<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="https://communities.bentley.com/cfs-file/__key/system/syndication/rss.xsl" media="screen"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"><channel><title>Fly with Barmenus - Part 1</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/w/askinga/1168/fly-with-barmenus-part-1</link><description>Articles previously found in the &amp;quot;AskInga&amp;quot; Community.</description><dc:language>en-US</dc:language><generator>Telligent Community 12</generator><item><title>Fly with Barmenus - Part 1</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/w/askinga/1168/fly-with-barmenus-part-1</link><pubDate>Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:35:33 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:256ab11c-f605-48ba-af10-f4ad4173302e</guid><dc:creator>Jordan Stierly</dc:creator><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/w/askinga/1168/fly-with-barmenus-part-1#comments</comments><description>Current Revision posted to [Archived] AskInga Wiki by Jordan Stierly on 6/11/2010 2:35:33 PM&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href="/Communities/Other_Communities/AskInga/default.aspx"&gt;&lt;img height="76" width="230" title="AskInga" alt="AskInga logo" border="0" src="/askIngaPics/askingalogo.gif" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Original Article Date:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;em&gt; March 5, 2001&lt;/em&gt;&amp;nbsp; 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Ever hear of a &lt;em&gt;barmenu&lt;/em&gt;? How &amp;#39;bout a &lt;em&gt;menubar&lt;/em&gt;? Well, besides being able to order munchies to eat with your beer, they can also help you set up and maintain your corporate drafting standards! 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style="border-bottom:#cccccc 1pt solid;"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Many thanks to &lt;em&gt;Mr. Sean Forward&lt;/em&gt; for authoring this article! &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Next to the &amp;lsquo;Settings Manager&amp;#39;, Barmenus are the most powerful customisation tool you can have at the click of a mouse. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The beauty of the barmenu is that they are easily linked to text files &lt;em&gt;(mdf files)&lt;/em&gt; which enable you to create standardised menus for everything. This includes things like discipline-specific level allocations, applying project specific title blocks and loading commonly used mdl&amp;#39;s and macros. The limits are endless!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
What we are going to look at over the next series of articles is how to set up your first barmenu, link it to an &lt;em&gt;mdf&lt;/em&gt; text file and learn to fly from there! To get started, we&amp;#39;ll walk you through the very basics of barmenu building - we&amp;#39;ll take a look at creating the menu below with the &lt;strong&gt;CIVIL&lt;/strong&gt; item and associated picklicks! 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table style="width:100%;" cellpadding="6" border="0"&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td valign="top" align="top"&gt;&lt;img align="left" border="0" src="/askIngaPics/59Pic3.jpg" alt="" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;How does a Barmenu Work&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
To be able to use a barmenu, you need two files. The first one is &lt;em&gt;barmenu.ma&lt;/em&gt; which can be downloaded from &lt;a href="http://members.optusnet.com.au/~forwardthinking/html/mdl_mac_ucm.htm"&gt;Forward Thinking&lt;/a&gt; as well from a number of other sites on the Internet. This file should be placed in the &lt;em&gt;.../Bentley/Program/Microstation/mdlsys/required &lt;/em&gt;folder to ensure that the mdl is automatically activated when you start MicroStation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The second file is a text file with the extension of &lt;em&gt;MDF&lt;/em&gt;. This file contains the information required by barmenu.ma to build the menus you wish to use. This MDF file can be kept anywhere on the network but we must be careful that the directory is available to all users and has the same network. We&amp;#39;ll see why shortly. Let&amp;#39;s take a look at how to create a basic menu file!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;My Civil MDF File&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Creating and editing MDF files is a very easy process. But having said that, it&amp;#39;s important to point out that all editing should be done in a simple text editor such as &lt;em&gt;WordPad&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;Notepad&lt;/em&gt;. This will eliminate any formatting and syntax errors which may occur with editors such as &lt;em&gt;MS Word&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
To create your first MDF file, open Notepad and save the default empty file to any directory and call it &lt;em&gt;civil.mdf&lt;/em&gt;. This file will be then be used to set our standard levels, colours, line codes and weights. Rather than go on about it too much, you can download my &lt;a href="/askIngaPics/59_seans_civil.Mdf"&gt;CIVIL&lt;/a&gt; file and open it with the appropriate text editor. (Note, you may want to rename this file) Let&amp;#39;s take a look at the completed MDF file below: 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table style="width:100%;" cellpadding="6" border="0"&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td valign="top" align="top"&gt;&lt;img align="left" border="0" src="/askIngaPics/59Pic1.jpg" alt="" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
