Sharing a Toolbar without Changing Custom Layouts

[alj722]

We are at NX 8.0.2. I would like to deploy a custom toolbar to the users, but I don't want to do it using a Role since that will reconfigure all the custom layouts the users have set up. Searching around I haven't seen a way to do that. Anyone know of a method?

Thanks,

Drew

 

[jerry1423]

I don't recall anybody bringing this up directly, but if you basically do what John Baker mentions in the below thread and copy what is in one users dirctory folder to the other users you should be able to accomplish what you need to.

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=333282

 

[alj722]

John's solution copies the entire layout,not just the toolbar. I am able share layouts (including custom toolbars) by sharing the MTX file (Roles), but the problem is that many of the users have configured the UI the way they want it. If they add the custom role it will wipe out what they have. They can save their layout as a custom role before they import my role, but they will only have my new toolbar when they switch to my custom role. If they switch back to their custom custom role they lose my new toolbar. I can't figure out how to transfer the custom tool bar from my custom role to their custom role (sorry if this is sounding a bit confusing).

Drew

 

[Toost]

Do you use the
UGII_SITE_DIR
or UGII_GROUP_DIR
or UGII_USER_DIR variables ?

If uncertain, have a look in the NX logfile and search for these variables. If they exist they will be noted with their value there.
If or more of these are unused you can define a new directory that will be read upon startup of NX.
If they exist and you have write access to one of the directories you can place a toolbar there.
It must probably exist in a subdirectory named "startup".
This method works for the "older style" toolbars ( ".tbr" ), i have not tried the newer type which can be defined on the fly inside nx.



Regards,
Tomas

 

[Xwheelguy]

Place the .tbr files on a shared network drive (using the startup folder concept outlined above by Tomas); have the users load the .tbr file through the NX customization dialogs. If using customized bitmaps in the toolbars the UGII_BITMAP_PATH variable will have to be defined on each machine, and either everyone has access to the bitmap locations on the network or they are on the local hard drive. I'd recommend a single location for all of these items on a network drive if possible.

Users may have to save their roles in order to restore them later once the new toolbars have been loaded.

Tim Flater
NX Designer
NX 7.5.4.4 MP8
WinXP Pro x64 SP2
Intel Xeon 2.53 GHz 6GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro 4000 2GB

 

[alj722]

Thanks Tim and Tomas, but I don't believe that NX 8.0.2 uses tbr files when a creating a custom toolbar anymore. I've created quite a few toolbars and there are no tbr files anywhere on my system except for the ones that came with NX (and I also checked in the UGII_SITE_DIR etc. folders). It appears to store the toolbar in the mtx file (Roles).

Copying the custom Roles file (mtx) into the user folders makes them show up on the Roles pallet, and the user can click on them to bring up the toolbar, but their current layout vanishes. I suppose the worst case scenario is that the user can switch roles (to the custom role) when the toolbar is needed, but I was hoping for something a little less clunky (like a way to deploy a custom toolbar for every user without messing with their custom layout settings). I even wondered about trying to record a journal that creates the toolbar and have the user run that journal. But that is even more convoluted.

Just to be complete, here is where the MTX files go:
For Windows7:
C:\Users\[USER NAME]\AppData\Local\Unigraphics Solutions\NX80\roles
For XP:
C:\Documents and Settings\[USER NAME]\Local Settings\Application Data\Unigraphics Solutions\NX80\roles

Drew

 

[cowski]

alj722,
The .tbr and .men files are the older way to create custom toolbar and menu items, but they still work (I recently added some to NX 8).

Customizing your toolbars/menus and saving .mtx files is modern and easy for a single user, but provides no good mechanism to roll out those customizations to multiple users. If you want to roll out site wide custom toolbars/menus without breaking individual user's customizations, the .tbr and .men files are the way to go (for now, at least).

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[alj722]

tbr files sound like exactly what I need. All I have is a MTX file. How do I extract a TBR file from that?

Drew

 

[Xwheelguy]

Drew,

If NX8 still has the .tbr and .men files in the install folders, you can open them in Notepad/Wordpad or any other text editor and pretty much see how to create/edit them to your liking. Just do not save over the default file names (meaning Save As and use a new name and location). If that is a dead end, try reading over the Customization area of the NX docs - the NX 7.5 docs pretty much spells it all out if you look thoroughly (click all links and How To's, etc.).

