Tool Palettes

[jbayne]

We have set up a few standard tool palettes for the company use. We have them set to refresh from the Content Browser. When they do the order is different from what they are assigned on the palette and even the order that is shown on the Content Browser. Is there a way to lock the position of the tool on a palette even through refreshing?

[arcadia_x27]

Its my experience that The tools will order themselves Alphabetically in the content browser and you have no control over that. As far as having them stay in a certain order on the Tool Palette you can right click over the name on the particular tool palette, select "properities" and turn off the auto refresh check box. You then should be able to move around your tools as you like without them switching back.

[papurajx]

I have created a custom catalog for our office usage and published in the network. I tried to create a palette by 'i-droping' the 'new palette' on the palette set in the drawing and got it created. I just wanted to make a change in one of the tool say a 'door tool' to create a custom tool as recommended in the tutorial set. So, the first step,I uncheck the 'refresh from' by right clicking on the palette properties window. The next step to change the property of the tool, I right click the 'door tool' and select properties, I see the 'refresh from' being greyed out and I cannot make any changes to the name, properties, default value etc.

How do I activat it? Is it some kind of write protction?

Any help?

[Steve_Bennett]

I have created a custom catalog for our office usage and published in the network. I tried to create a palette by 'i-droping' the 'new palette' on the palette set in the drawing and got it created. I just wanted to make a change in one of the tool say a 'door tool' to create a custom tool as recommended in the tutorial set. So, the first step,I uncheck the 'refresh from' by right clicking on the palette properties window. The next step to change the property of the tool, I right click the 'door tool' and select properties, I see the 'refresh from' being greyed out and I cannot make any changes to the name, properties, default value etc.

How do I activat it? Is it some kind of write protction?

Any help?

My first suggestion would be to avoid the Content browser. I've had issues with it in the past. The Content Browser is usually the last thing I'll work with when creating custom tools. I'm not sure which tutorial you're referring to, so here are some other ways to try making custom tools for palettes.

1- Open Style Manager & copy a style from an existing one in the Style Manager. Edit the style as needed. Then, while still in the style manager, drag the style onto your tool palette.
2- Go to the location of the style drawings in Docs & Settings & copy the style drawings for the type of object you want. Copy a style from an existing one in the copied drawing. Edit the style as needed. Drag the object from model space onto your tool palette.

Once you've done this, drag your tool palette to the content browser, test & distribute.

Hope this helps.

[Scott D Davis]

On the AUGI top ten wishlist for AutoCAD, #3 was for better tool palettes especially for network installs, so that they can be shared more easily.

[chris.yanchar]

My first suggestion would be to avoid the Content browser. I've had issues with it in the past. The Content Browser is usually the last thing I'll work with when creating custom tools.

What type of issues have you had?

Thanks -

[Steve_Bennett]

Lets just say, we rebuilt an extensive catalog a couple time due to someone not listening to me. The issues we had were the course of nature when implementing any new platform - which is what our company did recently when going to ADT2004. The catalogs are very location specific & so are the files that run the tools residing in the catalogs. As long one knows how everything works together, there shouldn't be much of an issue. I didn't mean to completely avoid it all together. It should be the icing on the cake when deploying custom content.

[chris.yanchar]

Lets just say, we rebuilt an extensive catalog a couple time due to someone not listening to me. The issues we had were the course of nature when implementing any new platform - which is what our company did recently when going to ADT2004. The catalogs are very location specific & so are the files that run the tools residing in the catalogs. As long one knows how everything works together, there shouldn't be much of an issue. I didn't mean to completely avoid it all together. It should be the icing on the cake when deploying custom content.

One improvement in ADT 2005 is the ability to "publish" a catalog. This is a right-click option off a tool catalog inside Content Browser that allows you to copy or move a catalog to a new location and have any style drawing dependancies within the tools in the catalog resolved to a new location. But I see you are 2004 so your only option is to find/replace the raw xml of the catalogs files (.atc) or recreate.

HTH