There are a few important things to remember with MDF files. The first is that any MDF file must start with a semi-colon ( &lt;strong&gt;;&lt;/strong&gt; ). This denotes the beginning of the menu structure and becomes important when dealing with multiple menu headings, as we will see in future tutorials.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The next line is the name of the menu item, which in this case is &lt;strong&gt;CIVIL&lt;/strong&gt;. The next part is to create the notation for the pulldown section of this menu item, where a curly bracket ( &lt;strong&gt;{&lt;/strong&gt; ) denotes the start of the pulldown. For example, notice that the line which reads &lt;strong&gt;Levels 1-31&lt;/strong&gt; is preceeded and superceeded by a &lt;strong&gt;{&lt;/strong&gt;. This indicates the name of the sub-menu. Nothing to it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Next we create the individual line notations for the sub-menu and the commands associated with them.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;LV=1 EXISTING/NATURAL SURFACE, &amp;quot;LV=1;CO=0;WT=O;LC=0&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Let&amp;#39;s take a closer look at this:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;LV=1 EXISTING/NATURAL SURFACE,&lt;/strong&gt; is what might be called the descriptor and it&amp;#39;s what we click on from the menu. Note that the comma ( &lt;strong&gt;,&lt;/strong&gt; ) indicates the end of the descriptor.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;LV=1;CO=0;WT=O;LC=0&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; is the actual MicroStation command string enclosed in double-quotes ( &lt;strong&gt;&amp;ldquo; &amp;ldquo;&lt;/strong&gt; ). For more information about MicroStation command and command strings, please refer to the following resources: 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="/Communities/Other_Communities/AskInga/w/AskInga/the-power-of-keyins.aspx"&gt;The Power of Keyins&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="/Communities/Other_Communities/AskInga/w/AskInga/how-to-string-keyins-together-or-create-keyin-scripts.aspx"&gt;How to string keyins together or create keyin scripts&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="/Communities/Other_Communities/AskInga/w/AskInga/the-v7-keyin-list.aspx"&gt;The V7 Keyin List&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="/Communities/Other_Communities/AskInga/w/AskInga/the-keyboard-shortcuts.aspx"&gt;The keyboard shortcuts&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Lastly we close the sub-menu by placing two lines - each consiting of a curly bracket ( &lt;strong&gt;}&lt;/strong&gt; ) as shown in the image above. Now we&amp;#39;re ready to go. All we have to do is configure MicroStation to recognise the mdl and it&amp;#39;s associated MDF file. 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Configuring a Barmenu.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
To be able to get the barmenu to work, we must add a new configuration variable to MicroStation. If you have a CAD Administrator, please ensure that you have their permission before changing or adding any MicroStation configuration variables.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Too add the new variable, open a file in MicroStation, go to &lt;em&gt;Workspace &amp;gt; Configuration&lt;/em&gt; and the Configuration dialog box will come up. Click on the &lt;em&gt;New&lt;/em&gt; button and in the dialog box type &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;barmenu&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; in the &lt;em&gt;Variable&lt;/em&gt; section.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Next we type the full path and the name of our mdf file in the &lt;em&gt;New Value&lt;/em&gt; section of the dialog box. For this tutorial we&amp;#39;ll use the civil.mdf we have just created as our file name. The following image is an example path and file name. 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table style="width:100%;" cellpadding="6" border="0"&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td valign="top" align="top"&gt;&lt;img align="left" border="0" src="/askIngaPics/59Pic2.jpg" alt="" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Now we click on &lt;em&gt;OK&lt;/em&gt; to accept the new variable and then &lt;em&gt;OK&lt;/em&gt; again to accept the change to the configuration. We also click on &lt;em&gt;Yes&lt;/em&gt; to accept all of the changes we have just made. These changes are now active and there is no need to restart Microstation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
All you have to do now is go to &lt;em&gt;Utilities &amp;gt; MDL Applications&lt;/em&gt; and load &lt;em&gt;barmenu.ma&lt;/em&gt; 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table style="width:100%;" cellpadding="6" border="0"&gt;
&lt;tbody&gt;
&lt;tr&gt;
&lt;td valign="top" align="top"&gt;&lt;img align="left" border="0" src="/askIngaPics/59Pic3.jpg" alt="" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
&lt;/tr&gt;
&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Trouble Shooting&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
If you have trouble loading the barmenu, check the following: 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ol&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Ensure that the path and mdf name are correct in the configuration variable we just created.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Make sure the syntax for the mdf file is correct and that all notations are in place.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you still have trouble, it could indicate a corrupt mdl or mdf file. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Well, that&amp;#39;s it for the first lesson. I encourage you to give this a try and reap the benefits of barmenu&amp;#39;s today! 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
AskInga Article #59 
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div style="font-size: 90%;"&gt;Tags: Askinga, Automation, Programming, Article&lt;/div&gt;
</description></item><item><title>Fly with Barmenus - Part 1</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/w/askinga/1168/fly-with-barmenus-part-1/revision/6</link><pubDate>Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:45:56 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:256ab11c-f605-48ba-af10-f4ad4173302e</guid><dc:creator>Hannah Blye</dc:creator><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/w/askinga/1168/fly-with-barmenus-part-1#comments</comments><description>Revision 6 posted to [Archived] AskInga Wiki by Hannah Blye on 6/20/2008 5:45:56 PM&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href="/Communities/Other_Communities/AskInga/default.aspx"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/askingalogo.gif" border="0" alt="AskInga logo" title="AskInga" width="230" height="76" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Original Article Date:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;em&gt; March 5, 2001&lt;/em&gt;&amp;nbsp; 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Ever hear of a &lt;em&gt;barmenu&lt;/em&gt;? How 'bout a &lt;em&gt;menubar&lt;/em&gt;? Well, besides being able to order munchies to eat with your beer, they can also help you set up and maintain your corporate drafting standards! 