The Autodesk Architectural Desktop Tool System Revealed

Transcription

1 11/30/2005-8:00 am - 9:30 am Room:N. Hemispheres (Salon D) (Dolphin) Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort Orlando, Florida The Autodesk Architectural Desktop Tool System Revealed Paul Aubin - Paul F. Aubin Consulting Services BD31-3 In this class, we'll cover all aspects of Tool Palettes in Autodesk Architectural Desktop. We'll discuss creating tools, custom tool palettes, tool properties, the Content Browser, and more. We will even take a brief look at the new Project-Based Tool Palettes in ADT This class will benefit architects, building engineers, CAD managers, and contractors using Architectural Desktop 2006, or Autodesk Building Systems About the Speaker: Paul is the author of several books on Autodesk Architectural Desktop including Mastering Autodesk Architectural Desktop, and the recently published Mastering VIZ Render: a Resource for Autodesk ADT Users coauthored with James D. Smell. Paul's background in architecture spans 18+ years. He is an independent consultant offering training and implementation services to architectural firms. He also serves as the moderator for CADalyst magazine's online "CAD Questions Forum" and has spoken at AU for many years. The combination of his experiences in architectural practice, as a CAD manager, and an instructor gives his writing and instruction a fresh and credible focus. paubin@paulaubin.com

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3 Introduction Introduced in AutoCAD and ADT 2004, tool palettes provide instant access to a complete collection of ADT tools organized in logical groupings. Tool palettes combine the user-friendly visual icon-based interface of toolbars with the flexibility of pull down menus and the customization potential similar to macros and scripts. Simply click on a tool to execute its function. Tools are interactive, and many parameters can be also be pre-assigned to the tools and also manipulated on the Properties palette while the tool is active. Using the Content Browser, you can add tools and complete palettes to your personal work space at any time. (More on the Content Browser below.) The default installation of ADT 2006 loads fifteen tool palettes organized into three Tool Palette Groups. Each of these palettes contains a sampling of basic tools. The Design palette contains a basic tool for each of ADT s architectural object types. The remaining palettes contain tools with more specific parameters, such as annotation functions, callouts and detail components. Note: If you are using ADT 2004, 2005 or Building Systems, much of the topics herein will still apply, but you will only have access to items such as Tool Palette Groups in 2004 if you are an Autodesk Subscription customer and have the AutoCAD Tool Palettes extension installed. This functionality is built into ADT and ABS 2005 and Projectbased Tool Palettes (covered below) are only available in ADT and ABS Working with Tool Palettes Chances are if you have been using ADT for a while, you have already got some experience with using Tools and Tool Palettes. To begin we will take a quick look at Tools and Tool Palettes and cover some things that may already be familiar. If the Tool Palettes are not loaded, choose Tool Palettes from the Window menu, or press CTRL + 3. (You can also click the Tool Palettes icon on the Navigation toolbar.) Tool palettes can be left floating on screen or can be docked to the left or right side of the drawing editor. Simply drag the palettes by the title bar to the left or right side of the screen. The title bar will dynamically shift from left to right as you move the tool palette close to either edge of the screen. Drag the Tool Palettes first to the left edge of the screen, and then to the right to see this behavior. Right click the title bar of the Tool Palettes and choose Allow Docking if you wish to attach the Tool Palettes to either the left or right side of the screen. Tool Palettes are organized into Groups (see below) and Palettes (tabs). Click a tab to make a Palette active and then either Click or Drag a Tool to execute it. Like toolbar icons, each Tool will execute a particular ADT command sequence. However, Tools can do much more than this (more on this below). Right click a Tool to see a menu of additional tool-specific options. For instance, right click a Wall tool to access the Wall Styles command, or to use the Tool s properties to convert linework into Walls choose Apply Tool Properties to > Linework option (see Figure 1). Several other tool specific commands can be found in this way. Figure 1 Apply tool properties to Linework on the right-click menu Figure 2 Palette display options Many similar functions are possible. For instance, the properties of a Door/Window Assembly tool can be applied to Doors and Windows thereby converting them to Assemblies. The right click menu is also the place where you 2

