How do I get my custom .tbr to show up every time in NX 7.5?

[rickemeyer]

I have created my own .tbr file, but I have to load it every time I start NX. Is there a way to have it remember to load it every time?

Also, why in the world would NX move to predominantly dropdown style picking on a lot of commands? The rest of the world found out dropdown menus make for SLOW PICKING back around 1998 or so. Way to go backwards NX!! It takes me twice as long to do most commands now, because they are so pick intensive. Selecting a point? Dropdown. Selecting a plane? Dropdown. Selection filter? Dropdown. It's ridiculous.

 

[MarckyMON]

Dropdowns are more compact because they take far less space than single buttons. Imagine you had a single button for each command in NX - you wouldn't have much space to do any modeling!

In order to load your toolbar each time, you will need to add the folder containing the toolbar in the custom_dirs.dat file.

Suppose your toolbar mytoolbar is in c:\temp\startup\mytoolbar.tbr.
In the custom_dirs.dat, you will need to add c:\temp, or if you have assigned an environment variable, you will need to add something like $MYTOOLBAR_DIR, where MYTOOLBAR_DIR points to c:\temp.

Marc
NX Software Developer

 

[capnhook]

Twice as long to do most commands now = twice as many licenses to sell.

Brilliant.

Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community..

 

[rickemeyer]

Thanks Marc, I will try that for the toolbars.

As for the dropdowns, I'm not asking for every command to be available in a button everywhere, but I think you had it right in NX3 where a series of buttons were always shown in the dialog box for whatever operation you were at. Take for example "transform point to point", I have to pick a dropdown every time i want to pick a specific point, where in NX3 they were all shown at the top of the dialog box. Or to split a body, I have to move through a series of dropdowns to pick "3 points" as my plane, where in NX3 it was on a button shown in the dialog box. I work in die design, and I hear MANY complaints about this same thing from peers! We actually have to quote the jobs for more money because we know it will take longer to do them.

 

[cowski]

In many of the dropdown menus, the last item is 'Show Shortcuts'. If you select this it will replace the dropdown with icons of the options. Of course, sometimes there are too many options to show them all as icons so you are back to a dropdown, but if your most used option makes the cut it may speed you up a little.

 

[rickemeyer]

Thanks cowski! That doesn't completely solve the problem, but it does help a lot. I'd never clicked on that before.

When you select points and planes all day long, those extra picks really add up.

 

[MarckyMON]

In addition, you can customize any NX toolbar and "extract" dropdown items and place them in any toolbar. Just right click on any gray toolbar area, the go to customize, then you can drag and drop any icon around as you like.

Marc
NX Software Developer

 

[rickemeyer]

Marc,
I tried that, but the dropdowns i would like to have on a toolbar are the plane selection buttons, like point & direction or three points. I can't go to customize while I'm in the middle of a command or it goes away so I can't select it to drag it.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Have you established a 'user folder' for customized menu and toolbar files? If not, create a folder somewhere (name is not important). Inside this folder create another folder named 'startup' and place your new .tbr file in this folder. BTW, this .tbr file, it has a new unique name, correct? If you're attempting to replace an existing toolbar by the same name, you will need to place it in a folder named 'application' instead of the one named 'startup'. Now set the following environment variable:

UGII_USER_DIR=<path to the 'user folder' I told you to create above>

Now when you start NX the system will know about your new toolbar file. The first time to start NX after this you may still have to toggle it ON, but it will on list of available toolbars when you over the 'Customize' menu. Of course you will need to save your role is want this toolbar to always come-up displayed and ready to use.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

UG/NX Museum:

http://www.plmworld.org/p/cm/ld/fid=209

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