Where are System Icons Located?

[CraigMWard]

Having difficultly finding any Advance Steel images/icons on my local drive. (see below image)

I'm wanting to put custom images in the same folder so I'm not having to define the whole image path, the change I'm making is going to be rolled out to multiple users.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[iwafb]

Hey Craig,

These are located in:

C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\Advance Steel 2023\AUS\Steel\Support\Toolbars

Please substitute "Advance Steel 2023" for your current build, and AUS for your country specifics.

For AS2022 on US build, it would be:

C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\Advance Steel 2022\USA\Steel\Support\Toolbars

[CraigMWard]

Thanks for the response, do you mean this folder:

I don't see any of the images in here that I posted above. Could they possibly be somewhere else or are they hidden?

[iwafb]

Hey Craig,

Sorry, i realise i made a couple of assumptions...

Are you looking for somewhere to store images to be displayed via a custom CUI? Or are you adding your custom commands to one of the AS palettes? or something else?

My suggestion is in relation to customising palettes. When you add a section or command to a palette, you will get corresponding "user" xml. For example if you add to the AS pallete (contained in "AstPaletteData.xml") your additions will be created in "AstPaletteData_User.xml". These files are located in the folders I described. In that instance, and IMO, I think the icon images should also be placed in this folder. You could then copy the icons and the corresponding xml to other users.

[CraigMWard]

Thank you for taking the time Dardo to try and answer this. I really appreciate it.

Just to clarify, I've created some icons for palette groups (specifically for the User Drawing Processes) I'm comfortable with amending the corresponding XML file (AstProcessesData.xml) and have got the new icon images working in my Advance Steel session.

However, when amending the XML file I've had to enter the whole file path for my icons (See image below) in the <image> and <imageinactive> tags:

What I would like to do is to be able to just put the file name, just like the user.png image. This is so that I can be confident that when they are copied onto other users PC's they are in the same file location every time and not relying on end users to create folders (without spelling mistakes haha).

[iwafb]

All good.

You will have to copy the png files to the next version when you upgrade, don't think the migration tool would pick them up automatically. Once the files exist, they'll get picked up by the palette.

Pretty sure the migration tool won't pick up the changes to the palette, unless they are contained in:

AstPaletteData_User.xml

Bit rusty on this, as I created mine a few years ago. But I thought if you used the functionality to add commands within the palette, it created the "user" equivalent automatically?

[CraigMWard]

You are correct that AdS creates the "*_user.xml" automatically. I've observed this behaviour within the folder when AdS is running. 

Not sure about migrating to a new version of Advanced Steel, that's not part of my question and that is something that I'll deal with when we eventually upgrade. My query is "where are Advance Steel images are stored".

Just to confirm, from what you're saying is if I put my images in the same folder as the XML file I should be able to link the image in the XML file without putting in the whole file path.

[iwafb]

Looking at your path structure (which you would have to change on every upgrade anyway). Have you considered having a "mycompany" folder in the server that contains all these files? Then the users would not need to copy anything, the images could be perpetual...

something like "S:\mycompany\advance\images"

[iwafb · Accepted solution]

Hey mate,

Sorry, but I'm not sure how advance stores the images or where.

Our setup has the "mycompany" approach on the server as I think this is the cleanest approach. Understand you want to deal with upgrades later and that's fine too as long as you can keep track of what these are and where they are located.

[CraigMWard]

Thanks for taking the time, we may have to go down that route too then.

Have a great day.

[Sebastian_Eiche · Accepted solution]

the pics are stored in dll files (for example for AS2021):