Original Article Date: Sep 12, 2006
MP Favorites is a small, but powerful application for MicroStation, which allows you to easily store and recall your favorite design files, cell libraries, key-ins and web pages. It is created specifically for users which like to organize their environment in such a way that it only takes a couple of mouse clicks to get to your favorite items. 2007-06-19 Updated for additional features.
Consider how much time per day you spend looking for things such as your keys, mobile phone, pen and paper and so on. Likewise, time is also spent in MicroStation looking for the DGN file you need to modify, the file to attach as a reference, a cell library for a particular cell, specific keyins or keyin combinations, etc. MP Favorites will help you to put all the files, libraries, key-ins to "defined places" and recall them with 2 or 3 mouse clicks.
2007-06-19: Two predefined folders were added: Current Directory Files and Reference Files, both which are built dynamically. The folder Current Directory Files display the MicroStation files from the directory where the current active file resides. while Reference Files contains a list of attached references. This enables you to switch to these files with only three mouse clicks. You can add new links...
and modify existing links right from MP Favorites menu.
MP Favorites stores it's menu in the CSV file format which allows you easily change your links in Excel or any other text editor. And of course, you can easily share your favorite links with your colleagues.For additional information about the CSV file format, refer to the following resources:http://www.creativyst.com/Doc/Articles/CSV/CSV01.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma-separated_valuesThree powerful ways of utilizing MP Favorites are described as follows.Modifying Contents of ReferencesTo quickly exchange into references, always standardize your logical names.Then simply associate the following keyin with the MP Favorites menu items:reference exchange [insert logical name here];dx=;dx= For additional information regarding logical names refer to:Standardize Reference LogicalsFile Naming Conventions and Pen Table Customization
HTML PagesWhen using the HTML Author to create web pages from cell libraries or saved views, the resulting HTML pages must be opened in MicroStation with the help of Engineering Links. In other words, if the pages are opened directly in IE or Mozilla there will be no interaction between the browser and MicroStation. To overcome this, just put links to these pages MP Favorites and they'll always be interactive.For more information about creating web-ready HTML pages, refer to:Make a web page from a cell libraryUse saved views more efficiently with the Saved Views utilityStandardize KeyinsMP Favorites adds another easy-to-use method of organising and distributing keyins to your team members. For example, the following table shows some useful keyins that can be stored in MP Favorites and shared among your colleagues by distributing the CSV file. It just can't get any easier than that! Enjoy!
Keyin
Purpose
mdl l calculat;calc tcb->actangle=tcb->smobuf[0];aa=$
Set active angle to last measured
mdl l calculat;place text;{floor(tcb->smobuf[0]*100)/100}
Place text using last results of Measure Tools (truncated to 0.01)
mdl l calculat;calc tcb->dgnfilenm
Show current design file path
mdl l calculat;calc tcb->celfilenm
Show attached Cell Library path
mdl l calculat;calc tcb->actangle
Show current active angle
standardschecker dialog
Standards Checker settings
standardschecker execute
Standards Checker execute
mdl l verifydgn;verifydgn verify
Verify your design file
place fence;%d;%d;ff=;dx=0;place fence;null comand
Place fence and copy contents to new design
FF=
Copy contents of current file to new design
CC=
Create cell
AA=
Active angle
place fence;%d;%d;reference clip boundary
Clip reference boundary
reference clip delete
Remove clip boundary
Exchange to reference file <logicalname>
BACKUP [file name]
Save as your file
dx=0;%d;%d
Start primitive operation from the last entered point
To get your copy of MP Favorites, please visit: http://www.mdlapps.com/favorites.htm
AskInga Article #302