Roles and customer defaults 1

[Michel1978]

Hi,

I just started using NX5 and i'm wondering how to use the roles application and customer defaults.
Under "Tools" "customize" i found the possibility to save a role. Is this the same as the role in the sidebar? And is role only used for the layout of your toolbars?

I've been struggling for a while now trying to set my customer defaults. Why is this so difficult?
Can anyone tell me which steps to follow or how it works to help me understand. Is it possible to save these settings too?
Maybe someone has a file for me with good settings?

Thanks,
Michel

 

[JohnRBaker]

To start with all of the files which captures your customer specific settings and options can be found at:

C:\Documents and Settings\<you user ID>\Local Settings\Application Data\Unigraphics Solutions\NX5

The Customer Default settings are stored in a file named:

nx5_user.dpv

The content of the menus and toolbars, as defined using the customize tools, are stored at the end of each session in the file named:

user.mtx

Now all that a 'Role' is a user defined copy of an .mtx file as defined at the time you saved it (these user defined roles are found in a subfolder in the location above named 'roles') This allows you to go back to predefined content of your menus and toolbar layout anytime you wish. We supply a set of basic Roles as well as several industry specific which will setup your menus and toolbars based on what we think are reasonable starting places. Of course we recommend that you just use these 'canned Roles' as starting places and that you customize that menus and toolbars to what you wish to have them and then save a 'Role' which you can go back to any time you wish by just selecting that Role. In fact you could define several for setting up your system to perform different tasks or when working in different modes. Then it will only take a single selection to switch between these set-ups. Also this will allow you to save your set-up and move it to another system by just copying these files from one location described above on one system to that location on another system.

Another file found at this location...

DialogMemory.dlx

...stores the values of settings and options inside of the NX dialogs themselves, if you've set the Customer Default option which allows the Dialog Memory to be carried from one session to next.

Most of the time there is no need for the user to worry about what's going on with these files, but it's nice to know if you needed to set up another system and you wished to copy over as much of the set-up on one system to the new one.

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/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[ewh]

1) Yes

2) Pretty much

3) There are many settings available in Customer Defaults, and it can take some time to learn where each particular setting is located. It is much better than it used to be, though, when you had to edit an environmental file.

4) The best method tht I have found is to just go through the options one at a time and set them to whatever you require. You can use accepted industry standards, or you can customize Y14.5 if you wish. The settings can be saved, but it depends on what type of priviledges you have. Some companies limit users to only the "User" default level, where some settings are locked at a higher level, such as "Group" or "Site". This ensures that individual users don't violate company standards.

5) It would be best if you configured your settings yourself, as there is WIDE variety as to setting preferences between companies and between users.

The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. - [small]Hunter S. Thompson[/small]

 

[Xwheelguy]

I just skimmed the replies above, so if this was already mentioned, I apologize for repeating it.

Make sure you have read/write permissions for ALL folders/directories being used for NX. If you don't, then when you try to change your customer defaults, they will not save.

You can refer to the documentation to help you get going with customizing NX to suit your needs. Go to NX Docs then from the Table of Contents, choose NX Essentials -> Customizing NX. There's quite a bit for you to read.

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]

There are 400,000 words in the English language and seven that you can't say on television. What a ratio that is 399,993 to seven. But really there are no such thing as bad words. Just bad thoughts, bad feeings, bad intentions and ... words. (George Carlin. 1937-2008)

That was just for the fun of it!

Now Michael in the same way there are no such thing as good settings. There are the commonly accepted ones the the Product is Shipped with and my changes which I consider Right!

John has mentioned that roles differ from customer defualts and I would add that on occasion if you use the canned templates or almost any translator then those will refer to saved files on the system which I find you also need to alter and either overwrite or create paths to copies of so that your customization is complete and uniform.

The explanation is long and tiresome but keep the fact of it in mind and post back if you struggle. The problem I'm forseeing for you in that many users expect changes to the customer defaults in particular to apply globally where they often do not and it is difficult at first to discern why that isn't the case. My thoughts are that it is often the case that working with templates or other pre-existing files you need to be aware that if they weren't saved or created with your customer defaults or site standards applied then they may not conform.

Cheers

Hudson

 

[JohnRBaker]

To get an idea of which Customer Defaults are part and which are session specific, open the Customer Default dialog and select the 'Find Default' option (the binoculars) and enter the word 'all'. When the list is generated, scroll the window all way to the right and select the 'Scope' column so that you can sort the listing by either 'part' or 'session'.

