Migration and migraines need help

RE: Migration and migraines need help

Kirk — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 15:14:04 GMT

Ryan wouldn’t you think Bentley would make microstation more productive. When powerdraft 1st came out Bentley bragged about fewer mouse clicks and keystrokes then autocad. Auto ads shortcut Kevin’s make so much more sense. I hate autocad. I doubt that is the case now with either microstation or powerdraft. Bentley needs someone in production involved with programming. And not a ex government employee.

RE: Migration and migraines need help

Tim Hickman — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 21:45:23 GMT

If you have multiple tools that share the same symbolgy settings.

You are merely mentioning one function for those settings.

workflow might be: pick template and it sets the symbology, then pick various tools needed (place line, place arc, etc...) . Pick a different template to set new symbology, then pick the same tools in the same location (place line, place arc, etc...)

One tool, multiple templates.

just saying.....

RE: Migration and migraines need help

Kevin van Haaren — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 21:07:21 GMT

There are several advantages of templates:

the first only really matters if you have different standards you switch between. If one standard calls for your ply 3/4 to be on one level, and the other other standard calls for it to be on a different level then when you switch standards as long as the template names are the same the same button works for both standards.

Your key-in could be:

lock templateassociation on;template active 3-4Ply;place smartline

now whatever standard you use that has a 3-4Ply template works with the same button.

Another advantage is if you have to modify your existing standard you don't have to find every button you set something on. Just change the template and the buttons still work correctly.

The last advantage I'm aware of is in reporting. Since an element knows what Template was used when created you can do things like build quantity take offs based on template names rather than super-specific leve/weight/color mappings.

RE: Migration and migraines need help

Kirk — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 20:57:07 GMT

Tim

My way avoided creating a template. The menu would set the level , symbology and multiline and the m line command

Below no need to create a template. Why set up a template and then another custom command that calls up the template and the command.

LV=CW-full;active symbology bylevel;MlineStyle Edit Style "ply 3/4";MlineStyle Active Selected;place mline constrained

RE: Migration and migraines need help

Kevin van Haaren — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 20:09:32 GMT

Generally people want a single button to do all the actions, which is perfectly doable, create a button that picks the template and triggers smart line for you. Then you don't have to do them separately, and if you change the template the button already picks the latest version of the template

RE: Migration and migraines need help

Tim Hickman — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 19:21:16 GMT

if it is a common tool that is delivered such as place smartline. The why not simply create templates ?

load the needed template for the symbology then pick the needed tool (place smartline).

RE: Migration and migraines need help

Bob Rayner — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 19:00:49 GMT

I'm doing pretty much the same as you. I've set up one workspace and one workset for each client. My settings files are on the c drive, dgns on the d drive, one set of folders for each. The other issue, the gui, I can only recommend you adjust to the "new way". I've had to do this 6 or 7 times over the years. I recommend the Task Navigation ribbon with a few custom add ons for commands that aren't there. There is a button upper right that will hide the thing (it sort of works).

I agree with everything Lorys says, but I have taken the opposite approach, anticipating Bentley will eventually force us all onto Connect. It's buggy as a week old slice of fruit, but somehow I manage to get my work done. You will be able to migrate much of the ui from v8i, but I would resist the temptation to try and make it look exactly like v8i.

RE: Migration and migraines need help

Kevin van Haaren — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 18:28:49 GMT

I'm more a workspace person than a ui customization expert, If you want to try and duplicate that with a ribbon setup I would create your own Workflow and populate it with panels and buttons and drop-down menus. A Workflow consists of the Ribbon Tabs and Groupings with in the ribbon tab and then commands in the group.

So if you open Customize Ribbon, click the New Workflow button in the right-panel, I called this My Buttons. This created an entry in the drop-down under the workflow in the title bar. Then I created a Home tab under that and just copied the Home tab options from another workflow. Then I created another tab to duplicate one of your menu options 1CW. Under that I created a panel U-Below and just kept creating panels (these sub-panels don't appear in my ribbon, but they make it useful to group items.)

Then finally I created buttons. You can assign key-ins to buttons.

