Autodesk User Group International

Last month, I talked about customizing the desktop shortcut and the use of switches with AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT. This article will focus back on customizing AutoCAD from the inside with Tool Palettes.

Tool Palettes have been around since AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT 2004. The original release of tools was designed around Blocks and Hatches. Then around seven months after AutoCAD 2004 shipped, Autodesk released the Tool Palette Extension which added increased functionality such as Fly-outs, Tools-by-Example, Drag �n Drop from Toolbars to Tool Palettes, Create Palette Groups, Gradient Hatches and Command Tools.

With AutoCAD 2005, Autodesk incorporated the Tool Palette Extension for those that were not on subscription and added support for Tables, along with additional improvements like Auxiliary Scale. I will talk about each of these individual tools in this and subsequent articles.

There are many companies that have not yet figured out how this feature can help save time, while others wouldn�t go back to the old way of having toolbars all over the screen. Palettes are a great way to regain some of the screen real estate if you are a user with many toolbars. Tool Palette �tools� can be grouped into tabs, which would require separate toolbars to be displayed. One of the biggest advantages to using a tool on a Tool Palette over a toolbar is the ease of making sure that the action follows company standards every time. This increases accuracy and reduces rework due to items being placed on incorrect layers, at proper scales, etc.

So where to get started� you have seen them in the magazine and some of you might have even used the ones in AutoCAD. The ones that ship with AutoCAD are primarily only for an example and are meant to give you an idea of what can be done with them. To get the most out of Tool Palettes, you really have to try and apply them in the work place. So this article is going to focus on what type of tools can be added to a Tool Palette. This will be the first installment with several others to come on Tool Palettes.

Palettes Are Not Just for Artists

Like an artist's palette, the Tool Palettes in AutoCAD provide a common place to organize and access the tools we mentioned earlier. Let�s take a look at them a little bit more in-depth now. I indicate in parenthesis the AutoCAD version within which each tool will work.

Block Tool (AutoCAD 2004 and up)
The Block tool allows you to insert a block into a drawing that has been stored either in an existing drawing as a block or from a drawing file. Blocks have been around for a very long time and Tool Palettes add a new twist with an old idea. Autodesk introduced Design Center back in AutoCAD 2000 which added a way to re-use information from existing drawings. However, it was kind of a poor way to ensure drawing standards were being used. Design Center allowed a way to place content from one drawing into another but you didn�t have much control over it. In the case of blocks, it would place things on the current layer only. The Tool Palettes� Block tool allows you to assign properties such as layer, color, etc. to the blocks on a palette. There are even properties of the Block tool to set rotation, scale and whether the block should be exploded or not when it is inserted into a drawing.

Hatch Tool (AutoCAD 2004 and up)
The Hatch tool allows you to drag-n-drop a hatch pattern into a closed area. Like the Block tool, you can specify the properties (layer, color, etc.). One of the downsides to the Hatch tool is there is no way to pick multiple areas for hatching like you can with the Bhatch command. Gradient �hatches� are handled (in 2004 with Extension and in 2005) by a separate tool, because they are actually color fills, not hatches.

Fly-out Tool (AutoCAD 2004 w/ Extension and up)
The Fly-out tool works in a similar fashion to a Fly-out on a Toolbar. It allows you to use a group of tools with common functionality that use the same entity properties like Color and Layer name. There is no way to build a custom Fly-out from the Tool Palette, but they can be created if you venture into the Shape.atc file. The Shape.atc file allows you to create custom Fly-outs with tools. Once you create the Fly-out in the Shape.atc file you have to manually assign it into the Palette file itself. This is not an easy task, but can be very rewarding if you do. I would imagine that there will be a way to create and assign a custom Fly-out in a future release of AutoCAD.

Command Tool (AutoCAD 2004 w/ Extension and up)
The Command tool works just like a Toolbar button does. A custom image can be assigned to the Tool and a user-defined macro that can contain a command with options or even AutoLISP code (if you are not using AutoCAD LT).

Table Tool (AutoCAD 2005)
The Table tool allows you to specify the creation of a Table object which is new in AutoCAD 2005. It is a great way to set up standards if you and/or your company create lots of charts or tables for your designs. This tool also supports properties such as layer, color, etc.

Working with Tool Palettes

Now that you understand the tools available to you for use on the Tool Palette, it is time to start getting down to business.

Loading the Tool Palette Interface
Like anything else in AutoCAD, the Tool Palette interface can be displayed by a variety of methods. The key combination Ctrl+3 can be used to display the interface. Otherwise, the commands TOOLPALETTES or TOOLPALETTESCLOSE are used to show and hide the Tool Palette interface respectfully. If you are like me, a major keyboard user, you will find TP alias very useful for turning palettes on.

Modifying an Existing Tool
Making a change to an existing tool is the same, no matter what type of tool is being edited. The only difference might be the tool-specific properties, because most of the tools share the same common properties. Follow the steps below to edit a tool.

Locate the tool that you want to edit on the Tool Palette Window.
Right-click over the tool and select �Properties�� from the shortcut menu.
Change the Properties for the tool and click OK to accept the changes or Cancel to exit and ignore changes to the tool.

Making a Copy of an Existing Tool
Autodesk has made working with Tool Palettes a very familiar process. Autodesk has implemented familiar behaviors like Cut, Copy and Paste functionality. To make a copy of an existing tool follow the steps below.

Locate the tool that you want to edit on the Tool Palette Window.
Right-click over the tool and select Copy from the shortcut menu.
Right-click again and select Paste. You can also select another tab that is part of your current Tool Palette set and add it to that tab.
Once you have added the copy of the tool, right-click and change the Properties of the tool as desired.

Moving a Tool
You can Cut a tool and then Paste it to remove or relocate it onto another tab in the Tool Palette set. The order of tools can be changed by left-clicking on a tool and holding down the button while dragging it around on the current tab. You can tell were the tool will be relocated by the bold line that shows up in the Tool Palette area as the cursor is being moved.

Changing the Look
Tool Palettes can be represented with several different looks and each tab can independently have a different look. From the View Options dialog box you can change the Icon Size, how items are displayed with or without a description and to what the View Options should be applied. To change what a Tool Palette or the set of Tool Palettes will look like, follow the directions below.

Select the tab that you want to change.
Right-click over the tab, or on an empty area of the tab, and select View Options� from the shortcut menu.
Change the options to match the way you want to work and click OK.

Wrap Up

You can think of Tool Palettes as a way to help enforce company standards with less effort than ever before. In this article I focused on the basics of using and working with Tool Palettes. I covered changing the view, moving and making new tools from existing ones. Copying and editing existing tools is not the only way to create new tools. There are many sources from which to create tools. These sources range from inside of AutoCAD to Windows Explorer. I will be talking about the many different ways to create new tools in the next article on the Tool Palette.

Submitted by Lee Ambrosius of HyperPics.

(Discuss this Article! in AUGI's new Discussion Forums.)