4 will find options to edit the tool itself. These include changing the image of the Tool and configuring its Properties (more on this below). Note: If the tool palette attempts to dock to the edge of the screen, you can turn on and off the docking feature by rightclicking on the palette title bar. Remove the checkmark next to Allow Docking. If you choose not to dock your palettes, you can opt instead to enable transparency and/or the Auto-hide feature. In the Figure 2 above (previous page), transparency is shown turned on for the palette on the right. To do this, click the small Properties icon in the bottom corner of the palette s title bar or right click the title bar and then choose Transparency. However, this feature can cause a slowdown in performance on some systems, so be sure to test on your system to gauge performance before using regularly. Figure 3 Accessing other palette settings such as Auto-Hide Auto-hide is a feature that collapses the palette down to just the title bar when not in use. Simply move the mouse over it to have it pop open automatically. Enable this feature with a right click or the small icon at the corner of the palette (see Figure 3). Tool Palette tabs can also be grouped. A Tool Palette Group includes a small sub-set of the total available Tool Palettes. The default installation includes three groups: Design, Document and Detailing. Note the menu options. Click on one or more tabs to switch between different palettes. On the tool palettes, right-click on a tab. Tool Palette Menu Options o o o o o If all tabs are not shown, click on the bunched up group of tabs at the bottom to see menu revealing the hidden tabs. Move Up & Move Down Shift the location of the selected tab relative to its neighbors. View Options Opens a dialog with options for changing the icon size and configuration displayed on the palette(s) (see Figure 4). Paste Only available after a tool (from this or another palette) has been copied or cut. Delete & Rename Palette Allows you to delete or rename the selected palette. Properties Allows you to change the Name and Description of the current palette. Figure 4 Control the size and style of icons Tool Palette Groups As mentioned above, Tool Palettes can also be organized into groups. Right click the Tool Palettes title bar to 3

5 access other groups. By default, ADT ships with three Groups, plus you can always choose the All Palettes option to load all Tool Palettes at once. You can easily customize existing Groups and add your own. Figure 5 Working with Tool Palette Groups To edit Tool Palette Groups, right click the Tool Palette title bar and choose Customize (see Figure 5). This will call the standard AutoCAD Customize dialog to the Tool Palettes tab. (Please note that the customize functionality available in ADT is slightly different than that available in the standard AutoCAD package). The dialog is divided into two panes. On the left side is listed all available Tool Palettes on your system. This list will vary from machine to the next. It is very easy for individual users to create, rename, modify and delete any Tool Palette. Therefore, while it is likely that most users will have palettes like Design, Walls and Doors the list can and often will vary considerably from one machine to the next. On the right side is listed all of the Groups and indented beneath are shown the Tool Palettes that belong to those Groups. You can reorganize your palettes, move or copy them from one Group to another, remove them from all Groups and even delete them altogether. All of these functions are accomplished with drag and drop and right-click. In addition, you can create new Groups, and Palettes directly within this interface. The only thing that cannot be accomplished in this dialog is populating a Tool Palette with Tools. That task must be performed in the ADT drawing window. Figure 6 Customize Tool Palette Groups Figure 7 The Content Browser Create a Tool Palette Group by right-click on the right side. A Group can be contained within another Group. Drag items to it from left or from other Groups on the right. If you drag form the left side, it has no effect on other Groups. If you drag on the right, you can move a palette from one Group to another. You can set the current Group in the Customize dialog, or simply choose it from the Tool Palette menu as shown in Figure 6. Content Browser Content Browser provides a means to export, import and manage Tools and Tool Palettes. All of the default outof-the-box Tool Palettes are backed up to a catalog within the Content Browser. Content Browser behaves much 4