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style="border-bottom: #cccccc 1pt solid"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Many thanks to &lt;em&gt;Mr. Sean Forward&lt;/em&gt; for authoring this article! &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Next to the &amp;lsquo;Settings Manager', Barmenus are the most powerful customisation tool you can have at the click of a mouse. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The beauty of the barmenu is that they are easily linked to text files &lt;em&gt;(mdf files)&lt;/em&gt; which enable you to create standardised menus for everything. This includes things like discipline-specific level allocations, applying project specific title blocks and loading commonly used mdl's and macros. The limits are endless!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
What we are going to look at over the next series of articles is how to set up your first barmenu, link it to an &lt;em&gt;mdf&lt;/em&gt; text file and learn to fly from there! To get started, we'll walk you through the very basics of barmenu building - we'll take a look at creating the menu below with the &lt;strong&gt;CIVIL&lt;/strong&gt; item and associated picklicks! 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic3.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;How does a Barmenu Work&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
To be able to use a barmenu, you need two files. The first one is &lt;em&gt;barmenu.ma&lt;/em&gt; which can be downloaded from &lt;a href="http://members.optusnet.com.au/~forwardthinking/html/mdl_mac_ucm.htm"&gt;Forward Thinking&lt;/a&gt; as well from a number of other sites on the Internet. This file should be placed in the &lt;em&gt;.../Bentley/Program/Microstation/mdlsys/required &lt;/em&gt;folder to ensure that the mdl is automatically activated when you start MicroStation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The second file is a text file with the extension of &lt;em&gt;MDF&lt;/em&gt;. This file contains the information required by barmenu.ma to build the menus you wish to use. This MDF file can be kept anywhere on the network but we must be careful that the directory is available to all users and has the same network. We'll see why shortly. Let's take a look at how to create a basic menu file!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;My Civil MDF File&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Creating and editing MDF files is a very easy process. But having said that, it's important to point out that all editing should be done in a simple text editor such as &lt;em&gt;WordPad&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;Notepad&lt;/em&gt;. This will eliminate any formatting and syntax errors which may occur with editors such as &lt;em&gt;MS Word&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
To create your first MDF file, open Notepad and save the default empty file to any directory and call it &lt;em&gt;civil.mdf&lt;/em&gt;. This file will be then be used to set our standard levels, colours, line codes and weights. Rather than go on about it too much, you can download my &lt;a href="/askIngaPics/59_seans_civil.Mdf"&gt;CIVIL&lt;/a&gt; file and open it with the appropriate text editor. (Note, you may want to rename this file) Let's take a look at the completed MDF file below: 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic1.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
There are a few important things to remember with MDF files. The first is that any MDF file must start with a semi-colon ( &lt;strong&gt;;&lt;/strong&gt; ). This denotes the beginning of the menu structure and becomes important when dealing with multiple menu headings, as we will see in future tutorials.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The next line is the name of the menu item, which in this case is &lt;strong&gt;CIVIL&lt;/strong&gt;. The next part is to create the notation for the pulldown section of this menu item, where a curly bracket ( &lt;strong&gt;{&lt;/strong&gt; ) denotes the start of the pulldown. For example, notice that the line which reads &lt;strong&gt;Levels 1-31&lt;/strong&gt; is preceeded and superceeded by a &lt;strong&gt;{&lt;/strong&gt;. This indicates the name of the sub-menu. Nothing to it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Next we create the individual line notations for the sub-menu and the commands associated with them.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;LV=1 EXISTING/NATURAL SURFACE, &amp;quot;LV=1;CO=0;WT=O;LC=0&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Let's take a closer look at this:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;LV=1 EXISTING/NATURAL SURFACE,&lt;/strong&gt; is what might be called the descriptor and it's what we click on from the menu. Note that the comma ( &lt;strong&gt;,&lt;/strong&gt; ) indicates the end of the descriptor.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;LV=1;CO=0;WT=O;LC=0&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; is the actual MicroStation command string enclosed in double-quotes ( &lt;strong&gt;&amp;ldquo; &amp;ldquo;&lt;/strong&gt; ). For more information about MicroStation command and command strings, please refer to the following resources: 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="/Communities/Other_Communities/AskInga/w/AskInga/the-power-of-keyins.aspx"&gt;The Power of Keyins&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="/Communities/Other_Communities/AskInga/w/AskInga/how-to-string-keyins-together-or-create-keyin-scripts.aspx"&gt;How to string keyins together or create keyin scripts&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="/Communities/Other_Communities/AskInga/w/AskInga/the-v7-keyin-list.aspx"&gt;The V7 Keyin List&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="/Communities/Other_Communities/AskInga/w/AskInga/the-keyboard-shortcuts.aspx"&gt;The keyboard shortcuts&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Lastly we close the sub-menu by placing two lines - each consiting of a curly bracket ( &lt;strong&gt;}&lt;/strong&gt; ) as shown in the image above. Now we're ready to go. All we have to do is configure MicroStation to recognise the mdl and it's associated MDF file. 
