why make this so complicated

[arcitek]

I just recently upgraded to autocad architecture 2014.  I have it installed at the office and at my house through subscription.  Can someone please explain to me how to get my custom tool palette from the office computer to my house computer?  It is simply ridiculous that there is no simple solution.  The help files give a solution that is not even applicable to AA and it has been this way for several versions.

I tried using the content manager but when I import the exported atc file into my content manager I keep getting an error where the items will not go into my drawing.  I see them in the catalogue but they are not associated with a style or drawing is the error.

Autodesk really needs to offer a step-by-step solution for this.  Any help from the forum would be greatly appreciated.

[croc49]

Back in the bad ol' days when I ran a seperate office, I used to have all my CAD custom files and job data on a seperate hard drive in a removeable caddy which I took home every night - I was the only one wokring at night.

I work at home now, and still have anything, apart from Program files to make Autocad run 'C' , on a separate drive letter 'X'.

My 'C' drive is an SSD, whilst 'X' is a 10,000 rpm Raptor drive.

My workspace and options profile all point to 'X' driive and only make reference to 'C' drive for non customisable program files.

Now when I travel, my notebook has Autocad installed on 'C', but will only run properly if I have an external USB drive named 'X' connected with all my custom files, etc.

Not as fast as my desktop but works fine.

Just needs a backup program to overwrite your newer files to your work computer the next day.

So it is best to make the bulk of your Autocad search path to 'X' higher up the order than 'C'.

Of course you have to use transfer utility - wish we still had the dongle like the bad 'ol days.

[arcitek]

Yeah, what is crazy is I think I figured this out, with absolutely no help from Autodesk.  I had an Autodesk rep contact me today for the problem and then when I explained the issue, he never got back to me.  How ridiculous is it that after the initial release of autocad architecture that they never changed the help file or offerred any real available solution to remedy this issue?  People talking about editing xml files, exporting catalogues as registery files, and all kinds of nonesense that the typical user like me would never know without clearly written instructions.

I was just about to stroke a check to someone for 150 dollars for one hour of their time to resolve this in addition to the 635 dollars of billable time I lost trying to figure it out.  A couple more hundred dollars and I would have paid for one of my Autodesk subcription seats.

At least I have a workable solution but I am sure it is a hacked half-azz solution and I still am not understanding how this all works which is the most frustrating thing.  I am learning Revit at the moment and have found less frustration with that than trying to figure out this one freaking thing in Autocad Architecture.

Sorry for the rant but I need to get some sort of satifaction for the money I lost figuring this out.  My solution is sort of like yours but it involved using drop-box and having to re-path everything back to the source dwg files I relocated to drop-box. 

I also found a paper from a lecture at AU in 2009 that is focused on palettes and then I finally found some blog with a 4 part review on dealing with custom palettes.  They both seem really good but I did not read them yet.  I plan on it becasue I absolutly hate when I find a solution and do not understand what the problem was and why it existed.  I can post these resources if anyone is interested now or in some future date when, like me, they run into this problem and cannot get any help from the help file or a support person to remedy it.

[pendean]

Customizations are considered an end-user function: almost all software vendors never give you any kind of support for what you do beyond OOTB.
Do we like it? No. Can you blame them? No if you stop and really think about it beyond your specific need.
Youo'll have to take your fees dispute up with them sadly, this forum here is full of end users like you and me.

Customzation starts with organization on your end: specific unique folders, paths, drives that are unqiue and custom to you. Then you can take these with you as needed to do what you seek here. There is no book on CAD Management, just a lot of CAD Managers posting blogs and tips (and AU classes) for all of use to learn from their trials and successes.
Start digging and post back if you get stuck somewhere.

[arcitek]

Although I know what you are saying, and no disrespect intended here, I have to disagree in this case.  The tool palettes and the abiltiy to work with them and create your own was a highly touted feature that came with Autocad.  The fact that they have help files regarding this feature means it is part of the main feature set of the program.  With your logic, anything from setting up settings other than the intended default would constitute custom and a user being on their own.  Things like dimensions, unit settings, plot styles, etc would fall into your category.

With tool palettes, all I was asking and expecting was to have the simple instructions of how to create custom tool palettes from scratch and what parameters to understand to do so and be able to move these from workstation to workstation beyond the server.  Also, since migration to new versions and Autodesk 360 is so highly touted as a way to share custom profiles and preferences, you would think that custom tool palettes, which could contain anythng from wall types, hatches, annotation and etc, would fall into this category of being easily shared.