6 like any web browser. At the top level, each user has his or her own Catalog Library. This library contains pointers to one or more Catalogs. A Catalog is simply the top level grouping of Tools or Palettes. Launch Content Browser from the Window menu, the toolbar icon, or press CTRL + 4 (see Figure 7 on the previous page). Catalogs can be saved to any local hard disk or a network drive and can be accessed and loaded by multiple users depending on their location. A Catalog can contain Categories, Palettes, Packages and of course, Tools (more on this below). The interface to Content Browser is simple. There is a panel on the left with typical browser icons at the top, a navigation tree a search box and some Content Browser specific icons at the bottom. These include tools to add catalogs and palettes. Content Browser makes extensive use of Autodesk s i-drop technology (indicated by the small eyedropper icon in the corner of most icons) (see Figure 8). Figure 8 Use the i-drop icon to drag items from Content Browser To use a particular catalog item in ADT, click and hold down on this eyedropper until it fills up and then drag the item to the ADT drawing window and drop. Depending on which type of item you i-drop, it will behave slightly differently. If you i-drop a palette, the palette will be copied (and potentially linked) to your ADT workspace. A new tab will appear within the current Group of your Tool Palettes including all of the Tools that were contained in the palette in Content Browser. If you i-drop a Package, all of its contents will be added to the current palette. (Please note that this will fail if the current palette is read only). Finally, you can execute a Tool directly from Content Browser by simply i-dropping it directly into the ADT drawing window. Movement from Content Browser is two-way. Not only can items be dragged from Content Browser to your ADT workspace, but you can also drag items from ADT to the Content Browser to back them up or make them available for distribution. You can add items to Content Browser in a couple of ways. First, you can add existing catalogs to your library. For example, your firm may have provided a Catalog with office standard tools. Once added, they will behave like any other. Second, you can create your own catalog and then populate it with tools of your choosing (see below). Finally, you can add tools and palettes to most any existing catalog by simply dragging them from ADT to Content Browser. We will look at this below as well. Adding Catalogs To Add a Catalog-Click the Home icon to return to the home page of Content Browser and then click the add or create catalog icon. You can also right click in an empty spot on Content Browser and choose Add Catalog (see Figure 9). Figure 9 Add a Catalog to the Content Browser Use this process to add existing catalogs, or to create your own new ones. You can browse to any location on your local or network drives to load an existing or create a new Catalog. When you first create a catalog, it will use a default blank blue image. You can leave this if you wish, but the image of the catalog is helpful to distinguish one from the other when there are several in your library. Unfortunately the out-of-the-box catalogs all use the same image of the ADT box which makes it difficult to tell them apart. You can create your own image 5

7 to use for your new catalog using any image editing program. Supported file formats are BMP, TIFF, JPG and PNG. Make your image 90 pixels wide by 120 tall if you don t want it to stretch (see Figure 10). To add an image, right click the catalog that you just added to Content Browser, choose Properties, and then in the Catalog Properties dialog, right click on the image and choose Specify Image. While in the Catalog Properties dialog, you can edit the Title, Description and Author. You can also specify an HTML page to display as a Cover Page when you first open the catalog in Content Browser. You can see examples of this in the outof-the-box Tool Catalogs. A Cover Page is not required. Finally, several built in Catalog Types are available in a drop down list. Choose the one that most closely corresponds to the contents you intend to place in your catalog. Figure 10 Editing Catalog Properties Click on your new catalog to open it and then click one of the icons in the lower left corner to add a Category, a Palette or a Package. Categories serve only to sub-divide large amounts of tools into manageable and logical groupings. Categories occur within Content Browser only. Entire Palettes can also be stored in a Catalog. They can be placed directly at the root of a catalog, or within categories. Palettes offer most of the same organizational potential as categories and can also be dragged directly into ADT. Content Browser is used for this purpose to share Tool Palettes among team members and co-workers. A Package is another type of grouping. It behaves much like a category accept that it can be dragged in its entirety onto any palette in ADT. A Package is basically a way to deliver a large group of tools in one step (see Figure 11). Figure 11 Icons used in Content Browser Figure 12 Using the left-side Navigation Bar Note: If you specified a Cover Page, when you first click into your catalog, you will see only the cover page and no apparent way to add Categories, Palettes and Packages. On the left side navigation bar, the name of your Catalog will appear as link. Click this to browse to the top level of your catalog, and then the add icons will appear (see Figure 12). Add as many Categories, Palettes and Packages as you need. Categories can contain other Categories as many levels deep as you wish. They can also contain Palettes and Packages. Palettes and Packages can only contain Tools; they cannot contain other Categories, Palettes and Packages. As you browse through the categories of a catalog, the navigation bar will change to reflect your current position within the catalog and navigation links will also appear across the top. The easiest way to see this behavior if you are not familiar with Content Browser is to browse some of the sample out-of-the-box offerings. A sample Catalog with tools from this session is being provided on the Autodesk University web site. Visit the site after the conference for complete instructions on how to download and install it. You can also visit for more information on this and other AU 2005 downloads. Adding Tools and Palettes to Content Browser While we can create new catalogs, and populate them Categories, Palettes and Packages within Catalog Browser, we cannot build Tools from scratch within Content Browser. Tools must be built within ADT and then dragged to Content Browser. In ADT, you can start by creating a new palette (simply right click the Tool Palettes title bar and 6

