CUI Editor Enhancements

[dcochran]

Hello,

We are looking at ways to improve and enhance the CUI Editor in AutoCAD. As a customer, what improvements would you like to see with CUI?

Thanks in advance for your input!

Doug Cochran
Autodesk, Inc.

[Anonymous]

Your plan would be a good way to go, on the flip side, I would equally want to keep IT involved as little as possible on CAD customizations, not only for my benefit, but for theirs as well. Password access wouldn't be a bad idea to unlock the enterprise files rather than changing profiles everytime or having to make sure files are copied or reset to read-only.

[Anonymous]

If your comfortable with just Manager priviledges for write permissions to the support directory it works nicely.

Switching profiles is simple enough if you create your AutoCAD shortcuts under different names on the desktop with the profile in the target path. You will get all sorts of bugs just switching profiles without restarting CAD. Better off booting directly into the profile.

[Anonymous]

I've never encountered a problem switching from "User" to "CUI Editor" Profiles within AutoCAD.

> You will get all sorts of bugs just switching profiles without restarting CAD. Better off booting directly into the profile.

[Anonymous]

If you are configuring drawings with plotting options, separate ctb files for line weights, support directory paths, and menu modifications of those directories while others are using them.... I would say roughly 85-90% of a profile applies without a restart. That last little percent can make some interesting bugs. Restarting CAD when a different profile is applied is always a good idea unless you targeted that profile at the shortcut.

Also I found menu modifications require a a restart of CAD on my end after applying them. I have not determined which case of modifcation causes this, but if I don't do this some workstations go haywire with menuload failures if they are loading up CAD before I start it up again. It seems to compile the menu's again on start up.

[Anonymous]

I think you have to do it that way since you're the only one that can create the compiled MNC for everyone to use since they have read-only rights in those folders.

The drawback I've noticed in using the profile switch to set enterprise CUI as main, is suddenly I might get tasked to do something in the middle of working on the CUI, and some personal configurations aren't there, and right-click menus are missing. Plus, as I'm configuring the CUI while its the main, when it will become the enterprise, this seems to cause the Unresolved menu conflict problem.

[Anonymous]

Moving .ctb to xml would be nice I agree.
But what did we gain by moving .mnu's to xml.
They were much more readable before moving to .xml.
Now if there is some super .xml reader out that that I don't know about
I have to say whats the point?

--
Dave

"James Maeding" wrote in message
news:5154526@discussion.autodesk.com...
I would say I agree, if there was a way to display the xml in a clean way,
without all the tags.
We should be able to take advantage of the fact that the text file tells us
its format.
That would be the right way to edit the file.
What I am essentially wanting is a text form of the CUI so I can edit a
bunch of stuff at once.

Jeremiah Farmer <>
|>what is this fear of irrelevant file size?
|>You don't want everything stored as a ICE file just to save a few KB.
|>If the CTB file was in XML, it would be very easy to edit with a text
editor, yet, yes, it might be a few K more than in its current incarnation.
|>The true beauty of XML is that it is plain text, thus as an administrator
I can take a look at it and see what is going on -- with a text editor, or
with *any* XML editor. As a standard for static or semi-static data, it is
not a flavor of the day, is the future data standard for practically
everything.
|>But again, the XML format they chose (a weird variant of the 1.1 standard)
doesn't help anything. And in fact, is probably to blame for the lag time
in bringing up the interface.
|>
|>--J
James Maeding
Civil Engineer and Programmer
jmaeding - athunsaker - com

[Anonymous]

Why it is better to have a development copy of the folder separately from the working folder to edit then copy the files over.

[Anonymous]

The old customization system worked very well. If you could make that as an option.

I miss being able to right click on the actual toolbar icon i want to change and have the dialog box to change it pop right up (8 seconds is a loooong wait in computer time). Also the ability to drag and drop icons from one toolbar to another.
I also have a problem where when i make a minor change to a menu, all of my toolbars reset themselves, some turning off and some turning on, at scrambled locations. I'm not an AutoCAD or computer novice, but I'm getting unpredictable results working with the cui.

