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NX9 toolbar customization
- Thread starter icetea73
- Start date
JohnRBaker
Mechanical
OK, I think I understand what you're asking for and if it is what I think there are some things that you need to decide on before you start to actually customize the interface. First of course is the assumption that we're talking about customizing the 'Ribbon Bar' interface and not the old, and soon to be abandoned, 'Classic Toolbars', correct?
OK, first off you need to decide what style you want the repeated commands to use as this will effect where it will be practical to place them. If you're only interested in seeing the icons, and not the names of the commands, you could probably place them anywhere but if you want to see the names, and perhaps the icons as well, then the only practical place will be the 'Bottom Border Bar'.
Now the second thing that you have to decide is exactly how many commands do you want to see, keeping in mind that the maximum is 10 commands no matter what you want since that is the hard-coded limit inside of NX itself but you can set this up to show less commands if you want to.
OK, now before we can begin the customization task you must first start a new session of NX, open or create a new part file and perform a series of random modeling operations, but avoid the sketcher, until you have at least the desired number of commands in the 'Repeat Last Command' stack (to a maximum of 10). Now you don't actually have to perform the modeling operations, simply selecting them will add them to the stack but you MUST have done this before we can proceed.
Now that you've 'filled the stack', as it were, we can get started.
Now open the Customize function and you will note that all of the border bars will open, even the empty ones. At this point you need to have decided about the format of the 'stack'. If just the Icons are good enough then use either the Left, Right or Bottom Border Bar (I would probably avoid the Quick Access and the Top Border Bars as they're already pretty full), but if it's going to be the names or the Icons + Names, then stick to the Bottom Border Bar.
Now with the Customize dialog open, select the 'Commands' tab and in the 'Catagories' list, select and expand the item labeled 'Classic Toolsbars (As Groups)' and then scroll down and select the 'Repeat Command' item. You will now see the list of current commands in the 'stack' (this is why you had to do those modeling steps to fill this list ahead of time).
Now starting with the top item, drag them one-at-a-time to where you want to see your list of 'Repeat Last Commands' until you have placed as many as you wish. Now if all you're interested in are Icons, you're done but if you want to see the names of the commands or Icons + Names, you need to do go, and while still in Customize, select each of the newly placed Icons, press MB3 and select how you would like to see that item displayed, selecting from the options at the bottom of the pop-up list. Note that the 'Text Only (In Menus)' option doesn't really apply here so the other three are what you want to use noting that 'Default' will be Icon only. Now you don't have to actually set them all the same so you could be a bit creative here, like using Icons + Names on only the first few and icons only for the rest. Note that if you use names the first item will ALWAYS be shown as 'Repeat Last Command' but the others will show the proper name of the command.
OK, now leave Customize and you should be good to go. Remember that you need to save your Role so that these changes are saved. Also note that this will only apply for the current task, meaning that if you want to see a list of 'Repeat Last Commands' in both Modeling, Drafting and any other module, you'll have to repeat the above steps for each task, including Sketcher and NX Sheet Metal, where you want the list to be available.
Anyway, give it a try and see if this is what you're looking for.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
OK, first off you need to decide what style you want the repeated commands to use as this will effect where it will be practical to place them. If you're only interested in seeing the icons, and not the names of the commands, you could probably place them anywhere but if you want to see the names, and perhaps the icons as well, then the only practical place will be the 'Bottom Border Bar'.
Now the second thing that you have to decide is exactly how many commands do you want to see, keeping in mind that the maximum is 10 commands no matter what you want since that is the hard-coded limit inside of NX itself but you can set this up to show less commands if you want to.
OK, now before we can begin the customization task you must first start a new session of NX, open or create a new part file and perform a series of random modeling operations, but avoid the sketcher, until you have at least the desired number of commands in the 'Repeat Last Command' stack (to a maximum of 10). Now you don't actually have to perform the modeling operations, simply selecting them will add them to the stack but you MUST have done this before we can proceed.
Now that you've 'filled the stack', as it were, we can get started.