8 choose New Palette). Holding down the CTRL key, select a couple Tools from any existing palettes, right click and then choose Copy. Click on your new palette, right click and choose Paste. You can also add your own custom Tools to a palette (more on this below). With both ADT and Content Browser visible on screen, drag the Tool Palette tab from ADT and drop it to the desired catalog/category in Content Browser (see Figure 13). Figure 13 Add a Palette to Content Browser You can use exactly the same drag and drop process to copy individual Tools to any category, palette or package within Content Browser. You can also use Copy and Paste if you wish. Anytime you create a custom tool palette in ADT, you should take the extra time to add it to a catalog for backup purposes. Should you need to reinstall ADT, you can easily restore your custom palettes if you have them backed up in this way. ADT ships with one personal catalog for this purpose named: My Tool Catalog which is saved in you re my Documents folder. It is in the Autodesk\My Content Browser Library folder in ADT Creating Custom Tools There are three basic types of tools in ADT: an Object Tool, a Content Tool and a Command Tool. An Object Tool is specific to a particular type of ADT object such as a Wall or a Door and as such it will have configurable parameters that are specific to that class of object. A Content tool is merely a pointer to a piece of AEC DesignCenter Content (see below). DesignCenter Content (which has been present in ADT for numerous releases) contains a number of parameters and settings that are executed as the item is dragged from DesignCenter. With a Content Tool, you can execute the same routines without opening the DesignCenter. However, to configure a Content Tool, you must edit the original AEC Content item. A Command Tool is simply a macro tool. It runs a particular ADT or AutoCAD command and can optionally contain additional parameters such as Layer, Color and Linetype settings. You can create custom tools in a variety of ways in ADT: Copy and Edit an existing tool. Drag a raw Tool from Content Browser and configure it. Create Tools from DesignCenter Content. Create Tools from drawing objects and from Style Manager. Copy and Edit an existing tool This is the simplest method. Right-click on an existing Tool on any ADT Palette or in Content Browser, choose Copy, then right-click on any other Palette and choose Paste. Once you have copied a Tool, it is a completely unique Tool. Therefore, if you wish, you can right click the new tool, rename it, or configure its properties. Drag a raw Tool from Content Browser and configure it Content Browser ships with a default catalog named: Stock Tool Catalog. This catalog contains a generic version of every possible Object and Command Tool available in ADT. You can i-drop any of these tools to a Palette in your ADT workspace and then right-click and configure its properties. If you have been using an older version of ADT (before Tools) and are looking for a particular command that used to be in the menus, this is where you will find them. Commands such as Entity Reference, Napkin Sketch and Anchors are among the many commands that you will find here. Create Tools from DesignCenter Content As was mentioned above, a Content Tool is simply a pointer to a piece of AEC Content. To create one, you open the DesignCenter to the desired piece of Content, and then drag it to any Tool Palette. Once it is on a palette, it will behave like any other tool. Simply click the tool to run the routine saved with the AEC Content item. Create Tools from drawing objects and from Style Manager In much the same way as we can create Content tools by dragging DesignCenter items onto palettes, we can create Object tools by dragging items from 7

