Below is a collection of tips, tricks and Autodesk tech support documents about customizing tool palettes. There’s a variety of information here, so I’ll try to group it according to the task you’re trying to accomplish.
Creating Custom Palettes
1. Always know where the palette files are stored – check the path under Options > Files. The first path in the Tool Palette files location is where your palettes will be stored. Make sure you know this location – change it to an empty folder and AutoCAD will create a new .ATC file that allows you to build Palette tabs from scratch.
2. To add new palette tabs, simply right click on the tool palette title bar and select New Palette. Give the new tab a name with NO WILDCARD CHARACTERS – dashes and underscores are OK, but don’t use periods, commas, etc. Spaces are OK to use as well.
3. Turn Auto-Hide off when customizing palettes – right click on the title bar of the palette and make sure the Auto Hide feature isn’t checked, or click on the single arrow at the bottom of the title bar to turn it to a double arrow (which indicates Auto Hide is turned off).
4. Additional project specific palette paths will be added when the Project Navigator as used – don’t worry about these or delete them, they’ll just come back when you start using the tool. But they are helpful when you are trying to create a set of palette tabs that are project specific – that’s why they show up first in the list after you start to use the Project Navigator.
5. Drag and drop details, symbols and other existing drawings you want to have on the palettes from Windows Explorer to your palette. If you don’t get an image of the symbol, open the drawing up. Change to whatever view of the symbol you want, then right-click on the palette tool that’s missing the symbol. Use the Set Image from Selection tool to set the image for the tool.
6. For Building Systems users, place an MvPart in a drawing, then save the drawing. Once the drawing is saved, you can drag and drop the part to a palette, but ABS doesn’t look at that particular drawing to find the part (unlike blocks). It’ll use the catalog location as the source location for the part.
Helpful Support docs from Autodesk:
Adding toolbar commands to tool palettes
Autodesk Web Link:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/item?siteID=123112&id=7290039&linkID=2476059
Creating tool palette icons for DesignCenter content
Autodesk Web Link:http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/item?siteID=123112&id=7340112&linkID=2476059
Tools not copied when tool palette is dragged into catalog
Autodesk Web Link:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/item?siteID=123112&id=6932010&linkID=2476059
Sharing Tool Palettes
1. If you want to create a set of palettes that are shared, the simplest method is to create a location on your server that you have full rights and permissions to. Add this to your tool palette file locations (at the top of the list) or just re-path to this folder only. Create the palettes as needed. Once completed, simply go to another user’s workstation and add the shared path at the bottom of the tool palette file locations path. If you don’t want the rest of the users to edit these palettes, the set the permissions for the folder to read only (and don’t let users have any write capabilities or you’ll have a ton of “New Palette” files to contend with in the folder.
2. Use Catalogs to backup customizations as well as share with other machines. You can add custom palettes from a catalog by simply dragging the individual palette from a catalog – at the bottom right corner a refresh icon will appear when the palette has been added to a workstation. This allows the creator of a palette tab to update the tab automatically when the catalog is updated. NOTE: Local users must have FULL ADMINSTRATIVE RIGHTS to their computer if you’re going to be creating and editing palettes.
3. To create a new catalog, open the content browser, and then right click in the grey area of the browser – choose the Add Catalog command. Choose Create a New Catalog, and then choose browser to locate the catalog on the server. Form here you can open the catalog and add categories by right clicking in the catalog and choosing Add Category. After your categories have been created, left click on a palette tab and hold it, then drag the palette into the catalog.
4. If you create palette tabs in a category, you can drag the entire category into another user’s workstation and a palette group will be created.
5. If the content you’re placing on a group of shared palettes is located on a network and is using styles from the default styles folders, make sure you’ve edited the second path (the Tool Catalog Content Root Path) location on the AEC Content tab under the Options command to point to this location. Also, if you are creating your own custom styles, create new drawings under this path and add your custom styles to these new drawings – don’t add them to the default drawings, as these may get updated with new releases of the software.
6. If a palette is missing icons or is pathed to incorrect locations, right click on the title bar and choose Refresh Palette Set – this will go back and check for missing icons, incorrect paths and more and try to fix it for the user.
Helpful Support docs from Autodesk:
Adding custom AutoCAD® tool palettes to Architectural Desktop or Autodesk Building Systems
Autodesk Web Link:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/item?siteID=123112&id=9237867&linkID=2476059
Palette Groups
1. Palette groups are controlled by a file in your local user login directory (see the technote below). However, you can edit the location of the profile.aws file in the registry and have it look to a shared location. Here’s a sample key you can edit:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R17.0\ACAD-5004:409\Profiles\ADT2007\General]"ProfileStorage"="U:\\CAD2006\\Support\\Profiles\\ADT2007\\Profile.aws"
In this example, the path was changed from C:\Documents and Settings\davidb.CADRESYS\Application Data\Autodesk\ADT 2007\enu\Support\Profiles\Architectural Desktop - Imperial\Profile.aws to the shared drive on the server. Access to this folder should be restricted so only a CAD manager or main user can edit the pathing. (Thanks to Michael Z for this one!)
2. AutoCAD profiles and groups are linked to each other, but don’t always correctly store information. When editing the AutoCAD profiles, if you change your profile to look at different location for the tool palettes, then change it back to the original location, the sorting of the palettes is lost (as well as the location of tabs in particular groups, so avoid changing the palette path only. Instead, create a customization profile you can use to create your tabs, and then add the groups. Copy your palettes into categories in a catalog (see above for creating catalogs). After creating your tabs, change back to your original profile, but change the location of the palettes to an empty folder. Next, drag and drop your palette groups from a catalog into ADT or ABS, and the sorting and groups will be properly created.
Helpful Support docs from Autodesk:
Locating information related to user interface
Autodesk Web Link:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/item?siteID=123112&id=4175052&linkID=2476059
Network deployment of palette groups
Autodesk Web Link:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/item?siteID=123112&id=6414822&linkID=2476059
Installing tool palette groups with deployment image for network installation
Autodesk Web Link:http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/item?siteID=123112&id=7569785&linkID=2476059
Creating an ADT Profile in ABS 2007
Autodesk Web Link:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/item?siteID=123112&id=8108322&linkID=2476435
If you have some of your own tips, add them here - we're always looking fo good ideas!
Thanks - David B.
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One addtional comment - the workspace you're currently working in (which is controlled by the CUI) must be saved in order for palettes to stick in their respective groups. I've heard of different results from whether you use "Save As" under the workpsace toolbar to save your settings and overwrite your workspace, as opposed to Automatically save changes - in either case, just make sure you save the workspace once you place your palettes into groups. If you're in a network environment, you can create your groups in an enterprise CUI (that's in a read only folder that you have access rights to , but not everyone else). This way the groups are controlled in a single location as opposed to individual workstations.
Another one of my users reminded me that if you're using multiple paths to store palettes, set all of the folders to "read only" except the one you want to store your palettes in, as well as move that palette path to the top to the tool palette search path, so your tabs are stored in the correct location. Kudos to Herbert Diaz at Hazen and Sawyer in Florida for pointing this one out.
thanks - David B.
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