To further bring to point my argument, if I were to follow your logic while I learn and train on Revit Architecture, Autodesk should feel no responsibility to inform me on how to create custom wall and roof types, annotation and etc but they do.  They print help files and create beginner training videos on these subjects.  Family creation, which is highly client specific, also has training so is it too much to ask for help on the seemingly simple task of moving a tool palette we created?

Like I said previously, Autodesk felt the need to put instructions in the help file on palettes for AA 2014 but like the last 5 AA versions, the direction only apply to Autocad vanilla.   For me to be frustrated with this  cannot be me just being another negative ninny griping about some bullsh*t item, it is flat out annoying that Autodesk has never taken the time to address this even thought it has been brought to their attention over several forumns and other outside situations I saw or read.

There are many things I like about Autodesk products that I use and I feel there has been good support in many of the tools in each program.  Revit, 3ds Max, Sketchbook Pro and even Autocad..  An like you said, I can understand that when I get into something that is very custom and outside the box such as trying to create a cow in Revit, I need to expect things to get a little whacky and for me to run into some undocumented challenges.  But please do not begin to rationalize the lack of follow through and vaque directions from a company on an important piece of their user product to be the responsibility of the end user to figure out on their own.  That just is not right, especially when the end user was trying to use the tool as intended by the company.

[David_W_Koch · Accepted solution]

Have you looked in the Help for the AutoCAD-Architecture-specific topics on tool palettes.  The current on-line Help does present a challenge in finding and navigating a major topic, with the lack of an equivalent to the old "Contents" tab, but a search of All Content for "tool palette architecture" (without the quotes) managed to have the first of 3273 results be the main topic for tool palettes in ACA (click on the link to go there without the bother of searching).

You may want to make that a "Favorite" to make it easy to get to while reading through the numerous links to Related Tasks and Related Concepts that are listed at the bottom of that topic.

A Google search for "AutoCAD Architecture tool palettes" (again, without the quotation marks) resulted in a number of potentially interesting links, including this one to the 2012 ACA Help, which includes a Browse tab that may make it easier to work your way through the topic.  The content has probably not changed much between 2012 and 2014, as there have not been any major changes to tool palettes between those releases.

Chasing down a few of the other links lead to these Autodesk University materials related to ACA tool palettes:

AU 2009 - Doug Bowers: Personalize Your Palettes in AutoCAD Architecture

AU 2007 - Paul Aubin: The AutoCAD Architecture Tool System Revealed

AutoCAD Architecture tool palette tools that create ACA content do not, in and of themselves, contain all of the information needed to execute the tool.  Instead, they contain pointers to source files that contain the Styles, Definitions or other AEC content.  Tools that are to be shared with others in your office should be created using a network-based source file that is accessible to all, in order for them to work for all users. 

When trying to make office tools work at home, assuming that you are not connecting to the office network from home with the same network structure as you have at work, requires a bit more work, and the ability to create a parallel network structure for the same tools to find the source files.  If you use mapped letter drives for your network files when creating the tools, if you create the same drives and directory structure at home (and copy the source files to the equivalent folders), then you should be able to use the same tool palettes at home.

If that is not possible, you may want to look into the Publish Tool Catalog feature (found by searching for "publish tool catalog"), which makes moving a Tool Catalog and all of the referenced source files from one location (work) to another (home) easier.

[arcitek]

Hello David,

First, I want to thank you for your response again and the obvious time you put into trying to help.  It was most appreciative.

I did use the help file to try to find the solution I needed which is why I keep mentioning that the instructions I found there on sharing tool palettes was applicable only to Autocad vanilla.  I found some other items but none of them really reference the need to locate palettes on a remote computer off of the network.  

Like I said, I had already exhausted a good bit of billable time trying to fix it and at somepoint I need to move on.

As for the other files you referenced, I had found the AU documents you had linked from previous searches and I had already saved those for future reading.  They looked applicable and well written but again, I was out of time and found a solution in the meantime that has worked for the time being.

I do use the internet a good bit to find solutions to problems I encounter.  In fact, I would say almost 80% of the solutions I find for software related problems come from there.  I had spent almost 3.25 hours researching and reading various links and posts and finally had to give up and try to work it out on my own through a lot of trial and error.

Again, I do appreciate the effort and I can see there is a good Autodesk resource here for future proplems.  There will alsways be future challenges.  I now have one related to 3ds max but that is not a software issue but  user issue.

Thanks again,

Kevin