9 Style Manager or directly from the drawing window. All ADT objects have certain unique parameters. To create a tool for a particular object type, either drag an object of that type from the drawing window and drop it onto a palette, or drag a style from Style Manager and drop it on a palette. Both techniques yield similar results, however, the Style Manager approach tends to be slightly better. Create a Content Tool As mentioned above, to create a Content Tool you simply drag a piece of DesignCenter content onto a palette. The DesignCenter is found on the Insert menu and you can also press CTRL + 2. DesignCenter behave like the other palettes on screen and can be resized, left floating or docked and set to auto-hide. There are tabs across the top of the DesignCenter. The tab labeled Custom is a special placeholder for ADT and contains the AEC Content. In order for the extended parameters of a piece of AEC Content to function as expected, they must be dragged from the Custom tab or a tool that points to the content in this location. The Content accessed through the Custom tab points to a single root folder whose location can be customized. By default, the location is (see image below): C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Autodesk\ADT 2005\enu\AEC Content You can change this location in the Options dialog (Format menu). In Options, click the AEC Content tab and edit the path for AEC DesignCenter Content Path. You can place your AEC Content anywhere on your hard drive or a network drive. Be sure that you have made any desired modifications to this path statement before creating AEC Content tools. To create a Content Tool, use DesignCenter to browse to the location of the Content item that you wish to toolize For instance: plumbing fixtures. Click and drag the icon of the item you wish to add, and drag it to a Tool Palette (be sure to drag the icon, not the preview image) (see Figure 14). Drop the item when the black bar and the plus sign appear on the cursor (the black bar indicates where it will appear on the tool palette). Figure 14 Drag DesignCente Content to a Tool Palette Figure 15 View Content Tool Properties When creating Content tools, the DesignCenter content item will typically execute in the current drawing after you are drag it to the palette. For this reason, you may want to work in a separate drawing to make your tools. Then test them in a real drawing. If you are unhappy with the icon of the tool, it can be modified after creation (see below). The properties of a tool created from DesignCenter content are very simple it is simply the name of the content item and the path to the content file. To see these parameters, right-click the tool and choose Properties (see Figure 15). Create an Object Tool You can create an Object tool by dragging an object in the drawing, or a style in Style Manager to a tool palette. While both techniques work, you will typically get better results from the Style Manager approach. Before you 8

10 create Object tools, be sure that the drawing that contains the Style in question has been saved and placed its final location on your local drive or server. This is because the path to the Style within the original file will be written to the tool. If this style is not saved or if the file containing it is moved or otherwise cannot be found, the tool will not function properly when clicked. Open a drawing containing the ADT Styles from which you wish to build your tools (for instance a drawing with Wall Styles). If you just created the Style, be sure to save the drawing first. Drag the Style name from the Style Manager and drop it onto the palette (see Figure 16). New in ADT 2006, instead of dragging from Style Manager, you can drag an object in the file directly to the Tool Palette instead. Figure 16 Create an Object Tool Notice that the name of the Style has been used as the name of the tool. If you decide if you decide to drag an object from the drawing instead, the name will read the object type instead such as Wall or Door. While you can easily rename the tool, it is easier to just drag from the Style Manager instead and save a step. If you are unhappy with the icon of the tool, it can be modified after creation (see below). Edit Tool Properties Object Tools have the most robust collection of parameters. Select any object tool (Wall, Door, Window, etc) right-click and choose Properties to see these parameters. There will be one or more groupings of parameters available in the Tool Properties worksheet. In the General grouping, you will see the name and location of the Style for this tool. This parameter is configured automatically simply be dragging a style-based object from the drawing or Style Manager as explained above. You can also make additional edits like referencing an alternate Layer key. Most objects will also have a Dimensions grouping. Use these settings to preset variable object sizes such as length, width and height. While most parameters in a tool can be edited on the Properties palette as the tool is executed, thoughtful configuration of tool parameters can potentially save several manual edits at the time of object creation. Furthermore, with the right-click Apply to option of most tools, these built in settings can be applied to existing objects in a drawing in a single step operation. Most of the out-of-the-box tools simply reference a Style name in a remote library file (a drawing the default ADT installation folders or on the server). However, some tools have additional parameters configured as well. For instance, if you edit the properties of the out-of-the-box Concrete-8 Concrete-16x8-footing tool located on the Walls tool palette, you will notice that it has a preset Floor line offset from baseline of This setting makes the footing component of this wall style visible as it is being drawn. Without this setting, you would need to manually project the floor line down after drawing the wall. This is because the footing component is defined to occur beneath the wall s Baseline. This is a simple but illustrative example of the power of configuring tool preset parameters. Editing Tool icons If you are unhappy with the icon preview of a tool that you create, you can edit it after making the tool. There are two ways to do this: in the Tool s Properties worksheet, and by using drawing geometry to set the icon. To edit it in the Tool Properties worksheet, right-click a tool, choose Properties, and then scroll to the bottom. Adjust the interactive viewer to a view you find more pleasing. Remember to right-click in the viewer for additional options. When you are happy with the view, right-click the icon at the top and choose Refresh Image (see Figure 17). 9

