Differences from AutoCAD

MellowCAD follows AutoCAD 2027: the same commands and aliases, the same order of prompts, the same option letters and defaults. It parts from it only where the browser forces it or where the feature around it does not exist here. Each difference below says what AutoCAD does, what MellowCAD does instead, and why. What a single command still lacks is linked from its entry on the commands page.

One drawing at a time

AutoCAD opens a new drawing in a tab of its own and keeps the old one open. MellowCAD holds one drawing: NEW and OPEN replace it, and after NEW a single U brings the previous one back.

Saving downloads a file

MellowCAD keeps the drawing in this browser as you work, on this device only. QSAVE, SAVEAS and SAVE all download a file in MellowCAD's own versioned format: a browser download always asks for the file's name, so saving over the current file, under another name or as a copy cannot be told apart.

Keys the browser keeps

A page never receives Ctrl+W, which closes the tab, nor Ctrl+N, which opens a window. Selection cycling, AutoCAD's Ctrl+W, is F4 here; AutoCAD spends F4 on 3D object snaps, which a 2D drafter does not have. A new drawing is NEW, typed.

Dynamic input is always on

Dynamic input cannot be turned off, so its key, F12, is left to the browser.

Model space only

There are no layouts and no plotting: the screen is the only place a drawing is seen. So lineweights show from the start (LWDISPLAY on, where AutoCAD starts with it off), and the status bar's MODEL is a label rather than a switch to a layout.

Command-line versions of some dialogs

Where AutoCAD opens a dialog that does not exist here, the command asks its questions at the command line, as its dash version does: COLOR runs -COLOR, LWEIGHT runs -LWEIGHT, and LINETYPE runs -LINETYPE. DIMSTYLE and STYLE open the Styles palette, with the dimension or text styles.

Every linetype is loaded

A new AutoCAD drawing holds a single, continuous linetype, and the others are loaded from a file. With no Linetype Manager to load one, every drawing here comes with all of them loaded.

Coordinates in the status bar

AutoCAD has hidden the cursor's coordinates from its status bar since 2015. MellowCAD shows them, as it has no other readout of the cursor; the status bar's Customization hides them.

Arabic uses English AutoCAD's commands

There is no Arabic AutoCAD, and whoever drafts in Arabic works in the English one. So in Arabic the interface speaks Arabic and the command line speaks English AutoCAD: the same names, aliases, prompts and option letters. A Ctrl shortcut works whatever the keyboard layout, as a desktop program's does: Ctrl+Z is undo even when the Arabic layout types a letter.