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Configuring a Barmenu.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
To be able to get the barmenu to work, we must add a new configuration variable to MicroStation. If you have a CAD Administrator, please ensure that you have their permission before changing or adding any MicroStation configuration variables.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Too add the new variable, open a file in MicroStation, go to &lt;em&gt;Workspace &amp;gt; Configuration&lt;/em&gt; and the Configuration dialog box will come up. Click on the &lt;em&gt;New&lt;/em&gt; button and in the dialog box type &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;barmenu&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; in the &lt;em&gt;Variable&lt;/em&gt; section.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Next we type the full path and the name of our mdf file in the &lt;em&gt;New Value&lt;/em&gt; section of the dialog box. For this tutorial we'll use the civil.mdf we have just created as our file name. The following image is an example path and file name. 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic2.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Now we click on &lt;em&gt;OK&lt;/em&gt; to accept the new variable and then &lt;em&gt;OK&lt;/em&gt; again to accept the change to the configuration. We also click on &lt;em&gt;Yes&lt;/em&gt; to accept all of the changes we have just made. These changes are now active and there is no need to restart Microstation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
All you have to do now is go to &lt;em&gt;Utilities &amp;gt; MDL Applications&lt;/em&gt; and load &lt;em&gt;barmenu.ma&lt;/em&gt; 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic3.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Trouble Shooting&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
If you have trouble loading the barmenu, check the following: 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ol&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;Ensure that the path and mdf name are correct in the configuration variable we just created.&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;Make sure the syntax for the mdf file is correct and that all notations are in place.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you still have trouble, it could indicate a corrupt mdl or mdf file. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Well, that's it for the first lesson. I encourage you to give this a try and reap the benefits of barmenu's today! 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
AskInga Article #59 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div style="font-size: 90%;"&gt;Tags: Article, Askinga, Automation, Programming&lt;/div&gt;
</description></item><item><title>Fly with Barmenus - Part 1</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/w/askinga/1168/fly-with-barmenus-part-1/revision/5</link><pubDate>Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:44:38 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:256ab11c-f605-48ba-af10-f4ad4173302e</guid><dc:creator>Hannah Blye</dc:creator><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/w/askinga/1168/fly-with-barmenus-part-1#comments</comments><description>Revision 5 posted to [Archived] AskInga Wiki by Hannah Blye on 6/20/2008 5:44:38 PM&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href="/UserGroups/GroupDetail.aspx?groupID=111"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/askingalogo.gif" border="0" alt="AskInga logo" title="AskInga" width="230" height="76" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Original Article Date:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;em&gt; March 5, 2001&lt;/em&gt;&amp;nbsp; 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Ever hear of a &lt;em&gt;barmenu&lt;/em&gt;? How 'bout a &lt;em&gt;menubar&lt;/em&gt;? Well, besides being able to order munchies to eat with your beer, they can also help you set up and maintain your corporate drafting standards! 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style="border-bottom: #cccccc 1pt solid"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Many thanks to &lt;em&gt;Mr. Sean Forward&lt;/em&gt; for authoring this article! &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Next to the &amp;lsquo;Settings Manager', Barmenus are the most powerful customisation tool you can have at the click of a mouse. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The beauty of the barmenu is that they are easily linked to text files &lt;em&gt;(mdf files)&lt;/em&gt; which enable you to create standardised menus for everything. This includes things like discipline-specific level allocations, applying project specific title blocks and loading commonly used mdl's and macros. The limits are endless!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
What we are going to look at over the next series of articles is how to set up your first barmenu, link it to an &lt;em&gt;mdf&lt;/em&gt; text file and learn to fly from there! To get started, we'll walk you through the very basics of barmenu building - we'll take a look at creating the menu below with the &lt;strong&gt;CIVIL&lt;/strong&gt; item and associated picklicks! 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic3.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;How does a Barmenu Work&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
To be able to use a barmenu, you need two files. The first one is &lt;em&gt;barmenu.ma&lt;/em&gt; which can be downloaded from &lt;a href="http://members.optusnet.com.au/~forwardthinking/html/mdl_mac_ucm.htm"&gt;Forward Thinking&lt;/a&gt; as well from a number of other sites on the Internet. This file should be placed in the &lt;em&gt;.../Bentley/Program/Microstation/mdlsys/required &lt;/em&gt;folder to ensure that the mdl is automatically activated when you start MicroStation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The second file is a text file with the extension of &lt;em&gt;MDF&lt;/em&gt;. This file contains the information required by barmenu.ma to build the menus you wish to use. This MDF file can be kept anywhere on the network but we must be careful that the directory is available to all users and has the same network. We'll see why shortly. Let's take a look at how to create a basic menu file!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;My Civil MDF File&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Creating and editing MDF files is a very easy process. But having said that, it's important to point out that all editing should be done in a simple text editor such as &lt;em&gt;WordPad&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;Notepad&lt;/em&gt;. This will eliminate any formatting and syntax errors which may occur with editors such as &lt;em&gt;MS Word&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