11 Figure 17 Refresh the Tool image Figure 18 Create an image from object geometry If you prefer, you can get even more control over an image by drawing using any geometry in the ADT drawing window and then assigning the selected objects as a Tool s image. Be sure to set the viewer to the desired view direction and shade mode first (use right-click option in the viewer to do this). If you don t even if you select 2D geometry as your icon, it will display in isometric as shown in the middle of the following image. To display it as shown on the right side, edit the tool s properties first, set the viewer to Top and refresh the image, then return to the drawing, right-click the tool, and choose Set Image from Selection (see Figure 18). Publishing Tools & Tool Palettes So you have spent hours creating dozens of custom tools now what? You will certainly want to drag your tools to Content Browser as noted above to back them up. However, you can do this in order to distribute them to other member of your project teams or the office at large as well. As we noted above, catalog can live anywhere on you system or the local network. They can even be stored remotely on web servers and accessed via the web directly in Content Browser. To distribute your tools across the office, it is best if all users access the server in the same way either the same UNC name, or the same drive mapping. Remember, Object and Content tools both write paths to the file(s) that contain the styles or AEC Content items. Therefore, it is important that all users have access to this content and find it in the same location that the tool will search for it. Otherwise the tool will fail. The simplest way to manage this is to map a network drive (with the same drive letter) to all users stations. Then be certain that all of the style library files are accessed from this location before you create the tools. This way, when you drag a style from Style Manager to a tool palette, the path that will be written will include the standard drive letter that all users can access. In this way you ensure that the tools will function on all workstations. Out-of-the-box content by default is installed onto each workstation within the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Autodesk\ADT 2006\enu folder. This location can be changed during installation of ADT if desired. Out-of-the-box tools however do not write this entire path. Instead they contain a key to this path and any additional sub-folders beyond it. This makes the out-of-the-box tools portable (it uses relative paths). In other words, even if you had not chosen the installation option to move the out-of-the-box content and styles at the time of installation, you could choose to relocate it later, edit the proper path statements and the tools would still function. This is because once you edit the Tool Catalog Content Root Path in the Options dialog; all of the relative paths used in the content will now point to that new location. Of course it is critical that you actually copy the content files and style libraries to that new location as well (see Figure 19). Figure 19 Tool Content Paths If you wish to create tools that are portable (rather than reference a standard drive letter as noted above), you will need to create your own resource files within the Tool Catalog Content Root Path as the out-of-the-box files

12 have. If you drag a style or content item to a tool palette from a location with the path named in the above image, it will automatically use a relative path. If you instead drag an item from outside this location, it will write a full path. Sharing Outside your Office To distribute tools and palettes outside the office, you follow procedures nearly identical to sharing within the office. Your biggest concern will again be the paths to the required resource files. The easiest way to ensure that you gather all the correct files and paths is to use the Publish functionality in the Content Browser. Create a catalog containing all of the items that you wish to distribute. Right-click the catalog in Content Browser and choose Publish Catalog Name from the menu. Follow the wizard to create your published catalog. Please make a backup of your original catalog before you begin the publish process. Refreshing Tool Palettes Tool Palettes will remain linked to the master version on the server when dragged from Content Browser. This behavior is the default. All a user needs to do is drag a palette or tool from Content browser to their workspace. A small refresh icon will appear in the corner of the palette. If the server version of the palette changes, click this icon to automatically load the latest version. Auto-refresh can also be enabled by right-clicking the palette, choosing properties and then choosing Enable Auto-Refresh. Hacking Tool Palettes Much of the code required to display Tool Palettes in ADT is stored in XML files on your system. According to XML is defined as: extensible Mark-up Language, a specification developed by the W3C. XML is a pared-down version of Standard Generalized Mark-Up Language, designed especially for Web documents. It allows designers to create their own customized tags, enabling the definition, transmission, validation, and interpretation of data between applications and between organizations. XML is used in ADT to create Tool Catalog, Tool Palettes and Project Data files. If you are familiar with XML, you can edit the XML files to make quick and global edits. Caution should be exercised however, as errors made while editing the XML files can render your Tool Palettes inoperable. It is always advisable to make a backup copy first. XML files are text files. Therefore you can open them in Windows Notepad or any other text editor. Many dedicated XML editors exist which offer many robust tools for editing XML files and maintaining their integrity as you make edits. If you wish to purchase one, XMLSpy is considered by most developers to be the best. Visit: to download a free trial. If you prefer a free alternative, visit: to download the free XML Cooktop application. There are two basic types of XML file used for Tool Catalogs. You Content Browser library is saved in a file named: ContentBrowserLibrary45.cbl and by default is located in you re My Documents\Autodesk\My Content Browser Library folder. If you open this file in your editor of choice, you will notice entries for each catalog you have loaded. The catalogs load in your personal library in the order that they are listed in this file. A simple cut and paste and you can re-organize the file more to your liking. Remember to backup the original first! Tool Catalogs and individual Tool Palettes are saved in ATC files. The icons are saved as PNG image files. Browse any folder where you have saved a catalog and you will find an ATC file and an Images folder. For instance, in the My Documents\Autodesk\My Content Browser Library folder is a file named: MyToolCatalog.atc. This is the catalog file for the My Tool Catalog entry in your library. Tool Palettes in your workspace are saved deep in your Documents & Settings folder. By default the path looks something like this: C:\Documents and Settings\paubin\Application Data\Autodesk\ADT 2006\enu\Support\WorkspaceCatalog (Imperial). Naturally, the user name (paubin in this case) part of the path 11

