What to do without the pull down

[gandocadguy]

I have a pull down menu that was created a couple years ago for AEC layers. It's formatted like the book and when you pick a item it sets the layer, color, weight, etc. Now my question is what's the best way to have something like this going forward? We skipped 2010 and area going to 2011. We use Civil 3D. I don't think ribbon tabs would work as there would be too many and icons would get confusing.

Any thoughts?

[rkmcswain]

Define "item"....
What did the "item" do?
Execute a menu macro, or a lisp function, or something else?

You can execute the same thing using a ribbon button, toolbar button, tool palette button, keyboard shortcut, etc.

Or were you mainly referring to the UI of the pull down menu itself, and not what it runs...?

[RobertB]

Define "item"....
What did the "item" do?
Execute a menu macro, or a lisp function, or something else?

You can execute the same thing using a ribbon button, toolbar button, tool palette button, keyboard shortcut, etc.

Or were you mainly referring to the UI of the pull down menu itself, and not what it runs...?Or even, "It's formatted like the book". What book?

[gandocadguy]

I've attached a combined screen capture of different parts of the menu.

First off the "book" is the A/E/C CAD standard V4.0. The menu groups of General, Civil, Survey, and Landscape are formatted the same as the layer tables in the book to allow people to find things easier. The menu is quite large as is the book.

You can see from the screen capture that each main heading is broken into sheet and model. Then from there it breaks out into different layer catagories and finally the description of what belongs on the layer. Selecting "loading docks" will make and set current the correct layer, load the linetype if needed, etc. That is done through a combination of macro in the menu and lisps.

The applications section is just some lisps or other routines we have combined in one place for easy reference. This can easily enough go on a ribbon panel.

The checklists section is a list of checklists for different plan types which opens a word document checklist. These too could go to ribbons fairly easily as the list is somewhat short.

Help doesn't really do much but e-mail me from autocad if someone has an issue.

Hopefully this answers the questions. I'm interested to hear what you guys think.

Thanks

[Opie]

You could always turn the menubar back on. It will allow you to use your old menu.

[gandocadguy]

You could always turn the menubar back on. It will allow you to use your old menu.

True. And that would be the easiest solution. But eventually the menu bar will go away and I'd like to atleast being planning for that.

[Opie]

Since the screen menu is still around, I don't see the menu bar leaving anytime soon either.

[RobertB]

First off the "book" is the A/E/C CAD standard V4.0. The menu groups of General, Civil, Survey, and Landscape are formatted the same as the layer tables in the book to allow people to find things easier. The menu is quite large as is the book.You mentioned that you were using Civil 3D.

So, presuming that you have a layer standard defined and a layer key style(s) using that standard, you can use the button shown in the attached screenshot to create/set active layers without tedious menu picking. (Or the mind-numbing maintainance that must create!) Of course, there is tedious dialog stuff, but it's all built-in and if you update the layer standard/key styles there is no CUI editing required.

[gandocadguy]

Thanks RobertB I'll take a look at that. If it shows the description field that might just work. Most people don't know what the layer name is but they know what they want to draw.