Some functions are available both on the command line and in a dialog box. In many
cases, you can enter a hyphen before the command to restrict the dialog box and display
prompts to the command line instead. For example, entering layer on the command line displays the Layer Properties Manager. Entering -layer on the command line displays the equivalent command line options. Suppressing the
dialog box is useful for compatibility with earlier versions of AutoCAD-based applications
and for using script files. There may be slight differences between the options in
the dialog box and those available on the command line.

These system variables also affect the display of dialog boxes:

• ATTDIA controls whether INSERT uses a dialog box for attribute value entry.
• CMDNAMES displays the name (in English) of the currently active command and transparent
  command.
• EXPERT controls whether certain warning dialog boxes are displayed.
• FILEDIA controls the display of dialog boxes used with commands that read and write
  files. For example, if FILEDIA is set to 1, SAVEAS displays the Save Drawing As dialog
  box. If FILEDIA is set to 0, SAVEAS displays prompts on the command line. The procedures
  in this documentation assume that FILEDIA is set to 1. Even when FILEDIA is set to
  0, you can display a file dialog box by entering a tilde (~) at the first prompt.

• HPDLGMODE controls the display of the Hatch and Gradient dialog box and the Hatch
  Edit dialog box.

FILEDIA and EXPERT are useful when you use scripts to run commands.