Autodesk User Group International

Last month, I talked about Tool Palettes as a way to help enforce company standards with less effort than ever before and the different types of tools that can be created on a palette. This article will focus on many of the different methods of creating content for Tool Palettes.

Making Use of the Established Content

Tool Palettes don�t make you go out of the way to create content that can only be used and managed by this new style of interface. Tool Palettes do a pretty good job at allowing you to tap into the content that has already been established through the years as blocks/symbols, custom commands and Hatch patterns. Below are many of the ways to populate your Tool Palettes.

Drag-n-drop
A drawing is the by-product of many long hours to convey an idea or concept for you and/or a client. Typically, a drawing follows a set of guidelines or company standards. The objects in the drawing can be used to build new tools to help adhere to these standards. To create tools based on objects already in a drawing follow the steps outlined below.

Start a new drawing. If not already displayed, activate the Tool Palette by pressing the key combination Ctrl+3 or selecting Tool Palette Windows from the Tools pull down.
Create a new layer called �MyObject�, set the color to Green, and make it current. Now draw a Line and a Rectangle on the new layer.
With not commands active, select one of the objects that are in the drawing file. The object should become highlighted and grips should be enabled.
Press and hold down the left mouse button over the selected object. Drag the object over the top of the Tool Palette Window until you see a black horizontal bar.

Once you see the horizontal bar, simply let go of the left mouse button and a new tool will be added the tool to the Tool Palette. There are some objects that can�t be added to the Tool Palette, like a Solid. If you try to add a Solid, the cursor will be changed to display a circle with a line through it.
When some object types are added they display a small black arrow just to the right of the tool button. If you click on the arrow, a small fly-out appears similar to the one that is associated with a Toolbar button.
Once the tool has been added to the Tool Palette, its properties can be accessed by a right-click over the button and selecting Properties from the menu. The General Section shows the properties of the original object that was used to create the tool.
Along with object properties, you can also see that this tool has a fly-out associated with it. The fly-out can be customized to show or hide some of the tools that are in the group.

Once you have finished looking around the Properties dialog box, click OK to accept any changes or click the Cancel button to discard any changes.
Give the new tool a try. The tool should be creating new objects with the properties pre-set in the tool. As a test, change the current layer or color and try the tool again.

DesignCenter (ADC)
DesignCenter has been around since AutoCAD 2000 and was originally introduced in AutoCAD LT 97/98 as Content Explorer. With just about each release or so Autodesk adds more features into this command. The concept of DesignCenter is to allow you to harness information from existing drawings, but it doesn�t really allow for much in the way of organizing information or applying company standards. This is where Tool Palettes can be used to organize and help follow company standards much closer. There are a couple types of tools that can be created from the content found in DesignCenter. These tools are Hatch and Block tools.

Creating a Hatch Tool
There are two ways to add a Hatch tool to a Tool Palette. The first involves creating/adding a Hatch object to the drawing, like the method outlined in the previous section. The second method involves viewing a Hatch Pattern file in DesignCenter and adding the pattern directly from there. To create a Hatch tool, follow the steps outlined below.

Activate DesignCenter if it is not already open by pressing the key combination Ctrl+2 or selecting DesignCenter from the Tools pull-down.
The fastest way to access the Hatch Pattern files is by clicking on the Favorites button near the top of the DesignCenter interface. The button looks like a folder with a star burst in the lower right corner. This brings you to the Autodesk folder contained with in the Favorites folder under the user profile in Windows. This folder contains two shortcuts that link to the Hatch Pattern files that come with AutoCAD.

Another way to find the Hatch Pattern files is to use the search feature in either Windows Explorer or DesignCenter.

Tip: If you use the search in DesignCenter, you can load the Hatch Pattern file directly into the Content Area by right-clicking on one of the files found in the search results area.
If you didn�t use the Load into Content Area from the search feature, just select the Hatch Pattern file to have it load.
Once the file is loaded, select and then drag the pattern onto the Tool Palette. Drop the new pattern onto the Tool palette once the black horizontal bar is displayed.

Creating a Block Tool
Blocks are by far the most common method of customizing AutoCAD and building reusable content. They are probably the most common element that one might find on a Tool Palette due to the flexibility of the block tool. Not only can you get blocks on a Tool Palette, but you can also have an External References (or Xref) as a tool type.

Activate either the Folder or Open Drawings tabs near the top of the DesignCenter interface.
Browse through the folder structure until you get to the drawing file that you want to capture content from. Tip: You can use the search feature that was talked about under the Creating a Hatch Tool topic to locate a drawing file on a drive.
Click on the plus sign next to the drawing file name. This opens up the drawing and exposes the type of content that is accessible through DesignCenter.
Select the Block item to display all the available blocks in that drawing file.
Just like you dragged the Hatch Pattern from DesignCenter to a Tool Palette, you can also do the same with a block.
Once the block has been added to the Tool Palette, you can change the Properties of the tool so it attaches as an Xref instead of inserting like a block.

Tip: You can add an Image tool by dragging an image file from DesignCenter onto the Tool Palette.

Tip: You can also convert a drawing to a Tool Palette by selecting the file in DesignCenter and then right-clicking it. On the right-click menu, choose Create Tool Palette and it will automatically create a new tab and add all the Blocks contained in the drawing file to the Tool Palette.

Windows Explorer
Autodesk enabled the use of dragging and dropping files directly from Windows Explorer onto a Tool Palette. This works in a similar fashion to that way content can be dragged from the DesignCenter to a Tool Palette. Some of the files types that can be dragged to the Tool Palette from Windows Explorer are Drawing Files and Images.

Toolbars and Customize command
By the way Tool Palettes look and function, they might someday replace Toolbars. That's the future. You can, however, get started today with porting tools over to Tool Palettes. Autodesk enabled the Tool Palette Extension for AutoCAD 2004 to have the ability to add content from the Customize dialog box or existing Toolbar. To add a Command tool to your Tool Palettes follow the steps outlined below.

Launch the Customize command by going to the Tools pull down, select Customize and Toolbars. Select the Commands tab.
Select a category from the list on the left from which you want to get a tool.
Then scroll down in the list on the right and locate a tool that you want to place on the Tool Palette.
Then, just left click and drag the tool over to the Tool Palette and drop it when you see the black horizontal bar.

Tip: Tools can be created from Toolbar buttons as well. Just bring up the Customize dialog box and start grabbing content from Toolbars to be placed on your Tool Palette. Fly-outs cannot be dragged from a Toolbar to a Tool Palette.

Content Galore

As you can see, there are a variety of different sources from which to pull content to populate your Tool Palettes. In this article, I focused on building content from these different sources to help you establish a collection of tools that can simplify the drawing process. In the next article, I will focus on organizing and distributing Tool Palettes in a company environment.

Submitted by Lee Ambrosius of HyperPics.

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