How to protect workspace not to be changes .

[JanetDavidson]

Hello Gentlemen.

I just wanted to know is there any way, not to allow user to change,  workspace or  save workspace in anyother name.

we have 2 shifts of  drafters in our company who work with one machine. Shift 2 always complain about user on shift one change  panel and ribbons . we have a standard icon and panel , But you know some users have thier own way which thinks is the best and always keep changing UI.

So I need to know is there anyway to lock acad.cuix  or  lock workspace.

Can somebody please give me a direction where should I start with.

Thanks

Janet.

[michael.robertson]

Are the users using the same logon? The position of different tools shouldn't be changing if they have different logon credentials. (they should each have their own profile that matches their logon).

You can use an enterprise CUIx locked on a server to keep the things that have to remain the same to stay the same.

[dgorsman]

Locking down the UI is a short path to a cubicle riot.  Provided the CUI files are set up reasonably well (i.e. not locking functions to a specific workspace, Main CUI has full read/write access and may or may not be individual per user), it should be a simple matter of each user saving their workspace settings under their personal workspace name.  The next time they run the program they just have to make their personal workspace current.

[JanetDavidson]

Hello again Mike.

Thanks for coming back to me again.

Yes users have the same logon.

 The problem is we have this 3rd party program which has enterprise locked  cuix and the thing is it automatically rebuild itself  on startup and I don't have access and can not make any change to that.  

Adding a profile is not a solution for my case . Again because of that third party application .

By the way mike . Remember the Foot inch thread I posted.? It was solved . Look at thread . A very nice gentleman helped us.

[michael.robertson]

Is there a way for your users to have different logons and your 3rd party app to still work? That way many of the personal settings these users are changing will not affect other users.

You are always using a profile when in AutoCAD (it might be the default Imperial or Metric profile but you are using a profile).

The profile stores things like which tools are visible, their locations, if the tool is set to Auto-hide, docking location etc.

You don't have to do anything to create a profile if you are using the out of the box shortcuts, AutoCAD does it for you. When a new user logss onto a machine and starts autocad it creates the default AutoCAD (Imperial or Metric) profile information into the registry under HKey_Current_User and the file system under the users AppData folder.

[JanetDavidson]

Thanks for your concern and time  Dgorsman.

My application is running on top of a thirdparty application. they locked their  profile and if we add one then thier program doesn't work.

I added a tab to  thier locked ribbon. And in my tab I got 9 panels. Their tabs are untouchable and locked . My Tab is the one which users play with it and change the icon shapes and location all the time.

[dgorsman]

I gotta say, that sounds like a lousy program... sounds like somebody couldn't figure out how to automatically add their content to the UI and decided to force it rather than let the user handle do it manually.

Most third-party applications I know of don't "lock" anything.  Even if you are required to use their profile name to run the add-on you can still set their CUIx as partial to an Enterprise and run a user-specific Main, and let users specify workspaces at will.

[JanetDavidson]

I agree. The funny thing is the company doesn't exist any more and we don't get any support at all. I am planning to re wrtie it again with help. But in short term I wanted a quick fix and cure. Anyways. Guess we have to live with that.

Just a matter of curiousity How would they built all the ribbon and panels and icon in startup ? you can't even realize they are building all those with code at startup . they don't have a cuix at all.

Janet.

[dgorsman]

I've never been a big fan of programmatically created UI elements - it makes things difficult for clients to implement.  I'd prefer to skip coding altogether, and provide the Ribbon content in a separate application CUIx file, which could be loaded partial to the Enterprise (or even Main).  Inside the Enterprise CUIx, there would be "default" workspaces that include the neccessary tabs and panels.  Whoever is managing the CAD setup for the purchaser would be responsible for adding the default elements they want in the locations they want.  New users would start with the default workspaces and make whatever changes they like.  Once things look the way they want, they can save the workspace in the Main using a unique name; even better, would be having a unique Main CUIx for each user to remove the possibility of conflicting workspace names.

If they build Ribbon components programmatically when the module is loaded, hopefully it just ensures the current workspace has the required content.  Which makes things dirt simple - just make sure the session starts with the desired profile and workspace.

[Keith.Brown]

I think you have basically answered your own question.  If you want to lock down the ribbon tab that you have created then just create it programmatically.  Not an elegant solution but one that will work.  Since it is not included in the cuix there is no way to modify it.

Another option would be to recreate the 3rd party ribbon.  It might not be possible.  I currently use a third party application and they programmiatically create a ribbon panel that I do not care for.  Luckily for me, each of their functions call a command that is visible on the command line.  I just created custom commands that call those commands and assigned the custom commands to an entirely new ribbon tab/panel.  A little bit of work but now you could at least set up different workspaces for the different users.

[michael.robertson · Accepted solution]

Programming custom ribbons isn't too bad. THere was a pretty good presentation on the Autodesk University 2009 website called: CP204-2 API for CUIx files and the Runtime Ribbon in AutoCAD

Here's the link: http://au.autodesk.com/?nd=class&session_id=5044

[JanetDavidson]

Thanks All gentlemen .  I really appreciate all your caring sharing stuff.

I am good know and get the idea how should I deal with this problem.

Again I appreciate all your help. I needed those expert experiences.

Regards,

Janet.