13 will vary for each user. Within this folder, is an ATC file named: ADTSamplePalettes.atc. There is also a folder named: Palettes. ADTSamplePalettes.atc lists all of the palettes for the user with a pointer to another ATC file within the Palettes folder for each individual palette. Remember, these are individual for each user. Always use caution when hacking the ATC (XML) files. Always remember to backup! Project-Based Tool Palettes If you are using Project Navigator in Architectural Desktop, Project-based Tool Palettes is a new feature in ADT The basic concept behind them is that as you use Project Browser to switch projects, a Tool Palette Group named after your project will also load into your workspace. If you have configured this Group to contain projectspecific tools, this feature can be a very handy way to swap out groups of tools that are pertinent to the tasks of a specific project. Note: There are many variables associated with project-based Tool Palettes. If you do not configure them properly, they will not function as expected or at all. In this first incarnation of this feature, Project Tool Palettes are primarily a resource to allow for automated swapping of Tool Palettes per project on a per user basis. If you wish to use this feature, there are many steps to configure it the first time. Once configured, ongoing operation will be automatic. The basic process is for a Project Coordinator to setup the basic Tool Palettes for the project team and configure all the required pieces. Project team members then simply load the project and they will receive the basic set of tools. Please note, that in the basic process, each team member will receive a set of starter tools. After the initial loading of the Project Palettes, changes to the Tool Palettes will be unique to each project team member. 1. Create a project from the out-of-the-box Project Template. This template is located by default at: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Autodesk\ADT 2006\enu\Template\ADT Template Project (Imperial)\ADT Template Project (Imperial).apj (see Figure 20). Figure 20 Create a new project using the default template Figure 21 Add tools to the Project Tool Palette This template project includes the necessary seeds required to create Project Tool Palettes. When the project loads, it will load a Tool Palette Group named for the project with a single empty Tool Palette named Project Tools. Right-click the Tool Palette titlebar and note the Tool Palette Group named the same as your project. 2. Add Tools to the Project Tools Palette (see Figure 21). These can be any tools from any location, but most often they will be a combination of office standard tools useful to the project team and project-specific tools created from project library files. For instance, project tools might include custom Wall and Door Styles used by the project team. Once you are done with this task, the challenging part of the exercise begins. Tool Palettes are saved in a series of external files which include ATC files (that are really just XML files with an ATC extension) and a collection of images saved in the PNG format. In addition, another type of XML file with an AWS extension is written by ADT to record many of the settings pertinent to Tool Palettes. Your basic ADT workspace creates all of these files and Project Tool Palettes will also create a separate collection of these files. In order to distribute Project Tool Palettes to the team, you must collect all of these files and copy them to the proper location in the project folder 12

