Adding a Custom Placement Tool to the Ribbon

If a particular Catalog Item is used frequently it could be convenient to have a tool that placed a specific item, a wall from the UK dataset is used in this example.

The key-in command to place a wall is:

TFPLACEMENT COMPONENT USERWALL [ Catalog_Type ][ Catalog_Item ]

Specifying a particular wall this becomes:

TFPLACEMENT COMPONENT USERWALL Wall A-Walls_ExternalBlock

Step 1

Create a DGNLIB to contain the custom tools.

This DGNLIB must be in a folder included by the configuration variable MS_GUIDGNLIBLIST. This variable already includes the …\Dgnlib\Gui folders at Organization, WorkSpace and WorkSet levels so in most cases the configuration does not need to be changed, just create the new DGNLIB in one of those folders and carry out all the customization activities in the DGNLIB (Note GUI DGNLIBs can be present at multiple levels so custom tools can be delivered, for instance, to a whole organization, with additional custom tools for specific projects at WorkSet level).

Once the new GUI DGNLIB (or multiple DGNLIBs) has been created, restart OpenBuildings to ensure the DGNLIB has been loaded and is available for editing.

Step 2

Open the DGNLIB

Right-click on the ribbon, selecting Customize Ribbon.

Expand the Building Design workflow, then add a new Tab

Under this tab first add the building Common Tools group

Then create a new group, note that there are now tools available to create new buttons and other GUI elements:

Click New Button, give the tool a name the click Apply to save the changes so far:

In the button properties add:

• A description that will be used by the pop-up tooltip
• The key-in command to place the wall including the Catalog Type and Name
• Select an icon from the existing application icons or import a custom icon

• Choose the default size for the tool.
• Optionally choose shortcut keys to open the tool

Apply.

Step 3

Use it!