To use a procedure, simply follow the directions that appear in the prompt area near the bottom of the main window, as shown here:
The button marked X in the above figure is the Cancel button; click this button to cancel the entire procedure at any time. The arrow to the left of the Cancel button is the Previous button; click it to abort the current step of the procedure and return to the previous one. (The Previous button appears dimmed during the first step of any procedure.) If you prefer, you can place the cursor over the canvas and press mouse button 3; then select Previous Step or Cancel Procedure from the menu that appears.
A Stop button appears in the prompt area during certain time-consuming operations, such as part healing or meshing or the extraction of X–Y data from history for large models. You can click Stop to interrupt and cancel the operation.
Many procedures require textual or numeric data; for example, when creating a fillet using the Sketch module, you must first specify the fillet radius. When textual or numeric data are required, ABAQUS/CAE displays a text field in the prompt area for you to fill in; usually the text box will already contain a default value, as shown here:
To accept the default value, press either [Enter] or mouse button 2.
To replace the default value, simply begin typing; you need not click the text field before typing. The default value disappears as soon as you begin to type.
To change a portion of the default value, first click the text field; then use the [Delete] key and the other keys on your keyboard to change the value.
To commit any changes, press [Enter] or mouse button 2.
You can also enter an expression in a text field in the prompt area. For more information, see “Entering expressions,” Section 3.2.2.
Some procedures require you to choose from a number of options. For example, the Datum toolset may ask you to choose a principal axis. Such options are represented by buttons in the prompt area, as shown here:
In some procedures a default option is indicated by a border around the corresponding button; in the above example the border is drawn around the X-Axis button. To select the default option, click mouse button 2.
