I'll bet you a dollar that you're using one of the new 'Roles' that we introduced with NX 4. The problem is that you chose one of the roles that has had the menus 'pruned', that is the not-as-often-used functions have been 'hidden'.
Now you have two choices to get the Macro option back on the Tools menu, but the easiest is to just go and select a role that has 'Full Menus'. You will notice if you go to the Roles pallete that each Roles comes as a PAIR. The first one uses the 'pruned' menus while the second one comes with 'Full Menus' (which is noted in the name of the role). So if you've used one of the standard roles, just go back and the select the second one in that pair.
The other option, which you might want to use if you're using a customized role that you've created, is to go back into Customize and reactivate the Macro item under the Tools pull-down by going to the 'Commands' tab on the Customize dialog and then over in the 'Commands' column go down to 'Tools', select it and then with cursor over it, press MB3 and select the 'Add or Remove Buttons' option. When the list of menu items come up, toggle 'Macro' back on.
If you go the customize route, remember to resave your customized Role after making the above change.
As to why we moved 'Macros' down one notch, as it were, is because in the long haul, Journal files will be replacing Macros as the recommended tool, so we really feel that if you can do what you need with a Journal, go that route. Otherwise, go ahead and use Macros since we are not actually going to obsolete them, we're just making them a non-preferred solution, and thus 'hidden' function.
Anyway, I hope that helps.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Product Line
UGS Corp
Cypress, CA
I would love to see UGS create something like a menu mapper similar to PTC's which shows where commands have moved to and how to deal with roles. I have yet to use NX4 and I'm not looking forward to the long game of icon hide and seek that will ensue when I start using it.
I'd like to know if a menu mapper is in the works and if so where it could be found. I think it would be a good Tip that can be added by someone to the Tips in this forum.
I know the toolbar files .tbr could probably be used for this but it would be nice to see something like PTC has -> see link below.
We're working on a 'Function Finder' for a later maintenance release of NX 5, perhaps around NX 5.0.2.x, which will work sort of like 'Google' in that there will either be an icon to open an entry field, or a permanent entry field, where you would type a key word such as, in this case, 'macro', and we will open a dialog showing a list of all of the commands related to macros, with the relevant Icon (if there is one), a short description of the function itself and info on where it's located. We hope to also provide the ability for you to just 'double-click', or some other gesture, on the item in the list which would launch the function immediately. There is also a proposal to give the user the option, in the case of a menu item or icon that was 'hidden', to have it activated as if you had gone through the Customize process manually.
Also being considered is to populate the 'key word' look-up list with terminology used in other popular (and perhaps NOT so popular) CAD products so that if you were migrating from some other system or needed to used NX in addition to a system that you were more familiar with, you could quickly find the equivilent NX functions. For example, some systems use the term "Round" where in NX we call it a "Blend". Also, we ourselves have been changing the names of functions, some of which you may have noticed, like in NX 4 we changed "Hollow" to "Shell", and "Taper" to "Draft", and in NX 5 there will be more renamed functions, such as replacing "Blank/Unblank" with "Hide/Show", and so we would include the 'legacy' terminology as well to help people moving from older versions of NX.
Anyway, this is not a 100% sure thing yet, but it something that we are working on and if we can get it put together in time, it should make one of the NX 5 MR's.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Product Line
UGS Corp
Cypress, CA
Thanks for the info, the key word search sounds like a good idea. It would kind of be like a thesaurus for CAD terminology. I know that Catia uses Show/No Show as it's terminology for UnBlank/Blank which is kind of interesting in a Glass half full or half empty sort of way. It might also be a way to suggest preferred methods for doing things with the new UI and try to break users out of there old habits of not using the sketcher which is one of the greatest additions in the NX functionality.
This might be a bit of work for names like Blend in Pro/E which is similar to a through curves feature in UG, or a Loft in Catia.
Maybe a UG tip on this site that would list the equivalent names for features in other CAD systems on UG would help users switching to UG from other programs.
![[cheers]](/data/assets/smilies/cheers.gif "[cheers] [cheers]")