extents.

• draw_demo.scr — exercises typed coordinates with LINE and CIRCLE.