Menus exist in CUI and workspace, but refuse to display.

[jguest82179]

OK, I thought I was getting my head around the new CUI reasonably well and I still think that it has great potential even if the implementation was particularly clumsy this time around, however I am obviously still having some issues.

My current problem is this: I have created a couple of new pull down menus using the CUI and after some initial teething problems they were working great. I went back in yesterday to add a few more items to the same menus and now they are refusing to display (the whole menus, not just the additions) when I exit the CUI and return to AutoCAD.

Everything else looks fine, they are exactly where they should be in the workspace etc. and they were the only things I changed. I am not getting any error messages at all, but they are simply not displaying.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

[Gary.Orr]

While I do not have an answer to your post, I do believe that I can shed some light on the issue from a similar problem that I have encountered.

My issue was: The workspace showed my pulldown menus in the desired order, but were not actually appearing that way when closing the customize dialog.

What I found was a conflict between the CUI file and the ...\Profiles\<current profile>\Menus section of the registry. The CUI file showed the menu in the fourth position, while the Registry was indicating that it was last.

The registry setting was dominant.

My investigation continues.

[robert.1.hall72202]

The registry dominance makes some sense. So what you are implying here is that the CUI isn't making the correct changes to the system registry upon user customizations?
Wouldn't surprise me.

[Gary.Orr]

Not just implying... I've just put toolbar settings (visibility and location) to the test as well. Same result.

My helpdesk time is about to take a drastic upswing.

Gary

[jguest82179]

What I found was a conflict between the CUI file and the ...\Profiles\<current profile>\Menus section of the registry.

The CUI file showed the menu in the fourth position, while the Registry was indicating that it was last.

The registry setting was dominant.

Where exactly in the registry are you referring to, Gary? I have had a look but I can't seem to pinpoint the info that you are referring to.

Also, my problems have grown significatly since my first post!

Since ACAD Mech was refusing display my customizations I loaded the custom.cui file that I had created which (I thought) only included these two extra pull down menus into Building systems. Here they displayed perfectly (after getting through the issues of an ACAD Mech workspace trying to be inplemented in Building Systems - Oops! Not pretty!) and also allowed me to continue with some further customisations.

Now I come back to it a couple of days later and find that whilst the new pull downs still display in Building Systems, I can no longer make any changes or additions to them as the 'Custom.cui' is now apparently Read-Only!!

Now as far as I know I have not done anything to make this the case, and all of the other settings that I could think of to check indicate that this should not be the case, but nonetheless it remains Read-Only and refuses to budge. GRRR!!

[Steve_Bennett]

Now I come back to it a couple of days later and find that whilst the new pull downs still display in Building Systems, I can no longer make any changes or additions to them as the 'Custom.cui' is now apparently Read-Only!!

Now as far as I know I have not done anything to make this the case, and all of the other settings that I could think of to check indicate that this should not be the case, but nonetheless it remains Read-Only and refuses to budge. GRRR!!

Try specifiying in options which CUI file is to be used as enterprise & main & hopefully it will allow you to edit it after this.

[jguest82179]

Try specifiying in options which CUI file is to be used as enterprise & main & hopefully it will allow you to edit it after this.

Thanks Steve, but I don't think that's the problem.

My "Custom.cui" is the main customization file, and my "Acadm.cui" is the Enterprise customization file - as per the instructions in other threads here.

As I said, everything worked fine for a week or so and then it appears to have simply stopped working. Now I know that this doesn't make any logical sense, but I'm sure that I haven't changed anything to make this happen so I am at a complete loss as to what went wrong here.

[robert.1.hall72202]

I am having a similar issue where I cannot reorder the menus............the windows and help menus have somehow snuck into the middle of the row.

[Gary.Orr]

Sorry for the delay in responding... The area of the registry that is causing the conflict is:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R16.2\ACAD-4001:409\Profiles\<<Unnamed Profile>>\Menus

Variables in this string include:
ACAD-4001:409 will be different depending on the version of AutoCAD that you have;
<<Unnamed Profile>> will be the name of the profile that you are working on.

The "POPx" values are the order of your visible pulldown menus with POP1 being the first menu item and continuing upward through... (I forget what the max is).

These values are stored as part of the user's profile (and can be shared via importing and exporting) between users. (Sorry if I'm wasting your time with things that you already know, but that knowledge is important to understanding the mess.)

If your workspace indicates that menu "X" should be the fourth item while the profile in the registry indicates that menu "X" is POP6, the menu item will appear as the sixth item.

AutoDesk always includes a strong caution about editing the registry, yet they constantly force us to go there to fix these kinds of issues.

I'm continuing my research into this and hope to develop a programatic solution until AutoDesk discovers and fixes this bug (Oops, did I say that word?)

Good luck and let us know what you find.

Gary

[jguest82179]

OK, well I know it's been a while, but I've been busy and it slipped my mind to post the answer to my problem here even though I found it (with help) some time back. Sorry to anyone who's been hanging out for the answer.

The first part of my problem, that of the menus refusing to display, was never actually resolved - I simply wrote it off as either my stuff-up and part of the learning curve or simply yet another bug in the CUI.

The second part of my problem, that of the CUI going into 'Read-Only' mode, I discovered was definitely due to my inexperience with the CUI - I wasn't aware that Workspaces and other information were included in the "custom.cui" file, and as such it cannot me loaded directly into another AutoCAD, especially one that has another vertical application sitting on top of it. e.g. Loading a "Custom.cui" that was made in ACAD Mech into ACAD Elec is definitely a No-No! That is what the "Transfer" tab in the CUI is for - and it works quite well I must add.

However - there has become a third part to my problem just this morning, and I'm quite sure that it is closely related to the first part. Here it is:

I've been happily using the CUI now for a while, and after reading a number of discussions here on AUGI and elsewhere I thought I had it to a point where I was happy with it.

Then today I go to add some items to my pull down menus and everything looks perfect within the CUI, I click OK and it does its little rebuild of the menus etc. and I go to my pull down and nothing has changed.

"Oh, darn, I must have hit 'Cancel' instead of 'OK', that was silly - now I'll have to do it again."

So I goes and does it all over again, being very careful to first select 'Apply' and then 'OK' and then I go and check my pull down - NOTHING!!

Now I KNOW that I have not changed anything that should have any effect on this since performing EXACTLY the same task yesterday with no problems whatsoever, so if somebody can come up with a logical explanation to this then I will not only be grateful, but extremely surprised.