To create your first MDF file, open Notepad and save the default empty file to any directory and call it &lt;em&gt;civil.mdf&lt;/em&gt;. This file will be then be used to set our standard levels, colours, line codes and weights. Rather than go on about it too much, you can download my &lt;a href="/askIngaPics/59_seans_civil.Mdf"&gt;CIVIL&lt;/a&gt; file and open it with the appropriate text editor. (Note, you may want to rename this file) Let's take a look at the completed MDF file below: 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic1.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
There are a few important things to remember with MDF files. The first is that any MDF file must start with a semi-colon ( &lt;strong&gt;;&lt;/strong&gt; ). This denotes the beginning of the menu structure and becomes important when dealing with multiple menu headings, as we will see in future tutorials.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The next line is the name of the menu item, which in this case is &lt;strong&gt;CIVIL&lt;/strong&gt;. The next part is to create the notation for the pulldown section of this menu item, where a curly bracket ( &lt;strong&gt;{&lt;/strong&gt; ) denotes the start of the pulldown. For example, notice that the line which reads &lt;strong&gt;Levels 1-31&lt;/strong&gt; is preceeded and superceeded by a &lt;strong&gt;{&lt;/strong&gt;. This indicates the name of the sub-menu. Nothing to it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Next we create the individual line notations for the sub-menu and the commands associated with them.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;LV=1 EXISTING/NATURAL SURFACE, &amp;quot;LV=1;CO=0;WT=O;LC=0&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Let's take a closer look at this:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;LV=1 EXISTING/NATURAL SURFACE,&lt;/strong&gt; is what might be called the descriptor and it's what we click on from the menu. Note that the comma ( &lt;strong&gt;,&lt;/strong&gt; ) indicates the end of the descriptor.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;LV=1;CO=0;WT=O;LC=0&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; is the actual MicroStation command string enclosed in double-quotes ( &lt;strong&gt;&amp;ldquo; &amp;ldquo;&lt;/strong&gt; ). For more information about MicroStation command and command strings, please refer to the following resources: 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;[[The Power of Keyins]]&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;[[How to string keyins together or create keyin scripts]]&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;[[The V7 Keyin List]]&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;[[The keyboard shortcuts]]&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Lastly we close the sub-menu by placing two lines - each consiting of a curly bracket ( &lt;strong&gt;}&lt;/strong&gt; ) as shown in the image above. Now we're ready to go. All we have to do is configure MicroStation to recognise the mdl and it's associated MDF file. 
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Configuring a Barmenu.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
To be able to get the barmenu to work, we must add a new configuration variable to MicroStation. If you have a CAD Administrator, please ensure that you have their permission before changing or adding any MicroStation configuration variables.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Too add the new variable, open a file in MicroStation, go to &lt;em&gt;Workspace &amp;gt; Configuration&lt;/em&gt; and the Configuration dialog box will come up. Click on the &lt;em&gt;New&lt;/em&gt; button and in the dialog box type &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;barmenu&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; in the &lt;em&gt;Variable&lt;/em&gt; section.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Next we type the full path and the name of our mdf file in the &lt;em&gt;New Value&lt;/em&gt; section of the dialog box. For this tutorial we'll use the civil.mdf we have just created as our file name. The following image is an example path and file name. 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic2.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Now we click on &lt;em&gt;OK&lt;/em&gt; to accept the new variable and then &lt;em&gt;OK&lt;/em&gt; again to accept the change to the configuration. We also click on &lt;em&gt;Yes&lt;/em&gt; to accept all of the changes we have just made. These changes are now active and there is no need to restart Microstation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
All you have to do now is go to &lt;em&gt;Utilities &amp;gt; MDL Applications&lt;/em&gt; and load &lt;em&gt;barmenu.ma&lt;/em&gt; 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic3.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Trouble Shooting&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
If you have trouble loading the barmenu, check the following: 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ol&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;Ensure that the path and mdf name are correct in the configuration variable we just created.&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;Make sure the syntax for the mdf file is correct and that all notations are in place.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you still have trouble, it could indicate a corrupt mdl or mdf file. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Well, that's it for the first lesson. I encourage you to give this a try and reap the benefits of barmenu's today! 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
AskInga Article #59 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div style="font-size: 90%;"&gt;Tags: &lt;tags&gt;&lt;/tags&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
