Customization Blog Series: Designing a Ribbon Group Pop-up - Blog 2 of 2

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Customizing and Creating a Ribbon Group Pop-Up

You can customize a delivered ribbon group pop-up or create a new one as desired. In this blog we will do both, customize a delivered ribbon group pop-up and create a new one.
Keeping in mind the typical drafting tools for a roadway designer we will customize the ribbon group pop-up. You can download the sample file (test.dgnlib) containing the customizations explained in this blog from here. You can save it at a path pointed by the configuration variable MS_GUIDGNLIBLIST.

Following is the workflow for the same:

1. In the test.dgnlib file, open the Customize Ribbon dialog by:
   Selecting File > Settings > User > Customize Ribbon
   Or
   Right-clicking in the blank space in the ribbon and selecting Customize ribbon from the pop-up menu.
   
2. In the Customize Ribbon dialog navigate to Admin > Interface > Popups.
3. Right-click and select Import Local Copy. This will create a local copy of the delivered pop-up group.
4. Click Apply to save this copy.
   You can now edit this copy of the popups group. The original Popups group appears with a strike through. The copied ribbon group will contain a single vertical panel named Popup Main containing three horizontal panels corresponding to the three rows of the popup. The Horizontal and Vertical panels decide the alignment of tools or buttons in the pop-up group.
5. Select desired tools from the Choose Components drop-down list on the left and select Add to add to the horizontal panels. (You can also drag and drop the tools in the panels). We will add Move Parallel, Place Label, Place Note and Place Named Boundary tools to the middle panel.
   

   Note: To remove unwanted tools from the panels, you can right click on the tool name and select Remove. To add additional horizontal panels, you can select Popup Main panel and click the New Panel icon.

6. Click Apply.
   On pressing <space> this customized ribbon group pop-up is invoked.

The above workflow is demonstrated in the video below:

Let us now see an example where we will create a new pop-up group instead of modifying an existing one.

1. Open the Customize Ribbon dialog and navigate to Admin > Interface.
2. Click the New Group icon and name it Roadway Tools. (Later you can assign a keyboard shortcut to it in the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog).
3. Click Apply.
4. Select Roadway Tools and create a new panel named Roadway Main by clicking the New Panel icon. This will be the parent panel and will contain child panels that we will create next.
5. Select Roadway Main and create 3 child panels by clicking the New Panel icon. Each of these child panels will define the first, second and third row in the ribbon group pop-up. (You can create as many child panels as needed).
6. Select each child panel and add tools and buttons from the Choose Components From drop-down list. We will add the following tools:
   

   Panel 1 – Attributes, Groups, Manipulate, Modify, Primary, Placement.

   Panel 2 – Copy, Move, Move Parallel, Place Label, Place Note, Place Named Boundary, Rotate.

   Panel 3 – Selection, Patterns, Detailing, Text, Dimensioning, Measure.

   After adding a tool, you can assign a Key Tip to it in the Properties section. For example, for Attributes you can assign the key-tip ‘A’.
7. Click Apply.
   The following video demonstrates the procedure to create a new popup group.
   
   
   

Adding a Dialog Launcher

In the ribbon group pop-up, you can also add a dialog launcher for any desired tool. For example, if you want to add a dialog launcher for Saved Views to the Roadway Tools pop-up group, following is the procedure:

1. In the Customize Ribbon dialog, navigate to the Roadway Tools popup, Admin> Interface>Roadway Tools.
2. In the Properties section make the following settings:

        Launcher Key-in – DIALOG NAMEDVIEWS

        Launcher Label – Saved Views

3. Click Apply.

You will see the dialog launcher icon in the bottom right corner of the pop-up, selecting which will open the Saved Views dialog.

Assigning a Keyboard Shortcut

Now let us see how to assign a keyboard shortcut to the newly created popup group.

1. Open the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog (File>Settings>User>Keyboard Shortcuts).
2. Click Add.
3. In the Key column, enter ‘/’ for the shortcut key and press Enter.
4. In the Label column type ‘Roadway’ and press Enter.
5. In the Key-in column of the list box enter the key-in of the resulting group that you want to display in the following syntax and press <Enter>.
   
   ribbon grouppopup Admin\Interface\Roadway Tools
6. Click Apply.
   

   Observe that when you press the ‘/’ key, the new ribbon group pop-up is displayed.
   
   

   
   

In case you need to undo changes to the ribbon group popups you can select the Pop-up group and click Revert in the Customize Ribbon dialog.