If you would like a more permanent record to refer to, from the main Customer Default dialog, select the 'Manage Current Settings' option (the eye with the arrow) and from this dialog select the 'Export All Defaults Data to Spreadsheet' button (WARNING: This could take several minutes to complete).

Note that when I generated this for NX 6 I got an Excel spreadsheet showing 11,019 separate Customer Default entries. Of course now that you have this Excel document you can parse it any way you wish to get whatever information you desire.

For example, you can find which items are Part and which are Session specific?

Or in what version was a particular default added/last modified?

What are the settings that you have changed and when did you last change them?

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/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[ewh]

Great tip, John!

The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. - [small]Hunter S. Thompson[/small]

 

[Xwheelguy]

Another very important item.....

Any changes made to the Customer Defaults will NOT take effect until you exit and restart NX.

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.

 

[Crocostimpy]

Just my odd two cents on Roles. Even when I selected Advanced With Full Menus there still were some commands missing from the drop-down menus. I ended up going through the Customization option for menus and found a few things I was missing.

Maybe it's just me. Probably is. I always seem to have the weird one-off problems. ; )

Mike

 

[ewh]

I've had the same problem. They need to include a "Super-Advanced" option.

The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. - [small]Hunter S. Thompson[/small]

 

[JohnRBaker]

No, what we need is an 'Old Farts' option.

If you have the 'Full Menus' option on, and there is something that you still can't find, like say 'Fillet Surface', it's because we are trying to obsolete that command but first we would like to stop at least new users from even knowing it's there. The reason it has NOT been removed completely is because there may be a valid reason that a 'legacy' user (the PC term of 'Old Fart') may still need access to this command so we 'hide' it and make you explicitly 'unhide' it before you can use it again.

Now you should be aware that someday you may install a new release of NX and you will discover that some command really HAS been obsoleted and it's been removed, period! But until then, if you can find it, we're still 'supporting' it, albeit grudgingly in many cases.

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/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[ewh]

Is that true for everything? "Save WCS" for example?

The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. - [small]Hunter S. Thompson[/small]

 

[JohnRBaker]

"Save WCS" isn't hidden, even if I choose one of the non- 'Full Menu' Roles.

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/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[ewh]

I do see what you mean about it not being hidden, as it does appear in the Format drop down menu.
I guess this old fart was just looking for an icon;-)

The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. - [small]Hunter S. Thompson[/small]

 

[JohnRBaker]

It should also be on the Utility toolbar. Granted, you may have to toggle it ON to see it, but just because an icon is toggled OFF by default, this is not what I mean by 'hidden', it just means that we didn't think it was important enough, as compared to some other function, so as to take up valuable space on a toolbar (after all, we can't turn everything ON).

But getting back to what 'hidden' means to me is when we've removed it from the menu and the toolbar and you have to go in and use the Customize tools to reactivate it. These are the items which are on the slow-boat to obsolescence.

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/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[hudson888]

If you recall the dim dark days in the not too distant time before roles came into existence then you never had everything displayed out of the box. It was always the case that I have displayed the majority of icons and have needed to turn on a few to ensure that all the functions that I frequently use are available to me. It has always been the case that a few things seem not to be preferred in the "as shipped" configuration as if the creators are trying to tell me NOT to want to use some of my old favourites, but at least with roles I can ignore their recommendations from one version to the next pretty much!

When we formerly relied on digging out user.mtx and attempting to port it to a different version or even another machine running the same version we always seemed to need to restore several mising icons. With roles this necessity is far less onerous so I think in that regard things have very much improved.

In truth I do pay careful attention to the what's new guides, but my workpractices and the emphasis on some newer methods has not always been at one with some of the functions on offer especially when it comes to curve creation tools. But on the bright side I find that with roles that work at least these days you really only have to customize once and you're good to go with minor adjustments usually only required between versions..

Cheers

Hudson

 

[ewh]

I have to agree, it is a whole 'nother ballgame compared to how it used to be. Kind of like when I was a kid, I was the TV remote control. Even though I do find it a challenge keeping up with many of the enhancements, I sure don't want to go back to the time of the dial and PFK boxes and data tablet overlays (though you could sure rip through the commands with that PFK box). I think life as a UG driver started really getting good about the time spaceballs came out, and getting better all the time.

The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. - [small]Hunter S. Thompson[/small]