Boost Your Drafting Performance with eGrips in DraftSight: A Comprehensive Guide

Unlocking Drafting Potential with eGrips in DraftSight

In the realm of computer-aided design (CAD), DraftSight stands out as a powerful tool, offering capabilities that facilitate an efficient and dynamic drafting process. Among these capabilities is a feature known as eGrips. In this comprehensive guide, we delve into how eGrips in DraftSight can significantly enhance your drafting performance.

Understanding eGrips in DraftSight

In a standard DraftSight workflow, creating and modifying entities are both inevitable processes. While there is no shortcut to entity creation, editing entities is a different story. DraftSight offers a shortcut for entity editing called eGrips. When enabled, eGrips appear at the geometric definition points of a selected entity, typically as blue squares or sometimes as a cyan circle. Each eGrip, in its inactive state, is blue. Clicking on an eGrip activates it, turning it red. The default action of every eGrip is Stretch. However, if the entity does not support the Stretch command, Move is used instead.

Standard and Multifunctional eGrips

In DraftSight, eGrips can be standard or multifunctional. A standard eGrip, like the midpoint eGrip on a line, can only perform one action – either Stretch or Move. However, some eGrips, such as the endpoints on a line, can perform multiple modification functions, including Stretch or Lengthen. When you hover over an eGrip, it displays a function menu if it has one. If not, it is a standard eGrip with only Stretch or Move capabilities. Depending on the type of entity selected, you'll get a set of tools specific to that entity. For instance, selecting a Table will present tools specific to tables.

Custom Block eGrips

Custom Blocks in DraftSight, a relatively new feature, have their own types of eGrips, which define the element and activity associated with it. A door block with custom eGrips is a good example of this. The custom eGrips in this case are cyan in their inactive state, not blue.

Controlling eGrips

In DraftSight, you can customize your use and display of eGrips. From the User Preference tab of the Options dialog, in the Entity Selection entry of the Drafting Options menu item, you'll find eGrip entries. Here, you can enable or disable eGrip use, display them within blocks, or change their color or size based on your preferences.

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