Roles in NX6 1

[pamccrac]

is there a way to tell which Role is active from the Role Navigator Tab? in the navigator there is Last Release, Industry Specific, System Defaults, and User. There are different roles in each one of these and I'm not sure which one is active. I'm scared that if I select one, I won't be able to get back without redefining everything.

PMc
CNC Programmer

 

[cowski]

I'm not sure how to determine the active role, but you could save your current role and give it a unique name so that you will be able to confidently switch back to it later.

 

[pamccrac]

thanks, can you help me remember how to "save current role"?

PMc
CNC Programmer

 

[JohnRBaker]

It's a bit obtuse, at least through NX 7.0, but what you do is go to the Resource Bar, select the Role tab, expand the 'User' panel, place your cursor over your Role's icon, press MB3 and select 'Edit'. Once the dialog comes up, just hit OK and the role will be saved capturing the current menu/toolbar configuration.

However, starting with NX 7.5, we have added an actual 'Save Role' option when you press MB3 over one of your user defined Roles.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
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.

 

[pamccrac]

Thanks.

did you also add anything to identify which role is active?

PMc
CNC Programmer

 

[JohnRBaker]

Actually NX, doesn't really KNOW "which role is active" since technically it doesn't work that way.

Roles are somewhat like a 'macro' which when they are selected they get invoked ('played'), setting the menu/toolbar configuration to match what was captured in the 'role' when it was last saved. After you invoke a 'role' whenever you eventually exit your NX session, the then current menu/toolbar configuration is saved in a file named 'user.mtx' located at...

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Unigraphics Solutions\<NX version>

...and the next time you log-in and launch that particular version of NX, the system (unless you've set a variable pointing to some other .mtx file) uses the contents of this 'user.mtx' file to set the menu/toolbar configurations for your new session (which BTW, if you were to open it in a text editor it would be virtually identical to the last invoked 'role' if no changes had been made to the menu/toolbar configuration after invoking it). Any changes made using the Customize tools to the menu/toolbars will be saved in this 'user.mtx' file when you next exit your session. That's why changes made in one session are still in effect when you start a new session even if YOU haven't saved any 'roles', and it will remain that way until additional changes are made or some other 'role' is invoked.

So as for what all this means, it would be like opening a Part file and asking NX to tell you what was name of the last 'macro' run on this file yesterday. It doesn't know and neither does NX know which 'role' was last invoked or when. Granted, that information was written in the syslog, FROM THE SESSION WHERE THE 'ROLE' WAS INVOKED, but even the current syslog will only indicate that it read the information in the 'default' .mtx file, which, unless you have an environment variable pointing to a specific .mtx file, will always be the 'user.mtx' file located at the location which I described above.

So anyway, I hope that clears-up why the system is NOT able to "identify which role is active", because as I first stated, it doesn't work that way.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
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.

 

[JohnRBaker]

I have an update as it were for the question...

"Is there a way to tell which Role is active from the Role Navigator Tab?"

It turns out that someone must have been listening since I was just going over some enhancements for NX 7.5 and discovered this little tidbit:

Looks like you'll be covered in NX 7.5.

Now before anyone asks, what I said above was basically correct, that's now Roles and NX work. However, it appears that we have made a small change where starting with NX 7.5 whenever you change Roles, we record the name of that Role somewhere and display it as mentioned above. However, that being said, I suspect that if I replaced the 'user.mtx' file before you opened your next session that one of two things will happen, a) the system will still report the name of the last Role applied even though that may no longer be accurate since I've replaced the file that actually defined what the content of the menus and toolbars are, or b) it won't say anything because the the name was saved in the 'user.mtx' file which I replaced before starting NX (now if it's true that that name is actually being saved in the 'user.mtx' file, then it might tell you the name of the Role applied in the session from which I borrowed the 'user.mtx' file from).

Anyway, for most situations (if you don't go and hack the .mtx files) you will now (starting with NX 7.5) be able to determine the last Role applied to NX with just a couple of button clicks.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
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.