HOW TO CONFIGURE "PRESS AND OLD" RIGHT BUTTON MENU ? 1

[JBIM]

HI,

How to configure "press and hold" right button menu?

Is it possible ?

thanks

 

[Xwheelguy]

Please specify which version of NX you're using when you have a problem or question. This is important because sometimes the answer to a question is completely different from one version of NX to the next.

See the attached PDF for your answer. Note this may only apply to NX4 and NX5. BTW, this is referred to as the Radial Popup Menu in case you weren't aware.

Tim Flater
Senior Designer
Enkei America, Inc.

http://www.enkei.com

Some people are like slinkies....they don't really have a purpose, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.

 

[JBIM]

You right, I´am using nx4 and nx5

Thanks for the file attached

But this menu transforme if, for example you call it above a component in an assembly or in drafting if you are in background or above a dimension.

All this pop up mb3 menu should be custumizable but how ?

thank again for the first post

 

[Xwheelguy]

To my knowledge those types of Radial Popup Menus are not customizable in NX. It might be an O/S limitation rather than an NX limitation. If it's not an O/S or NX limitation, then I agree, we SHOULD be allowed to customize these popup menus.

Incidentally, I think you initially meant that when you HOVER your cursor over specific object types, you get a completely different Radial Popup than if you just MB3 click and hold over nothing, which is what I thought you meant. Since you didn't mention anything other than MB3 and hold, this ended up making a BIG difference in the answer I provided. Not a big deal to me, but it does matter what information you provide from the start.

Please be sure you provide as much detail as possible when you ask a question, as that can sometimes affect the response you receive.

Tim Flater
Senior Designer
Enkei America, Inc.

http://www.enkei.com

Some people are like slinkies....they don't really have a purpose, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.

 

[hudson888]

I haven't found a way to customize the radial pop-up menus. I was just interested in commenting on Tim's post as it reminded me of the way these are implemented in Alias (surfacing package). They're known as marking menus and are fully customizable, using hot-keys to bring up different versions so that you can access a great many functions. With NX heading towards roles and having application context such that your drafting versus modeling, or sketcher menus can differ then perhaps doing something with expanding and customizing this approach would be a valued innovation. The mode of operation is generally holding down a hot-key in combination with a mouse button displays a circular arrayed menu of options that the user has customized. Users of Alias at least become very adept at it and because it seems to allow you to go from one command to another without drawing your focus away from the work area to the edges of the screen in order to find icons it feels very engaged and isn't a bad way to work.

Best Regards

Hudson

 

[MSPBenson]

Hudson,

I've seen/used alias a little too and the way they have the radial style menus is awesome.
As you can customise it yourself you can set all of youre most used commands up just on the radial menus.
By adding alt ctrl & shift key combinations it means you can have around 52 commands just off the radial menus. This is not taking into acoount mouse button combinations that would increase this even more.
The amount of mouse movement is cut down drastically.
If you imagine the amount of distance in a day you move the mouse from the main UG modelling window up to an icon and back it adds up to a huge amount of time.
I've watched a competent alias user create surfaces extremely quickly and to be fair UG has most of the same features but it would have taken me a whole lot longer.
There will always be a learning curve to working this way which would probably mean a short term productivity drop but for a long term increase.
The other advantage is of course that you can get more screen area as you need far fewer icons.
I don't think the alias menu is context sensetive so you get the same menu if you are over dead space or over model geometry which I do find better. The number of times I've wanted to change to wireframe in UG but had to zoom out to click on a bit of blank screen.
Personally I'd love to see this as a future enhancement.


Mark Benson
Aerodynamic Model Designer

 

[Xwheelguy]

I called this in to GTAC for adding the ability to customize the radial popup menu for all situation and hopefully it will be turned in as an ER.

Tim Flater
Senior Designer
Enkei America, Inc.

http://www.enkei.com

Some people are like slinkies....they don't really have a purpose, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Note that there are archtectural limitations here that would not be trivial to overcome or to account for.

For example, the MB3 pop-up for View operations is built from a menu file, which means that you can edit it to control both the content of the normal pop-up menu as well as the radial pop-up, and there's even work being done to perhaps provide users with a means to edit these pop-ups using normal Customization tools, but ONLY for the View pop-up.

