Managing your AutoCAD User Interface - Managing an Enterprise CUI

Following on from my previous post, regarding the setting up of your Toolpalettes, the following summary is how I go about setting up and managing an Enterprise CUI

It is also worth noting here that I always set up and manage my development environment separately from the production environment. You can create havoc by modifying directly, the CUI, Toolbars, Workspaces, Toolpalettes and code etc. that your users are accessing for production.
I setup a replication of my users environment locally on my C: drive, and develop and test in this environment (ouch, how does that get backed up!). This area (duplicate support folder structure) is then replicated on a regular/scheduled basis for backup purposes. I can then replicate this local area to the production area following successful testing. Sounds nice and organized and safe, but believe me, it can still go pear shaped occasionally.
In addition, the folder locations of my Enterprise CUI and my Toolpalettes, in the production area (where my users access them) are read-only to the users.

Also, in my development area, I load my Enterprise CUI directly as a partial CUI, so that I can modify it during development.

So before I get into the management of Enterprise Toolpalettes, let's setup the Enterprise CUI, so that we can then look at how I manage the Toolpalettes using a custom toolbar setup in the Enterprise CUI

Example

As before, the easiest way to show how it's all done is to run through the process of creating the Enterprise CUI, so here goes...

Create your Enterprise CUI

I am going to assume that we do not yet have an Enterprise CUI, and create one from scratch.

1. Create the folder location for your new Enterprise CUI.
   I generally have an "Enterprise_CUI" sub-folder setup on the network, under my primary network CAD support folder (in this case sitting on my mapped S: drive)
   (I have preceded the folder name with "!_" only to force the folder to the top of the folder order for this example)
   
   
    
2. Start AutoCAD, and open your CUI dialog
3. In the CUI dialog, select the Transfer tab...
   
   
4. In the right-hand pane under "Customizations in New CUI file" select "Save As..." from the drop-down menu, as shown below
   
   
   
   
   Browse to the new folder location created in step 1, and save the CUI with an appropriate name.
   We have now created a new empty CUI which we can now load as a partial CUI and customize
5. In the CUI dialog, select the Customize tab, right-click on the "Partial CUI Files" node and select "Load partial customization file" from the context menu
   
   
   
   
   Browse to, and select your new Enterprise CUI file.

So that's the new "empty" Enterprise CUI created and loaded in your development environment, ready for customization, I'll follow-up in my next post to show how to setup a toolbar to swap between the toolpalettes.

Comments

[Mario Gallardo]

I have read about this new CUI read-only function before. But, sample has amplified the goal. I am eager to try it in our upgrade from Acad 2004 to 2008.
Our problem is inherated customization and how to make it work proprely.
Thanks.

[John Benstead]

Migrating your custom menus over from 2004 to 2008 is fairly straightforward. Even if you do not migrate during installation, you can still load your existing .mnu format menus and 2008 will create the equivalent .cui version for you. Of course you will have to check all your custom functions with 2008.
Good luck, and let me know if you have any further questions.