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The dreaded tool palette set


Jman

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I’ve been creating custom tool palettes for many years now but I’ve always put everything: Such as Casework, Plumbing, Electrical and Structural blocks all in one tool palette. The problem is that we have amassed a very large cad library over the years. But now we are looking to make separate tool palette sets. I’ve tried copying the atcpcatalog.atc file into a new folder and added the file new search path in the options file folder and even brought that file path to the top of the search path with no success. I got the post below from John Dutz’s Blog at just another wordpress.com (I hope that’s enough credit to post this). With no success.

Can anyone help me out?

Creating Tool Palettes

Before creating a new tool palette, be sure to shut down AutoCAD – otherwise, AutoCAD will ignore the new tool catalog file or it may attempt to overwrite it with incorrect settings.

I like to keep a blank tool catalog file in the root of the support folder. To create one, copy the following text into notepad, and save it as “New Tool Palette.atc”.

New Palette

To add a new palette, copy this file into the ToolPalettes folder, or a discipline subfolder. Open the file in Notepad (do not use Word, or any other rich-format text editor, as it may mess up the xml, and corrupt the file). Edit the name of the palette, shown above as “New Palette” between the ItemName tags, and then rename the file.

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It works fine here, are you sure it's in the correct folder "C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\AutoCAD ****\R18\enu\Support\ToolPalette"

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Steven, I have created 2 new folders in the support folder They are separate from the ToolPalette folder. One is named ToolPalette-plumbing and the other is ToolPalette-casework. Also, I have created similar folders in our company project folder in which I have saved the xtg and xtp files so everyone can access them. hopefully that isn't a mistake. I'm not sure if I should have the atcpcatalog file in all those folders.

I'm off tomorrow but I will post a screen shot of what I have on friday. What would really simplify things would be to have pull-down menu

buttons that would open which ever tool palette I need. I'm sure its not a simple task but it would make it faster for me. I don't remember how to create menus (must be my daytime oldtimers kicking in)

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You can create a new Menu or Sub-Menu where you want, by right clicking in the appropriate location in the CUI, and choosing it from the dropdown menu like in the screenshot. The drop down menu closes when the snipping tool opens, so it is not shown.

creating a new menu or sub-menu.jpg

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That's a nice link Steven, really covers the topic. :beer:

 

There is only one tool palette related system variable, TPSTATE, which just toggles them on or off.

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Thanks Guys. Steven, I think that will work. I've never written a macro. After I write it, where do I put it? This is the one I want to use.

paths, like this macro: written by the author

^C^C*_TOOLPALETTEPATH "C:/Documents and Settings//Application Data/Autodesk/AutoCAD 200XR16.X/enu/support/ToolPalette,f:/Tool Palettes/Site Plan Tools".

 

This is the macro I would like to make. My shared palettes are on our F:drive I am writing this in 2014 so if I screw up it wont affect the project I'm working on in 2016

 

^C^C*_TOOLPALETTEPATH C:\Users\Jim\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2014\R19.1\enu\Support\ToolPalletteF:\project files\0 library\ToolPallette-plumbing

^C^C*_TOOLPALETTEPATH C:\Users\Jim\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2014\R19.1\enu\Support\ToolPallette, F:\project files\0 library\toolPallette-Casework

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I've never written a macro. After I write it, where do I put it?

Just to be clear what do you mean by "where do I put it", where do you actually write the macro in Autocad or once written where do you put it in order to be able to run it?

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Dadgad, I am reading the link as we speak,

Steven, I usually write my lisp routines in notebook. I'm assuming I can do the same for a macro. I do have vb

loaded but I rarely us it. I wasn't sure how to load the macro.

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