Using TPNAVIGATE to activate a group vs subgroup.

We have used a set of toolpalettes based upon a AU seminar from a number of years ago. It used a menu macros to rewrite the toolpalettepath, effectively switching between various groups of palettes, much the way that palette groups work. It probably originated before there were key ins to switch palette groups.

Now that we are finally starting to use Civil 3D which has quite a few tool palettes too, I want to use TPNAVIGATE to do what the old tool did. The benefit is that the old method would orphan any groups every time it was used.

With the large number of groups, I wanted to use groups and sub-groups. For example, our groups would all be grouped under a top group named AB. Then, under it, I placed two groups named AB Anno and AB Demolition.

I found at the command line, the key in

TPNAVIGATE;G;AB\AB Anno

and

TPNAVIGATE;G;AB\AB Demolition

will change between the two subgroups.

But when I try putting it into a menu macro for a toolbar or within a tool on a palette, it only read the group name up to the \.

I tried \\, /, // and those same variation within quotes. The \ and \\ don't read past the AB while the / and // seem to read something, but claim there a no palettes in the group.

Any Ideas?

TIA

Did you try it with a different folder name that does't include spaces?

I know, that's sidestepping the issue

I thought backslashes were pauses in macros, seems that wouldn't work (unless being enclosed in quotes handled that). Path separator are usually double backslash, or single slash. So if you hadn't tried it I'll guess:

"AB/AB anno" or the full path, as in "c:xxxx/AB/AB anno"

Bingo!

Turns out, you can specify the name of the group and not worry about its parent group name. And, you specify the group, even with spaces in the name, without quotes. The last thing is to end the command with two ;; to completely get back to a command prompt.

My macros are:

^C^C_TPNAVIGATE;G;AB Anno;;

and

^C^C_TPNAVIGATE;G;AB Demolition;;

What is very cool is that in the past, if we wanted to swap palettes, we had to close and open the palettes to see the change. And, the software did not fully acknowledge the change, so the auto-hid palette displayed name did not change from whatever it was when the palette was first loaded.

This method changes without closing anything and the name is synchronized with the current palette group.

Thanks for showing us the way!

I've also learned I can place tool palettes in the TP path with those palettes linked to other palettes in subfolders and I can get those to work. When this is done, I might just have an AU presentation.