[Anonymous]

Agreed, but I would still like to work on the development version in the same setting location (enterprise menu load) as the production would be.

[Anonymous]

I forced myself to use 2007 over the last week during a bunch of presentations. Of course I had to tweak the toolbars, since among other things, you guys decided to remove the Express Layer toolbar, finally replacing it with a Layers II toolbar. Yet as I was using the CUI to make changes, I noted that every time I deleted a toolbar button, the display of the toolbar buttons in the top right of the dialog box would refresh at least 4 times. This is just poor coding.
As was mentioned by others on here -- shipping software without testing may be okay in the shareware world, but not for some of the most expensive software one can purchase.

--J

[Anonymous]

Doug:

Since there are 169 responces so far, I have not read all of them to see if this has been addressed.
Since I started with AutoCAD 2000, I have used the number keys at the top of the keyboard to override my OSMODE setting:

***ACCELERATORS
["1"]_CEN
["2"]_ENDP
["3"]_INT
["4"]_MID
["5"]_NODE
["6"]_PERP
["7"]_QUA
["8"]_TAN
["9"]_nea

I realize that A2K6 uses Temperary override keys to allow one to activate osnaps, and I have been using them but it is still not as efficent as using the single keystroke of the number keys at the top of the keyboard.
All of the information on the new CUI that I have seen indicates that A2K6 is fully customizable, however it is not since the option for using the numbers at the top of the keyboard is no longer allowed.
Is there a reason why A2K6 does not have this as an know?
Bottom line is that I would like to have this as an option again. I do have other drafters who as well use these accelerators with there A2k4.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

How about an editor that doesn't change other aspects of the file when you make one small change??? Why would the CUI eliminate my toolbars when I didn't ask it to? I am always afraid to make any changes because the CUI IS SO DAMNED UNRELIABLE!!! It always erases something that I never asked to be erased, I can't take a partial CUI and turn it into an enterprise CUI......the list goes on and on. I'm certain my company wouldnt appreciate me having to spend my time de-bugging your programming failures. An expensive program such as Autocad should never be released as a beta, but that seems to be standard Autodesk practice.

[Anonymous]

On Mon, 1 May 2006 21:56:01 +0000, CCMoor <> wrote:

>Why it is better to have a development copy of the folder separately from the working folder to edit then copy the files over.

So you don't immediately torpedo your users when you make a mistake.

Matt
mstachoni@comcast.net
mstachoni@bhhtait.com

[Anonymous]

Why not give optional ACAD-2000 mode to work with. This will give some breathing time while the issues get surfaced out and solutions are sought.

[Anonymous]

If they decide to make it non-modal, like VLIDE, lets
hope the implementation is done much better than what
VLIDE was. That thing has all kinds of odd behavior.




"Martti Halminen" wrote in message
news:5146805@discussion.autodesk.com...

- Is there a good reason why it has to be a modal dialog? If it were
non-modal like VLIDE

[Anonymous]

oh, I'm sure it would be more like the non-modal WsCommCntr1.exe, which would never lock up AutoCAD on startup or anything.

--J

[Anonymous]

How about a more intuitive help for us newbies when using the cui first time. Almost a Step A through Step Z (or Whatever) for the newbies.

I have some experience with the old MNUs and such. It very frustrating that I can not simply have my From Osnap on my F1 key. I am jumping from ADT2005 to ADT2007. What is more frustrating that I am having a hard time finding very CLEAR information in the help section.

Oh before anyone critizes me about using the F1 key for something other than accessing help, lat me ask this. How many different ways do we need to access help? IMHO; there is no need to tie up a very valuable keyboard estate.

Message was edited by: krushert Message was edited by: krushert

[Anonymous]

Perhaps the attached will help?