14 structure. It is challenging to achieve this for two reasons: first, the files are saved in the hidden Windows Application Data folder (inside Documents and Settings) and second because the names of the files are quite cryptic and not user-friendly. Before proceeding, make sure that you have turned on hidden files in Windows (Folder Options command). All Projects include an Autodesk Project Information file (which is another XML file) that uses an APJ extension. All projects also have four required folders: Constructs, Elements, Views and Sheets. When you use the default Project template, another folder is also added to your project named: Standards. This folder contains three subfolders called: Content, ToolCatalogs and WorkspaceToolPalettes. Our goal here is to copy the required resource files to the WorkspaceToolPalettes folder of the project. When present, these files will be copied to the project team member s systems when they first load the project. This is critical to the proper dissemination and function of the Project Tool Palettes. 3. In Windows Explorer, browse to your project s root folder. Open the project APJ file in Windows Notepad. Locate long number in curly brackets next to ID=. It will look something like Figure 22. Write this number down and keep it handy. Figure 22 Locate and write down the Project ID Number in the APJ file 4. In the same folder in Windows Explorer, browse to your project s Standards folder, and then the WorkspaceToolPalettes folder. Leave this folder open on screen. Open a new Windows Explorer Window and browse to: C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\application Data\Autodesk\ADT 2006\enu\Support\Profiles\ProjectProfiles. Be sure to substitute your Windows login name for <user name> in the path above. Copy the file named with the number you wrote down above and ending with an AWS extension (see Figure 23). Paste it to the WorkspaceToolPalettes folder in the other Windows Explorer window. Figure 23 Copy and paste the AWS file for the project Return to the other Windows Explorer Window and browse to: C:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\application Data\Autodesk\ADT 2006\enu\Support\Profiles\ProjectCatalogs. Be sure to substitute your Windows login name for <user name> in the path above. Locate the folder named with the number you wrote down above and double-click to open it. Copy all of the contents and Paste them to the WorkspaceToolPalettes folder in the other Windows Explorer window (see Figure 24). 13

15 Figure 24 Copy and paste the contents of the Project Palette folder In any warning dialogs, click Yes to All. Figure 25 Point to a Project Tool Library The project is now ready to load on another user s workstation. You can also now use the project and its Tool Palettes as a Project Template if desired. To test it out, either go to another machine and load the project, or create a new project using this one as the template. Project-Based Content Browser Library When you launch the Content Browser (see above) the home page that loads is called a Library. You can create new libraries that contain different catalogs than your default library. There is no limit to the quantity of libraries you can maintain; however, you have to open each one manually. A useful feature of ADT 2006 is the ability to create a pointer to a custom Content Browser Library on a per-project basis. To do this, you first create the library, add catalogs to it and then edit the project properties (see Figure 25) to point to this library. Once setup, the Content Browser icon on the Navigation toolbar will continue to load the default library, but the icon on the Project Navigator will load the project-specific one. All members of the project team can in this way share the same library and its catalogs. Taking this one step further, you can drag Palettes from this catalog to the Project Tool Palette Group and have them linked back to the library as shown earlier. In this way, rather than a collection of static one-time start up tools like the Project-Based Tool Palettes heading above outlines, you will have palettes that remain linked to the project-based Content Browser Library. Therefore, all team members need only refresh the Shared Project Tools palette to see changes made to the Project Palette. And Lastly, a Warning If you are using Architectural Desktop (or Building Systems) 2006, and you are using Projects (Project Navigator), Project Tool Palette Groups are always created and made active when you load a project! You canno turn this off. To see this behavior, you sometimes have to open the Customize dialog (see above). This is because a Tool Palette Group can only be made active if it contains at least one Tool Palette. This is why, when you create a project using the provided template as shown above, that a Project Group is loaded that contains only the one empty Project Tools palette. While we could certainly make a case for their being some tools provided on this empty palette, the important issue is to realize the necessity of at least one palette s being added to the Group if you wish to load it. If you load an old ADT project (one created in 2004 or 2005) or create one without the provided template project, it will also create a Tool Palette Group named for the project. However, it will not create a Palette nor will place any palettes in this Group. Therefore, it will seem as though no Tool Palette Group has been created. To see the Group in this case, you would need to open the Customize dialog where you would see the empty Tool Palette Group on the right side. The point of this discussion is this: Regardless of the contents of the Project Tool Palette Group, whether it contains palettes or not, Tool Palette behavior in general is subtly different when a project is loaded from when one is not. For example, if you want to create a Tool Palette that appears in your workspace all the time, regardless of the current project, you must create this palette and add to a Group when there is no active project. In other words, any palette you create or add to your workspace, will be considered part of the active project even if the Project Tool Palette Group is empty and not accessible on the right-click. To create a persistent Tool Palette, first go to Project Browser, and Close the current project. Then make your palette.

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