How to share tool palettes over OneDrive network?

[Anonymous]

At my firm, we are trying to set up our standard block library with a custom tool palette. The .dwg and .atc files are in a shared location on our OneDrive server, but it seems like AutoCAD uses absolute file paths to locate these libraries. This doesn't work for us, because our OneDrive server is located at C:\User\USERNAME, etc...

The tool palette works perfectly from my computer, but if a colleague tries to use it, the block files are "not found" and they have to re-reference the file path from their computer. That overwrites the .atc file, and then the tool palette doesn't work on my computer, and so on. 

Is there any workaround that can be used on a OneDrive server?

[pendean]

Not an option with OneDrive of any other web hosting service.

Read this when you get a chance, same challenges https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/autocad-forum/sharepoint-based-support-files-lessons-learned/m-p/9761...

[rapidcad · Accepted solution]

@Anonymous It sounds to me like you have created tool palettes by dragging and dropping blocks onto tool palettes to create custom insertion tools. This is an easy way to share content among your colleagues, however it requires that you either copy your tool palettes and send the files (including the blocks) to the other users, or you set them up on a network location and map everyone to point to this location. I have done that in the past and like it, but I am not certain that you can do this on OneDrive - maybe you can if OneDrive can be mapped to in AutoCAD's Support Files Search Path and the tool palettes can be mapped to as well in the Tool palettes file locations - both are found under the left "Files" tab in your AutoCAD Options. 

If you can create a network like drive letter for OneDrive, you should be able to put your blocks up on that drive in a folder and then create new tool palettes (or edit your old tool palette block paths) which will use the new Onedrive Network location. Once redefined and stored, you can export each tool palette and your users can import them, or you can just save the whole custom tool palette folder to a OneDrive folder and users can place it on their hard drives and make sure their AutoCAD tool palettes file location folder maps to this folder.

So you have two ways to go: 1. If possible, post files on OneDrive and rebuild palettes to source from there then send users the exported tool palette definitions, or 2. if that will not work, zip up and send users your local files from your own HDD and also export the palette definitions and send those to your colleagues so they can place the zipped up block files in the same location on their HDD, and then import your tool palette definitions.

Hopefully OneDrive can be mapped and you can share it like a server, but I have not tried this.

Hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

Thank you, this is really helpful. You are correct, I did drag and drop .dwgs containing our block files to build this palette, with the intention that they will automatically update the palettes for all of our users if any changes are implemented. I built the palette from a shared folder location and remapped the Tool Palettes search path to this folder. 

The system is partly working now. A few notes for anyone else who stumbles across this thread in the future. I opened the .atc files in the shared location, and in some cases had to find and replace the C:\myname\ directory with %UserProfileFolder%\. In other .atc files, there was already a relative path in place. 

This now works for everyone in the network, except for those who have their OneDrive installed on a separate directory, such a D:\. I can't figure out how to make the search path more generic, or if that is possible. Your suggestion of creating a new network drive letter for all of our OneDrives is, I assume, the correct solution. However, it is too disruptive for us to do right now. 

Thanks again!

[edwin.prakoso]

You can map the folder to a local drive letter. So you can use the same drive letter for all users instead of a relative path. For example Z drive.

Use the below command on the Windows Command Line (CMD)

subst Z: "C:\User\USERNAME\herOneDriveFolder"

Just remember to drag the contents from Z, not directly from OneDrive.

If you want to remove the drive, you can use

subst Z: /D