</description></item><item><title>Fly with Barmenus - Part 1</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/w/askinga/1168/fly-with-barmenus-part-1/revision/4</link><pubDate>Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:43:19 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:256ab11c-f605-48ba-af10-f4ad4173302e</guid><dc:creator>Hannah Blye</dc:creator><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/w/askinga/1168/fly-with-barmenus-part-1#comments</comments><description>Revision 4 posted to [Archived] AskInga Wiki by Hannah Blye on 6/20/2008 5:43:19 PM&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href="/UserGroups/GroupDetail.aspx?groupID=111"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/askingalogo.gif" border="0" alt="AskInga logo" title="AskInga" width="230" height="76" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Original Article Date:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;em&gt; March 5, 2001&lt;/em&gt;&amp;nbsp;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Ever hear of a &lt;em&gt;barmenu&lt;/em&gt;? How 'bout a &lt;em&gt;menubar&lt;/em&gt;? Well, besides being able to order munchies to eat with your beer, they can also help you set up and maintain your corporate drafting standards! 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style="border-bottom: #cccccc 1pt solid"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Many thanks to &lt;em&gt;Mr. Sean Forward&lt;/em&gt; for authoring this article! &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Next to the &amp;lsquo;Settings Manager', Barmenus are the most powerful customisation tool you can have at the click of a mouse. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The beauty of the barmenu is that they are easily linked to text files &lt;em&gt;(mdf files)&lt;/em&gt; which enable you to create standardised menus for everything. This includes things like discipline-specific level allocations, applying project specific title blocks and loading commonly used mdl's and macros. The limits are endless!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
What we are going to look at over the next series of articles is how to set up your first barmenu, link it to an &lt;em&gt;mdf&lt;/em&gt; text file and learn to fly from there! To get started, we'll walk you through the very basics of barmenu building - we'll take a look at creating the menu below with the &lt;strong&gt;CIVIL&lt;/strong&gt; item and associated picklicks! 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic3.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;How does a Barmenu Work&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
To be able to use a barmenu, you need two files. The first one is &lt;em&gt;barmenu.ma&lt;/em&gt; which can be downloaded from &lt;a href="http://members.optusnet.com.au/~forwardthinking/html/mdl_mac_ucm.htm"&gt;Forward Thinking&lt;/a&gt; as well from a number of other sites on the Internet. This file should be placed in the &lt;em&gt;.../Bentley/Program/Microstation/mdlsys/required &lt;/em&gt;folder to ensure that the mdl is automatically activated when you start MicroStation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The second file is a text file with the extension of &lt;em&gt;MDF&lt;/em&gt;. This file contains the information required by barmenu.ma to build the menus you wish to use. This MDF file can be kept anywhere on the network but we must be careful that the directory is available to all users and has the same network. We'll see why shortly. Let's take a look at how to create a basic menu file!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;My Civil MDF File&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Creating and editing MDF files is a very easy process. But having said that, it's important to point out that all editing should be done in a simple text editor such as &lt;em&gt;WordPad&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;Notepad&lt;/em&gt;. This will eliminate any formatting and syntax errors which may occur with editors such as &lt;em&gt;MS Word&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
To create your first MDF file, open Notepad and save the default empty file to any directory and call it &lt;em&gt;civil.mdf&lt;/em&gt;. This file will be then be used to set our standard levels, colours, line codes and weights. Rather than go on about it too much, you can download my &lt;a href="/askIngaPics/59_seans_civil.Mdf"&gt;CIVIL&lt;/a&gt; file and open it with the appropriate text editor. (Note, you may want to rename this file) Let's take a look at the completed MDF file below: 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic1.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
There are a few important things to remember with MDF files. The first is that any MDF file must start with a semi-colon ( &lt;strong&gt;;&lt;/strong&gt; ). This denotes the beginning of the menu structure and becomes important when dealing with multiple menu headings, as we will see in future tutorials.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The next line is the name of the menu item, which in this case is &lt;strong&gt;CIVIL&lt;/strong&gt;. The next part is to create the notation for the pulldown section of this menu item, where a curly bracket ( &lt;strong&gt;{&lt;/strong&gt; ) denotes the start of the pulldown. For example, notice that the line which reads &lt;strong&gt;Levels 1-31&lt;/strong&gt; is preceeded and superceeded by a &lt;strong&gt;{&lt;/strong&gt;. This indicates the name of the sub-menu. Nothing to it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Next we create the individual line notations for the sub-menu and the commands associated with them.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;LV=1 EXISTING/NATURAL SURFACE, &amp;quot;LV=1;CO=0;WT=O;LC=0&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Let's take a closer look at this:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;LV=1 EXISTING/NATURAL SURFACE,&lt;/strong&gt; is what might be called the descriptor and it's what we click on from the menu. Note that the comma ( &lt;strong&gt;,&lt;/strong&gt; ) indicates the end of the descriptor.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;LV=1;CO=0;WT=O;LC=0&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; is the actual MicroStation command string enclosed in double-quotes ( &lt;strong&gt;&amp;ldquo; &amp;ldquo;&lt;/strong&gt; ). For more information about MicroStation command and command strings, please refer to the following resources: 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;[[The Power of Keyins]]&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;[[How to string keyins together or create keyin scripts]]&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;[[The V7 Keyin List]]&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;[[The keyboard shortcuts]]&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Lastly we close the sub-menu by placing two lines - each consiting of a curly bracket ( &lt;strong&gt;}&lt;/strong&gt; ) as shown in the image above. Now we're ready to go. All we have to do is configure MicroStation to recognise the mdl and it's associated MDF file. 