--
R. Robert Bell


wrote in message news:5170892@discussion.autodesk.com...
How about a more intuitive help for us newbies when using the cui first
time. Almost a Step A through Step Z (or Whatever) for the newbies.

I have some experience with the old MNUs and such. It very frustrating that
I can not simply have my From Osnap on my F1 key. I am jumping from ADT2005
to ADT2007. What is more frustrating that I am having a hard time finding
very CLEAR information in the help section.

Oh before anyone critizes me about using the F1 key for something other than
accessing help, lat me ask this. How many different ways do we need to
access help? IMHO; there is no need to tie up a very valuable keyboard
estate.

Message was edited by: krushert

Message was edited by: krushert

[Anonymous]

slick....
very nice...


Ted


*R. Robert Bell* said the following:
> Perhaps the attached will help?

[Anonymous]

Did Bud or Doug Cochran from Autodesk read this!!!!!!
This is what we need!
If I were in Autodesk, I will just hire Laurie!

--
Nicholas Iyadurai
St Louis, MO

"Laurie Comerford" wrote in message
news:5149514@discussion.autodesk.com...
Hi Bud,

I don't think 8 seconds is acceptable for opening any dialog box in a mass
market product such as AutoCAD. You should be aiming at under a second.

I'm on a seriously fast computer where the first opening took about 4
seconds and the second about 2 and those delays are annoying

Suggestions:

Provide in the normal interface that key/mouse combinations can:

Add a pop menu
Copy a pop menu inclusive of assigning a name to the copy
Delete a pop menu
Hide/show a pop menu
Change the column order of the pop menus by dragging a menu.
Convert a pop menu to a toolbar

Add a menu item (open a small dialog box to enter the command details)
Copy a menu item
Delete a menu item
Change the row order of commands by dragging the command.
Drag a menu item to a toolbar and visa versa
Copy a menu item
Change the location of a toolbar icon by dragging it to any visible toolbar

Add all of the above to the Undo command.

This would remove the need to have a CUI editor and as each of the commands
is handled as a single events the response times could have no observable
delay.

Assuming the CUI is to be kept then:
Clearly part of the slow speed of opening the CUI dialog box is populating a
large number of list boxes - many of which may not be needed is a given
session. Why not look at leaving these unpopulated till you get a Getfocus
event on the list box

--

Laurie Comerford
CADApps
www.cadapps.com.au

"Bud Schroeder [Autodesk Inc.]" wrote in message
news:5148242@discussion.autodesk.com...
Hi Laurie,

What version of AutoCAD are you running? 2006 or 2007? I did some testing
using my IBM T42 Laptop and the CUI opens up in under 8 seconds the first
time and around a second each time after. We made a lot of speed changes
specifically for AutoCAD 2007 so you should see a lot more speed that way.

Also besides speed do you have any suggestions for improving the Editor?

Thanks again for the feedback and we look forward to hearing back from you
about the editor.

Bud Schroeder
AutoCAD Test Development
Autodesk Inc.

"Laurie Comerford" wrote in message
news:5146492@discussion.autodesk.com...
Hi Mark,

It will never be acceptable until you can make it start instantly.

The 10 second average delay to respond to the command to open the dalog box
is a reflection of incompetant programming.

With my slightly modified MNU editing system I can make a change to the MNU
file and reload the modified menu in less time than it takes to open the CUI
editor.


Laurie Comerford
CADApps
www.cadapps.com.au

"mark" wrote in message
news:5146421@discussion.autodesk.com...
give me an option without goowee (GUI)
just plain old text editor option, so i can fine tune
and be in full control

thanks
mark


wrote in message news:5146408@discussion.autodesk.com...
Hello,

We are looking at ways to improve and enhance the CUI Editor in AutoCAD. As
a customer, what improvements would you like to see with CUI?

Thanks in advance for your input!

Doug Cochran
Autodesk, Inc.