Another option would be to make the 1/2 Ply panel a Drop-Down menu with 1/2 PLY BELOW and 1/2 PLY MASK as options underneath it. That would tighten up how many buttons you had appearing in the ribbon.

Note that this ribbon setup is quite a few clicks less than your old setup. Assuming you already have your Workflow selected it's 1 click to select a ribbon tab, and a 2nd to select the tool. Your screenshot is 5 clicks each time you want to change a tool.

RE: Migration and migraines need help

Rod Wing — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 18:26:34 GMT

I've had some success having the old top bar menus show up in CONNECT in my Quick Access Toolbar just by referencing the older dgnlib file in my CONNECT configuration.

If that doesn't work you can add standard Toolboxes (both default and custom) to the Quick Access Toolbar and they will mimic the older bar menu.

RE: Migration and migraines need help

Kirk — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 17:07:57 GMT

Kevin As you can see my menu customizations is vast. The dropdowns you see are setting level, symbology, etc. And this case setting a multline style and invoking the mline command. Others may set the level and Smartline command and Tell me how to customize Ce to get this fast production, please. Templates could work if they allowed you to assign a command too, but it doesn't

RE: Migration and migraines need help

Kirk — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 15:21:26 GMT

Thanks for the help. I did see how someone was able to kind of implement a old bar menu.

RE: Migration and migraines need help

Kirk — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 15:14:57 GMT

Lorys lol tell me how you really feel.

RE: Migration and migraines need help

Kevin van Haaren — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 14:59:50 GMT

Bar menus won't work in Connect. If your complaint is just that ribbon takes up too much room, on the far-right of the ribbon is a ^ icon. Click that to minimize the ribbon to a menu bar. The ribbon then shows up when you click a menu option and disappears when you're done.

RE: Migration and migraines need help

Kevin van Haaren — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 14:51:34 GMT

(This assumes you're using MicroStation CONNECT with the default installation)

On the workspace, copy your v8i workspace components into the appropriate folders in:

C:\ProgramData\Bentley\MicroStation CONNECT Edition\Configuration\Organization

Put your variables in the standards.cfg file in that folder.

You can not copy from your v8i config:

MDL apps (.ma & .dll files) - you need to find versions specifically compiled for CONNECT or come up with a new workflow
Macro basic (.BAS & .BA files) - these won't work anymore. need VBA replacements

In the folder C:\ProgramData\Bentley\MicroStation CONNECT Edition\Configuration\WorkSpaces

create a folder (call it Kirk or whatever). Create a text file Kirk.cfg (as long as the cfg file has the same base name as the folder). This file can be empty but must exist.

Create a Worksets folder inside the Workspace folder you created. Create a folder inside the Worksets called AllProjects. Create an AllProjects.cfg (again, base name must match the folder). And again, this file can also be empty.

(So something like C:\ProgramData\Bentley\MicroStation CONNECT Edition\Configuration\WorkSpaces\Kirk\Worksets\AllProject)

Now all your standards are in the Organization level, you have a Kirk Workspace and an AllProjects workset that do nothing.

Caveat: If you're planning on using the DGNWS file for things like like the sheet index and sheet number/titling, this probably isn't what you want. You'll want multiple worksets for that, but this will let you do that and still let you have all your standards in one place for all projects.

EDITED: clarified the folders inside the workspaces a bit.

RE: Migration and migraines need help

Lorys — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 09:04:36 GMT

Hey brother "Resist the devil and he will flee...James 4:7"

I too have been tortured into submission but only for a joint venture project and in PWise.. but for my other jobs its V8iss10..then main reason apart from PWise partner requirement is we have a new datum MGA2020 which V8i doesnt recognise .. so cant use bing, and cant reproject data form others in wrong datum.. only connect has this datum and can transform... and bentley wont give a fix for v8i... the fix is use CE ... not what I want to hear...

and for you production stuff still use v8i.. your DGN files are compatible with both versions.

So don't migrate have both and slowly get to learn the ins and outs of CE then figure out how to migrate what you need to migrate and what you have to rebuild.

But totally agree with all your comments it took me 5 x s longer to do the project in CE then in my customised v8iss10 environment... but we have no say in the matter as you say its being forced upon us...