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Configuring a Barmenu.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
To be able to get the barmenu to work, we must add a new configuration variable to MicroStation. If you have a CAD Administrator, please ensure that you have their permission before changing or adding any MicroStation configuration variables.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Too add the new variable, open a file in MicroStation, go to &lt;em&gt;Workspace &amp;gt; Configuration&lt;/em&gt; and the Configuration dialog box will come up. Click on the &lt;em&gt;New&lt;/em&gt; button and in the dialog box type &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;barmenu&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; in the &lt;em&gt;Variable&lt;/em&gt; section.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Next we type the full path and the name of our mdf file in the &lt;em&gt;New Value&lt;/em&gt; section of the dialog box. For this tutorial we'll use the civil.mdf we have just created as our file name. The following image is an example path and file name. 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic2.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Now we click on &lt;em&gt;OK&lt;/em&gt; to accept the new variable and then &lt;em&gt;OK&lt;/em&gt; again to accept the change to the configuration. We also click on &lt;em&gt;Yes&lt;/em&gt; to accept all of the changes we have just made. These changes are now active and there is no need to restart Microstation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
All you have to do now is go to &lt;em&gt;Utilities &amp;gt; MDL Applications&lt;/em&gt; and load &lt;em&gt;barmenu.ma&lt;/em&gt; 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic3.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Trouble Shooting&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
If you have trouble loading the barmenu, check the following: 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ol&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;Ensure that the path and mdf name are correct in the configuration variable we just created.&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;Make sure the syntax for the mdf file is correct and that all notations are in place.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you still have trouble, it could indicate a corrupt mdl or mdf file. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Well, that's it for the first lesson. I encourage you to give this a try and reap the benefits of barmenu's today! 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
AskInga Article #59 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div style="font-size: 90%;"&gt;Tags: &lt;tags&gt;&lt;/tags&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
</description></item><item><title>Fly with Barmenus - Part 1</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/w/askinga/1168/fly-with-barmenus-part-1/revision/3</link><pubDate>Fri, 30 May 2008 19:59:43 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:256ab11c-f605-48ba-af10-f4ad4173302e</guid><dc:creator>Anonymous</dc:creator><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/w/askinga/1168/fly-with-barmenus-part-1#comments</comments><description>Revision 3 posted to [Archived] AskInga Wiki by Anonymous on 5/30/2008 7:59:43 PM&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/askingalogo.gif" border="0" alt="Ask Inga logo" title="Ask?Inga" width="230" height="76" /&gt; 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Ever hear of a &lt;em&gt;barmenu&lt;/em&gt;? How 'bout a &lt;em&gt;menubar&lt;/em&gt;? Well, besides being able to order munchies to eat with your beer, they can also help you set up and maintain your corporate drafting standards! 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style="border-bottom: #cccccc 1pt solid"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Many thanks to &lt;em&gt;Mr. Sean Forward&lt;/em&gt; for authoring this article! &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Next to the &amp;lsquo;Settings Manager', Barmenus are the most powerful customisation tool you can have at the click of a mouse. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The beauty of the barmenu is that they are easily linked to text files &lt;em&gt;(mdf files)&lt;/em&gt; which enable you to create standardised menus for everything. This includes things like discipline-specific level allocations, applying project specific title blocks and loading commonly used mdl's and macros. The limits are endless!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
What we are going to look at over the next series of articles is how to set up your first barmenu, link it to an &lt;em&gt;mdf&lt;/em&gt; text file and learn to fly from there! To get started, we'll walk you through the very basics of barmenu building - we'll take a look at creating the menu below with the &lt;strong&gt;CIVIL&lt;/strong&gt; item and associated picklicks! 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic3.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;How does a Barmenu Work&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
To be able to use a barmenu, you need two files. The first one is &lt;em&gt;barmenu.ma&lt;/em&gt; which can be downloaded from &lt;a href="http://members.optusnet.com.au/~forwardthinking/html/mdl_mac_ucm.htm"&gt;Forward Thinking&lt;/a&gt; as well from a number of other sites on the Internet. This file should be placed in the &lt;em&gt;.../Bentley/Program/Microstation/mdlsys/required &lt;/em&gt;folder to ensure that the mdl is automatically activated when you start MicroStation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The second file is a text file with the extension of &lt;em&gt;MDF&lt;/em&gt;. This file contains the information required by barmenu.ma to build the menus you wish to use. This MDF file can be kept anywhere on the network but we must be careful that the directory is available to all users and has the same network. We'll see why shortly. Let's take a look at how to create a basic menu file!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;My Civil MDF File&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Creating and editing MDF files is a very easy process. But having said that, it's important to point out that all editing should be done in a simple text editor such as &lt;em&gt;WordPad&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;Notepad&lt;/em&gt;. This will eliminate any formatting and syntax errors which may occur with editors such as &lt;em&gt;MS Word&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
To create your first MDF file, open Notepad and save the default empty file to any directory and call it &lt;em&gt;civil.mdf&lt;/em&gt;. This file will be then be used to set our standard levels, colours, line codes and weights. Rather than go on about it too much, you can download my &lt;a href="askIngaPics/59_seans_civil.Mdf"&gt;CIVIL&lt;/a&gt; file and open it with the appropriate text editor. (Note, you may want to rename this file) Let's take a look at the completed MDF file below: 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic1.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
There are a few important things to remember with MDF files. The first is that any MDF file must start with a semi-colon ( &lt;strong&gt;;&lt;/strong&gt; ). This denotes the beginning of the menu structure and becomes important when dealing with multiple menu headings, as we will see in future tutorials.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The next line is the name of the menu item, which in this case is &lt;strong&gt;CIVIL&lt;/strong&gt;. The next part is to create the notation for the pulldown section of this menu item, where a curly bracket ( &lt;strong&gt;{&lt;/strong&gt; ) denotes the start of the pulldown. For example, notice that the line which reads &lt;strong&gt;Levels 1-31&lt;/strong&gt; is preceeded and superceeded by a &lt;strong&gt;{&lt;/strong&gt;. This indicates the name of the sub-menu. Nothing to it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Next we create the individual line notations for the sub-menu and the commands associated with them.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;LV=1 EXISTING/NATURAL SURFACE, &amp;quot;LV=1;CO=0;WT=O;LC=0&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Let's take a closer look at this:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;LV=1 EXISTING/NATURAL SURFACE,&lt;/strong&gt; is what might be called the descriptor and it's what we click on from the menu. Note that the comma ( &lt;strong&gt;,&lt;/strong&gt; ) indicates the end of the descriptor.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;LV=1;CO=0;WT=O;LC=0&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; is the actual MicroStation command string enclosed in double-quotes ( &lt;strong&gt;&amp;ldquo; &amp;ldquo;&lt;/strong&gt; ). For more information about MicroStation command and command strings, please refer to the following resources: 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://community.be.org/Wiki/edit.aspx/The_Power_of_Keyins_Part_1"&gt;The Power of Keyins Part 1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://community.be.org/Wiki/edit.aspx/The_Power_of_Keyins_Part_2"&gt;The Power of Keyins Part 2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://community.be.org/Wiki/edit.aspx/Microstation_Keyins"&gt;MicroStation Keyins&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://community.be.org/Wiki/edit.aspx/Microstation_Shortcuts"&gt;MicroStation Shortcuts&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Lastly we close the sub-menu by placing two lines - each consiting of a curly bracket ( &lt;strong&gt;}&lt;/strong&gt; ) as shown in the image above. Now we're ready to go. All we have to do is configure MicroStation to recognise the mdl and it's associated MDF file. 