Now open the Customize function and you will note that all of the border bars will open, even the empty ones. At this point you need to have decided about the format of the 'stack'. If just the Icons are good enough then use either the Left, Right or Bottom Border Bar (I would probably avoid the Quick Access and the Top Border Bars as they're already pretty full), but if it's going to be the names or the Icons + Names, then stick to the Bottom Border Bar.
Now with the Customize dialog open, select the 'Commands' tab and in the 'Catagories' list, select and expand the item labeled 'Classic Toolsbars (As Groups)' and then scroll down and select the 'Repeat Command' item. You will now see the list of current commands in the 'stack' (this is why you had to do those modeling steps to fill this list ahead of time).
Now starting with the top item, drag them one-at-a-time to where you want to see your list of 'Repeat Last Commands' until you have placed as many as you wish. Now if all you're interested in are Icons, you're done but if you want to see the names of the commands or Icons + Names, you need to do go, and while still in Customize, select each of the newly placed Icons, press MB3 and select how you would like to see that item displayed, selecting from the options at the bottom of the pop-up list. Note that the 'Text Only (In Menus)' option doesn't really apply here so the other three are what you want to use noting that 'Default' will be Icon only. Now you don't have to actually set them all the same so you could be a bit creative here, like using Icons + Names on only the first few and icons only for the rest. Note that if you use names the first item will ALWAYS be shown as 'Repeat Last Command' but the others will show the proper name of the command.
OK, now leave Customize and you should be good to go. Remember that you need to save your Role so that these changes are saved. Also note that this will only apply for the current task, meaning that if you want to see a list of 'Repeat Last Commands' in both Modeling, Drafting and any other module, you'll have to repeat the above steps for each task, including Sketcher and NX Sheet Metal, where you want the list to be available.
Anyway, give it a try and see if this is what you're looking for.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
- Thread starter
- #3
Thanks a lot for that tutorial! Works now exactly the way I was looking for. Great! 
After reading your message I understood that I simply have to copy the (dynamic) items of the dropdown and not the dropdown itself. It's actually completely logical and intuitive after thinking a second about it. I just dragged the icons from the original "repeat command" drop down over to the border bar like I would do with any other command.
One more question somehow related question:
Is there an option to give the "more" gallerys a dynamic behaviour? When they are configured to have 0 "in-ribbon Columns" they show the first command they contain until opened. Now what I'm looking for is a behaviour where that single command representation changes automatically to the last command that was selected in the gallery.
Most likely such dynamic stuff is not possible (yet?) but who knows - maybe I'm just missing how to do it.
Thanks again!
After reading your message I understood that I simply have to copy the (dynamic) items of the dropdown and not the dropdown itself. It's actually completely logical and intuitive after thinking a second about it. I just dragged the icons from the original "repeat command" drop down over to the border bar like I would do with any other command.
One more question somehow related question:
Is there an option to give the "more" gallerys a dynamic behaviour? When they are configured to have 0 "in-ribbon Columns" they show the first command they contain until opened. Now what I'm looking for is a behaviour where that single command representation changes automatically to the last command that was selected in the gallery.
Most likely such dynamic stuff is not possible (yet?) but who knows - maybe I'm just missing how to do it.
Thanks again!
JohnRBaker
Mechanical
The only things that works as you've described, replacing the Icon shown with the last one used, are the 'Drop-Down' items. The 'More' panels and the 'Galleries' are intended as places where a secondary set of functions can be collected with the 'Galleries' showing their content in the Ribbon while the 'More' panel is completely separate, intended as something that can be more extensive while NOT using any Ribbon 'real estate'.
Note that we're doing some fine-tuning of the UI for the next version, NX 10.0, which will be available near the end of year. When we start beta-testing in a couple of months we'll have a better idea what we've managed to get done in this area.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
Note that we're doing some fine-tuning of the UI for the next version, NX 10.0, which will be available near the end of year. When we start beta-testing in a couple of months we'll have a better idea what we've managed to get done in this area.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
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