Out of the box MicroStation V8i and the other applications bases upon it will generate separate user, docking and panel display preferences for each different project and interface used. In most situations this leads to unnecessary variations as a user moved between projects and generates an excessive set of preferences files.

This is because of the default values for these two variables:

MS_GROUPPANELPREF = $(_USTN_PREFNAMEBASE…

Update 1 for MicroStation CONNECT Edition was released a few days ago. This marks the real introduction of Bentley Updates services. Previously tested with updates to the Bentley CONNECTION Client, the Update Service will now update MicroStation itself. In addition to the update process illustrated below downloads are also available of the full installation and an incremental update installer. The incremental installer…

Following on from the introduction to Named Groups in MicroStation - Grouping Part 1 this post looks at the Named Groups dialog.

Creating and manipulating Named Groups

To create a Named Group just:

• Click the 'New Named Group' button
• Edit the name as required
• Create a selection set of the elements that are required in the group (note elements can be added or removed from the Named Group)
• Click the the Add Elements…

In MicroStation - Grouping Part 1 I mentioned ‘Orphan Cells’, and strongly discouraged their use.

To recap, the simplest grouping method in MicroStation is selecting a set of elements then pressing Ctrl + G. Groups created this way are unnamed or ‘Orphan Cells’ that have many of the attributes of cells but none of the control or management tools. Excessive numbers of ‘Orphan Cells’ can eventually…