Import Tool Palettes

[jmartt]

How can I import .xtp files into a tool palette and make them "stick"?

Due to years of fiddling around with tool palettes, I've got the ones that I use spread out all over the place and I'm having some trouble consolidating them into one folder, which is what I want.

I'm at what I thought would be the last step: I have a tool palette folder that works and a list of .xtp files, that I exported from various palette folders, that I want to add to that working tool palette. 

It appears that I can import these .xtp files into the tool palette that I see in C3D in many ways...By the Import command in Customize Palettes, by drag-and-drop, etc. But, even if I resave my profile after I do this, the custom TPs don't stick around after I close and reopen CAD.

I know I can have more than one folder for tool palettes and I'd be willing to point to multiple places. I'm not against doing this. I just can't get that to work, either.

I've searched and can't find an answer to this. It must be simple. I've tried many things. More than I want to list. Kinda at wit's end.

I'm posting in Civil, not vanilla AutoCAD, bc C3D may handle TPs differently. I found some evidence of this in my research, anyhow.

[jmartt]

I should clarify, having re-read my post:

I'm not against pointing to multiple TP folders, but I'm not (yet) willing to continue pointing to folders with dozens of old custom .atc files hanging around, which is what I set-out to accomplish. Deleting the old custom palettes, either through the Customize Palettes routine or manually, by deleting the .atc files, was problematic. As in it either didn't work or seemed to corrupt files, or at least make all the icons disassociate, which lemmetellya, takes a bit long to manually recreate. So I tried to consolidate all the TPs I wanted into one folder.

[cwr-pae · Accepted solution]

Tool palettes get tricky. The best I can remember from moving mine to the server:

1st Close tool Palettes

2nd Assign a folder in Options/Files/Tool Palette File Locations. You can have more than 1, but I advise using only one.

3rd import the palettes and palette groups from where ever.

4th close ACad. The program should create a folder name Palettes under the tool palette folder you specified with an .atc file for each palette and an image folder for tool images

5th Reopen ACad, under options ADD the tool palette/palette folder.

6th Open tool palettes, they all should be there.

Move the tool palette/palette folder above the tool palette folder under options to improve speed when switching palettes or palette groups.

If you add a palette or palette group swap the order of those folders 1st, otherwise you get a tool palette/palette/palette folder (with a new images folder) and take a hit on performance when switching.

[AllenJessup]

Do you have the new path set in Options?

[jmartt]

Yeah, Allen, I did. That would maybe be my first guess at this problem too, though. It would have taken an awfully long time to chronicle what I did up to the point of the post, so I just sorta put it out there hoping someone would guess at the right level of my (in)competency. Luckily, it looks like cwr pointed me in enough of the right direction. Thanks!

[jmartt]

cwr, thanks so much for taking the time to solve that for me. The second part of my day is much better than the first!

I'm not sure I followed your steps completely. For example, if I close the TP, in Step 1, how could I import the .xtp files in Step 3? I'm not sure you actually have to close the TP in CAD when you reset the TP folder location in Step 2.

Regardless, it worked. I had already caught-on to the reopening CAD step. What I didn't know, and neglected to go into into with my original post, was how the .xtp files got magically changed to .atc files. Your explanation of what was happening behind-the-scenes in Step 4 was an "a-ha!" moment. I was originally trying to manually get the .xtp files into a "palettes" folder instead of making the "palettes" folder, with the .atc files from the .xtp files in the folder above.

I'm really, really happy this forum is here sometimes.

[cwr-pae]

It took 2 of us a week of research to figure out the process I outlined.

When you export or import palettes you pick the folder during the process, so it has nothing to do with the path set under options. That's where the confusion comes in. The folder path in options is where ACad automatically saves your palettes, and it only saves them when you close ACad. If the program crashes with a new palette or tool, that palette or tool is lost is lost. Real convenient! So close and reopen soonest if you create new tools/palettes.

[AllenJessup]

@cwr-pae Thank you for posting that. It clears things up nicely. I just went through that because I had lost the Acad partial customization file. When I reloaded it. My customized palettes were gone.

[cwr-pae]

Glad to be of help. Giving back for all the help I get from reading what you guys post.

[Joe-Bouza]

Do get a lag on this custom TPs?
I've all. It abandoned hope on them due to lagging

[jmartt]

Joe, Funny you should mention it: I have been getting some lag. But just when I open a TP for the first time in a session. Thankfully, not when switching after that, loading a block, etc. I chalked it up to caching recent edits or something. I'll keep an eye on that.

But you reminded me of this post http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/forums/forumtopicprintpage/board-id/66/message-id/286917/print-single-...

I think I tried that and it worked. I remember being very happy. Also, moving everything to the C Drive made everything faster for me, so I can't compare apples to apples, but the lags that I'm seeing opening a TP now are nothing compared to the waits I was seeing, for doing anything, before I got that problem fixed. 

[cwr-pae]

If you put the tool palette/palette folder as 1 of the tool palette file locations and put it above the tool pallet folder loading performance will improve. Closing the last drawing file you have open will be slower as that's when the program writes changes to the disk (Not when exiting ACad as I misstated earlier ;/).

[jmartt]

Yeah, cwr. Concur. That's the trick from that post I pasted in there.

Nice how all this is so simple, right?

[jmartt]

I've been getting along fairly well the past weeks pointing to the <My Company>/Tool Palette/Palettes folder on top.

I have the <my company>/Tool Palette folder right below.

And the C3D/Tool Palette folder below that. (This is the one with all the subassemblies and ootb palettes.)

I have found that I can make new tools and copy&paste tools across the <my company> palettes without changing the support folder structure with desired results.

I have also found that, if I switch the order of the first two folders and put <my company>/Tool Palette folder on top, I can create a new palette and the correct things happen in those support folders. I did this yesterday. The .atc file for the new palette is where it is supposed to be.

However, this morning, none of my tool palette customization is remembered. I had different tool palette groups, one for my custom palettes, one for C3D subassemblies, etc. I seem to recall that some groups were presented to me ootb. But now they are all gone. The palettes are still there, on the left, when I click on "Customize Palettes...", but I have no groups to put them in.

It took five minutes to fix this, but I don't want to do this every time I make a new palette. Is there some way to preserve the customization folder structure when changing support folder structure, (if indeed that's what caused this)?  

[cwr-pae]

Did you swap the path order back after creating the new palette?

[jmartt]

Sure I did. I tried every combination of orders. Then I tried restarting CAD with every combination. Nuthin'.

[cwr-pae]

We had a something like that happen when we first went to server based tool palettes. I'll have to think on it and see if I can remember what was the solution.

Make sure everyone has the same path structure if using server based palettes.

[jmartt]

I've given-up with server-based anything. This is just my local. I think it must have something to do with my profile, bc I think that is where the order of the TPs are stored. That's something I was aware of when dispensing TPs out to others. But to lose all the categories is weird. Never had that happen.

[cwr-pae]

When using server based palettes its important to have the folder read only for everyone but the person responsible for maintaining them. Otherwise they keep changing. If you don't change the paths back after creating new palettes/groups before you close acad you lose the palette groups and have to recreate them. Don't give up, eventually you will get it straight in your mind and it actually gets easy.

[cwr-pae]

Also, I have 2 palette folders, one public and one personal (both on the server, but the personal could be on your local HD). The personal one is pathed 1st and seems to store the actual palette arrangement and palette groups I use, but I can't verify it, it just seems to work right.