If you have more questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Tim Flater
NX Designer
NX 7.5.4.4 MP8
WinXP Pro x64 SP2
Intel Xeon 2.53 GHz 6GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro 4000 2GB

 

[Xwheelguy]

I should probably elaborate a bit more - my apologies, I'm trying to answer and work at the same time and my responses are a bit blunt and truncated.

When I mentioned using the .men files, I meant those will give you the syntax for a line that's used in the .tbr files. So if you want to make a customized icon for a command that's only available in the pulldowns, you can look up most of the info in the corresponding .men files and then place it in the .tbr file. You will then have to specify a bitmap, which can be an existing bitmap (found in .men file) or you can create your own.

All of this information is in the docs (at least for NX 7.5 it is). If you use those, read them carefully and explore the links in the text areas (not just the table of contents links out to the side).

You will also want to know (if you didn't already) that once you edit a .tbr file, you will have to restart NX for the changes to take effect, like changing a Customer Default. You shouldn't, however, have to continually reload the .tbr files after you load them the first time via the NX customization dialogs.

Hope this helps out.

Tim Flater
NX Designer
NX 7.5.4.4 MP8
WinXP Pro x64 SP2
Intel Xeon 2.53 GHz 6GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro 4000 2GB

 

[Xwheelguy]

Lastly, if NX8 or NX8.5 docs have removed the sections about .tbr files, you can go to the GTAC support site and view the NX7.5 Help docs online. Once there, display the Table of Contents and select the following: NX Essentials -> Customizing NX -> Customizing your environment -> Customizing toolbars and menus -> Customize dialog box overview

Once you get to the last selection, you should see a gray box in the middle of the document area. In that box there are two links, the first to UTD information and the second to .tbr files. Click the second one and from there you will need to do more exploring on your own - the information is kind of all spread out and not directly accessible from the TOC menu to the left.

Just ask if you need some help - will try to keep an eye out on this thread, if I can.

Tim Flater
NX Designer
NX 7.5.4.4 MP8
WinXP Pro x64 SP2
Intel Xeon 2.53 GHz 6GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro 4000 2GB

 

[alj722]

Thanks so much Tim. I'll give it a look. I was hoping Siemens would provide something a little more elegant than manually editing text files, but I guess if I only have to do it once, it shouldn't be too bad. I'm wondering if the TBR text lines is actually imbedded in the NX8 MTX files and it is just a matter of extracting the right section. I'll post what I find out.

Drew

 

[cowski]

I'm wondering if the TBR text lines is actually imbedded in the NX8 MTX files and it is just a matter of extracting the right section.

Unfortunately, no.

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[alj722]

Sigh....

 

[cubalibre000]

you have to set in the ugii_env.dat the variable UGII_CUSTOM_DIRECTORY_FILE=
this variable contain the path of the \\ugii\menus.
In the menus folder ther is the file custom_dirs.dat that contain the path of yours .tbr toolbar.

Thank you...

Using NX 8 and TC9.1

 

[alj722]

The TBR files were easy to create and I put them in my UGII_SITE_DIR/startup directory and it worked like a champ. Thanks for all the help.

Cubalibre00 - I'll take a look at the custom directory method. That might be a bit cleaner.

 

[cubalibre000]

Hi alj722,
my solution is for toolbar that use macro that are used by different workstation architecture (32bit and 64bit).
Your solution read independently all .tbr toolbar.


Thank you...

Using NX 8 and TC9.1

 

[Toost]

Cuba,
The custom_dirs.dat can be used as well as the mentioned "UGII_xxx_DIR", The final result is identical to the user.
the main difference is that the "custom_dirs.dat" is a file and the "UGII_xxx_DIR" is "windows environment variables" on the local computer.
If you have a mixed environment 32 and 64bit, maybe the custom_dirs.dat is a simpler solution. (?)
I run a little ".bat" file when installing the computer that sets the UGII_SITE_DIR and UGII_GROUP_DIR
The UGII_GROUP_DIR contains different plot setups depending on the office.


Regards,
Tomas

 

[cubalibre000]

yes Toost,
we have different architecture, so my suggestion is the solution for this environment.

Thank you...

Using NX 8 and TC9.1

 

[alj722]

We have all our users running from a centralized start script. In that script we set the environment variables. It sounds like the UGII_CUSTOM_DIR is a nice way to handle the exceptions. I'll give that a look.

Great stuff,

Thanks