However, the MB3 pop-ups that you get when you've selected some feature or geometric object are not being created from a menu file that you could edit. Rather we have a single mechanism which reads the object highlighted and from this object itself, determines what options to include in both the MB3 pop-up as well as the radial pop-up. There are no menu files that are user editable, but rather the list of valid options are created on-the-fly, as it were. We chose this approach since it allows us to make changes to the global behavior of pop-up menus (including the radial pop-up) without having to go around and update literally dozens and dozens of menu files. This also allows us to add new object types, or update an existing object, and all we have to do is include, for this object only, the options that the developer wishes to be available from the pop-up menus, but these records are tied to the object type, not to the pop-up menu mechanism.

Anyway, I hope this gives you a better understanding of what this sort of enhancement would entail.


John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[Xwheelguy]

I was aware of this prior to calling GTAC. I was thinking it might have been an O/S limitation rather than something that was planned out like this.

I see both sides of the fence on this, but if you think about it, customizing these radial menus would be very nice and keep the user more focused on what they're working on rather than diverting their attention to toolbar locations or pulldowns.

Tim Flater
Senior Designer
Enkei America, Inc.

http://www.enkei.com

Some people are like slinkies....they don't really have a purpose, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Don't get me wrong, I myself asked for this very same capability when these Radial Pop-ups were first implemented, which is why I'm now aware of the archtectural issues.

Also note that I've already customized the View Pop-up since I have a means to do that and would also like to at least have the chance of customizing some of the object specific ones as well.

Now, if what it is that you wish to tha some other current function/utility be available from the Radil Pop-up for certain objects types, a better ER request might be to have these options added to the current Radial Pop-ups. Granted, a general customizing capability would be better, but in all honesty, it might be easier to get this on a case by cases basis if there are some obvious situations where additional option could be included now.


John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[MSPBenson]

John,

I personally don't like the context sensitive style of the radial popups and would be keen to have these depend on combinations of keyboard presses (ctrl, alt, shift & combinations) and mb3 clicks. As I mentioned previously it can be a pain to find some dead space on the screen if you're zoomed in too much and also to get object rather than feature context sensitive menus is not that slick.
You could have it so that without pressing a key an MB3 click is context sensetive and then when you press your key combinations with MB3 that it overides it and uses user customisable menus. This may make programming it a little easier as youre adding onto what's already there.

Another really useful thing would be a middle mouse button click to repeat last command. Middle button clicks on there own don't have an action assigned at the moment. This would lend itself to people who use middle clicks to "OK" at the end of a feature creation as this closes the dialogue.


Mark Benson
Aerodynamic Model Designer

 

[hudson888]

Glad to have started a few people thinking about things, but I'd hate to lose OK off the middle mouse button if that was to be the price of this change.

This is not to say that I don't see the point of wanting to stay in certain dialogs in order to repeat the operation selecting another object as the target. If the operation of that function is somewhat contextual it would be a great idea, so that where okay is valid now the operation would become either okay or apply, but when the dialog is exited and you're doing nothing then the middle button becomes let's do another one.

It is also the sort of thing that needs to be combined with making the mode of operation consistent across all operations.

Just my Opinion

Hudson

 

[MSPBenson]

Hudson,

My point is that MB2 would be ok in all dialogus as it is now.
When you don't have a dialogue open it would act as repeat last command.
Try a middle mouse click on your screen when you have no dialogue open and you'll see it does nothing at the moment.

Hope that's clearer.

Cheers,


Mark Benson
Aerodynamic Model Designer

 

[Xwheelguy]

MB2 does have a function, as part of rotating, panning and zooming when held, but maybe a click and release could invoke a repeat of last command.

I was thinking about how nice a repeat would be.

Tim Flater
Senior Designer
Enkei America, Inc.

http://www.enkei.com

Some people are like slinkies....they don't really have a purpose, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Note that the primary purpose of MB2 (AKA, Middle Mouse Button) is what we call the 'Default Action', which in the past has generally been OK when in a dialog. Note that starting in NX 5, when you're in a dialog you will now be able to see what the 'Default Action' is (i.e., what happens when you press MB2) as that item will be shown in Green. Of course, pressing and holding MB2 will still allow you to rotate the display, whether a dialog is open or not.


John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

 

[hudson888]

I'm with Mark Benson on reading the clarification.

However the need to maintain rotation functions is also worthy. Having recently established how very cheap Space Navigators have become, so few of us are mindful of the need to work any other way

Regards,

Hudson