The Command Bar

The command bar is the quickest and easiest way to tell Eagle what you want. Finding and clicking on buttons is slow and error prone. Not least of all because the icons are small and hard to tell apart.

You can type commands to affect almost any aspect of Eagle, from choosing tools to toggling view elements.

Whenever I mention a text command in this book, you'll be typing it into the command bar and pressing enter. Most text commands have short hand versions, for example:

• grid can be written as gr
• ratsnest can be written as ra
• route as rou (but not ro because that's short for rotate)

...and so on.

Running Previous Commands

You can use the up and down keys on your keyboard to navigate recent commands. There is also a drop down toggle on the right of the command bar. Drop down the menu to see a list of recent commands.

Getting Help For A Command

You can type help command into the command bar to get help for a specific command.

For example, type help grid and you'll see a full description of the grid commands. The help dialog will include examples and tips, so it's well worth reading for the commands you use often.