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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.

Managing your AutoCAD User Interface

Following a number of recent Discussion Group posts, I thought I would put together a summary of how I go about managing the interface of AutoCAD at an enterprise level, over a network for multiple users.

The customization and management of the User Interface has changed with recent releases of AutoCAD, with the change over to the new CUI format menu files, introduction of Workspaces and Toolpalettes, the CAD Manager has an array of tools to provide customized and standardized content to users.

I will share how I manage the AutoCAD Interface, that's not to say that this is how it should be done, this is how I do it. If anyone reading this has some other good ideas, please share, I am always interested in alternatives, and everything I do has been learnt over the years from someone else.

The menu file - CUI

The new CUI format file (xml format) replaced the old .mnu file some time ago, we no longer have to modify our menus at a code level, we are now able to customize our menu's using the Customize User Interface dialog...

The CUI is where we manage the content of our interface, Workspaces, Toolbars, Menus etc. etc.

The Toolpalettes

The toolpalettes are (in my opinion) the easiest way to provide customized content to users. They are easy to customize, using a drag-and-drop process for building palette content. I can add, change, remove content from the toolpalettes as I am undertaking other work tasks.

With the combination of the CUI and the ease of building and customizing the toolpalettes, I am able to provide a comprehensive set of customized content to users. Managing new content in a development environment and then replicating this new content to the users working environment when new tools have been fully tested.

Enterprise CUI

I maintain all company specific content in a separate CUI and make this the "Enterprise CUI", and leave the AutoCAD CUI's alone.
The Enterprise CUI is no different from a standard CUI file, but rather that loading this company specific CUI as a partial menu, which is then open to modification, I load the company specific CUI as an Enterprise CUI. By doing this the CUI is read-only.

This standard CUI file which contains all the company specific customized tools is located on the network, in a folder that is also read-only to users... CAD users are a curious bunch, and have been known to load the CUI as a partial menu. By placing this Enterprise CUI in a read-only location it can't be damaged.

Loading the CUI as an Enterprise CUI is simple enough, this is done via the options dialog...

On the Files tab, expand the Customization Files node, and then expand the Enterprise Customization File node. You can then select the Browse button to select the CUI file to be used as your Enterprise CUI.

The profile can then be saved/exported and used to maintain user settings.

An important note to make here, is that in an enterprise environment, where you are supporting multiple users, I recommend that you setup a development area, where as the CAD Manager, you can run your software configured to use the support file structure pointing to your development locations, where you can develop your CUI's, Toolpalettes, custom programs, Lisp, VBA etc. independently from your users. Then roll-out updates to the system in an organized manner, possibly integrated with upgrade training etc.

I will follow-up this posting with another, detailing methods for managing Enterprise Toolpalettes.