Understanding and Implementing an Enterprise cuix

[rsuppa]

I'm trying to implement and easier way to update custom menus, toolbars etc. for several users.

Currently I do the following:

I make all customization's on my computer, saving to my acad.cuix.

I transfer only the customization's to a master file accessible to all users on the server.

Each user opens there cui and transfer the customization's into their cuix.

I'd like to make this less time consuming for everyone, so I'm thinking the enterprise cuix might be the solution, however I've tested it and it doesn't appear to behave the way I think it should.

My understanding is that each user would leave the main customization path as is - pointing to the default acad.cuix. I would start with a blank enterprise.cuix file that is saved on the server and add to it my customization's.  Each user would change the path of the enterprise cuix file location to point to the new enterprise file. After restarting autocad it would load the default acad.cuix and the additional customization's in the enterprise.cuix.

When I test this it only loads the enterprise.cuix and not the content of the acad.cuix. 

Should I save my acad.cuix that has all the customization's included with it onto the server, have everyone delete the path to the main cuix and only have an enterprise cuix path?

Mike

[rsuppa]

I attempted to remove the main cuix path and only have an enterprise cuix path. When loading autocad it appears to load all menus fine. If I type in cui, it tells me I have not defined a main cui file. 

So maybe this solves my issue.

Utilize my acad.cuix to make all the customization's (toolbars, pulldown's etc.)

Transfer the customization's to the enterprise.cuix on the server.

Have each user remove the main cuix file path (leave it blank).

Have the user enter the path under Enterprise to the custom enterprise.cuix on the server.

I believe this will work, but I'm unsure if this is the correct implementation.

Anyone have any input?

Mike

[DannyNL]

If you'll only define an enterprise .cuix, you will not be able to save changes to your workspace. That includes which palettes are visible and where they are located on your screen. The enterprise cuix is always write protected, so users cannot modify it directly.

I'm managing a lot of client environment at our company and I'm using both the main and enterprise cuix. The enterprise cuix only contains the client specific customization, the main cuix is basically a copy of the standard ACAD.cuix but with a modified workspace to also contain the clients stuff.

Which cuix is loaded depends on how AutoCAd is started and with what profile. For each client I have a separate shortcut to launch AutoCAD with that specific client profile, which contains the support paths and cuix files for that client. But if you do not have different client environments but only a environment for your own company, you could do with just the standard acad.cuix and en specific company.cuix.

To setup just create a development AutoCAD profile, where the main cuix is your company.cuix and the enterprise is the standard acad.cuix.  Next step is to fill your company.cuix with the customization that you want to have.

After you've added all the things you want to have in your company.cuix, now setup your working environment. So turn on/off the toolbars (if you have/want any) that you want to have and position them at the right spot, rearrange the ribbon to show the tabs and panels that you want to have, turn on/off and position the palettes that you want to have by default, etc.. If you are finished with that, save the workspace to a new name i.e. your company name. The workspace will always be saved to the main.cuix in which in this case is your company.cuix in your development profile.

After this is done create a new production profile where the main cuix is the acad.cuix located in your current Windows profile and the enterprise is your new company.cuix (make sure this one is located on a shared network location) and make all the necessary changes to the settings in the profile.

Now export your profile and store at i.e. at the same shared network location as your company.cuix.

The other users now only need to import the saved profile and make it current to get the customization and company workspace. Any changes the user makes to toolbars, ribbon, palettes, etc. will be saved in the main cuix which is their own acad.cuix and they can create their own workspaces with the customization from the enterprise menu.

If you want to make any changes to the company enterpise cuix, just use your development profile (with if correct your local mastercopy of the company.cuix) and test it. If everything is ok, just copy the modified company.cuix to the shared network location and all other users will have the new .cuix when restarting AutoCAD. Beware that if you make modifications to the workspace, the users will need to re-select the workspace to get the changes and this will discard any changes they mde themselves and did not save into a new separate workspace.

Important: make sure only you have write access to the shared network location and all others have read-only access, as this will protect your customization from changes by other users if they try to tinker with it.

Hope this long story makes sense to you.

[doaiena]

Have you tried using a partial CUIx? You can make all the changes you want there, without touching the main file. I would suggest adding a routine at startup, which would automatically update the CUIx. When you want to make an update to all instances of AutoCAD, just copy the new file in a predefined directory and all of the CAD instances will update at startup.

Something like this maybe...:

(defun autoupdate ()
(if (findfile networkCuix)
(progn
(setq localCuix (copyToLocalDir networkCuix))

(load localCuix) 
)
;else nothing to update
)
)

[dgorsman]

For context, we run an Enterprise and Main system.  Enterprise has virtually nothing except for some default workspaces.  It has the OOTB ACAD.CUIx, Express CUIx, and a few customs as partial (and all hosted on the network).  The Main has a couple of starting workspaces but is otherwise empty.  Every user has their own Main CUIx file so they can manage their own workspaces.  We run a number of different applications, each with it's own set of tools so each has it's own profile, and thus it's own Enterprise/Main combination.

[rsuppa]

Thanks for all the great input. I need a bit of time to digest and implement the suggestions.

Much appreciated!

[dmfrazier]

For what it's worth, here, we have the "main" CUI set to a local, custom file, stored in a local "roaming" folder accessible to the user. Users save their workspaces and any other personal customizations there. We have "enterprise" set to a custom CUI stored on a network share. This CUI has acad and acetmain loaded as partials beneath (or "on top of") it. This way, the contents of those CUIs are available, but they cannot be modified. Users can copy elements from them into their own custom CUI if they wish to modify them.

As the administrator, I maintain two AutoCAD profiles: one that duplicates the other users' setup (above), and one that loads our enterprise CUI file as the main so that I can make edits to the enterprise CUI. (The folder where the enterprise CUI is stored must be set up with appropriate security so that other users cannot save changes if they figure out how to do this.) Any changes I make become available to the other users the next time they launch AutoCAD.