Quick Tips Title

Marking Menus

The Marking Menus allow you to speed up interaction by putting the tools you use most into pop-up palettes. These appear at your cursor location so that you reduce the 'mouse travel' needed to go to the menu or palette tools.

Use CTRL + SHIFT together, and the three mouse buttons to access the three Marking Menus.

Marking Menus interface

Default Marking Menus

The default Marking Menus provided when you first start Alias provide a large range of tools, some of which you won't need as a beginner. These are offered as one example of how Marking Menus can be used, and most users modify these to customise them to their own settings (see below).

However, if these defaults have been adopted as a company standard, then you may choose to learn and use them.

Default Marking Menus

Simplified Marking Menus

The default shelves can be too complex for beginners, so a smaller set has been provided with these tutorials.

With only four tools on each menu, the mouse gestures are more instinctive (North, South, East and West) and are easier to learn. You are encouraged to modify and add to them gradually as your Alias skills and preferences develop.

Note that Pick → Object and Pick → Nothing (and other key tools) have been left in the same location as the Default Marking Menus. This is because usage becomes very instinctive, and it's difficult to change habits if you temporarily use another person's Marking Menus.

Simplified Marking Menus

To switch to the simplified Marking Menus:

Customising your own Marking Menus

Marking Menus become really powerful when you tune them to your own workflow by choosing your preferred tools. Each Marking Menu is a shelf (see Customising Shelves for more information on shelves), and can be customised as follows:

The Order of Tools on the Marking Menu

Order of Tools on the Marking Menu

The Number of Tools on the Marking Menu

Number of Tools on the Marking Menu

Saving Modifications to the Marking Menus

Once you have added tools and tabs to the Marking Menus, you must save them:

Saving the Marking Menus

To save the Marking Menus as the default, AND all other changes to the interface:

To save only the changes to the Marking Menus as the new defaults

OR...

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