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Configuring a Barmenu.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
To be able to get the barmenu to work, we must add a new configuration variable to MicroStation. If you have a CAD Administrator, please ensure that you have their permission before changing or adding any MicroStation configuration variables.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Too add the new variable, open a file in MicroStation, go to &lt;em&gt;Workspace &amp;gt; Configuration&lt;/em&gt; and the Configuration dialog box will come up. Click on the &lt;em&gt;New&lt;/em&gt; button and in the dialog box type &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;barmenu&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; in the &lt;em&gt;Variable&lt;/em&gt; section.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Next we type the full path and the name of our mdf file in the &lt;em&gt;New Value&lt;/em&gt; section of the dialog box. For this tutorial we'll use the civil.mdf we have just created as our file name. The following image is an example path and file name. 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic2.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Now we click on &lt;em&gt;OK&lt;/em&gt; to accept the new variable and then &lt;em&gt;OK&lt;/em&gt; again to accept the change to the configuration. We also click on &lt;em&gt;Yes&lt;/em&gt; to accept all of the changes we have just made. These changes are now active and there is no need to restart Microstation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
All you have to do now is go to &lt;em&gt;Utilities &amp;gt; MDL Applications&lt;/em&gt; and load &lt;em&gt;barmenu.ma&lt;/em&gt; 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic3.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Trouble Shooting&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
If you have trouble loading the barmenu, check the following: 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ol&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;Ensure that the path and mdf name are correct in the configuration variable we just created.&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;Make sure the syntax for the mdf file is correct and that all notations are in place.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you still have trouble, it could indicate a corrupt mdl or mdf file. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Well, that's it for the first lesson. I encourage you to give this a try and reap the benefits of barmenu's today! 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Ask Inga Article #59 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div style="font-size: 90%;"&gt;Tags: &lt;tags&gt;&lt;/tags&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
</description></item><item><title>Fly with Barmenus - Part 1</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/w/askinga/1168/fly-with-barmenus-part-1/revision/2</link><pubDate>Thu, 29 May 2008 15:04:51 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:256ab11c-f605-48ba-af10-f4ad4173302e</guid><dc:creator>Anonymous</dc:creator><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/w/askinga/1168/fly-with-barmenus-part-1#comments</comments><description>Revision 2 posted to [Archived] AskInga Wiki by Anonymous on 5/29/2008 3:04:51 PM&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/askingalogo.gif" border="0" alt="Ask Inga logo" title="Ask?Inga" width="230" height="76" /&gt; 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Ever hear of a &lt;em&gt;barmenu&lt;/em&gt;? How 'bout a &lt;em&gt;menubar&lt;/em&gt;? Well, besides being able to order munchies to eat with your beer, they can also help you set up and maintain your corporate drafting standards! 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style="border-bottom: #cccccc 1pt solid"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Many thanks to &lt;em&gt;Mr. Sean Forward&lt;/em&gt; for authoring this article! &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Next to the &amp;lsquo;Settings Manager', Barmenus are the most powerful customisation tool you can have at the click of a mouse. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The beauty of the barmenu is that they are easily linked to text files &lt;em&gt;(mdf files)&lt;/em&gt; which enable you to create standardised menus for everything. This includes things like discipline-specific level allocations, applying project specific title blocks and loading commonly used mdl's and macros. The limits are endless!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
What we are going to look at over the next series of articles is how to set up your first barmenu, link it to an &lt;em&gt;mdf&lt;/em&gt; text file and learn to fly from there! To get started, we'll walk you through the very basics of barmenu building - we'll take a look at creating the menu below with the &lt;strong&gt;CIVIL&lt;/strong&gt; item and associated picklicks! 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic3.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;How does a Barmenu Work&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
To be able to use a barmenu, you need two files. The first one is &lt;em&gt;barmenu.ma&lt;/em&gt; which can be downloaded from &lt;a href="http://members.optusnet.com.au/~forwardthinking/html/mdl_mac_ucm.htm"&gt;Forward Thinking&lt;/a&gt; as well from a number of other sites on the Internet. This file should be placed in the &lt;em&gt;.../Bentley/Program/Microstation/mdlsys/required &lt;/em&gt;folder to ensure that the mdl is automatically activated when you start MicroStation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The second file is a text file with the extension of &lt;em&gt;MDF&lt;/em&gt;. This file contains the information required by barmenu.ma to build the menus you wish to use. This MDF file can be kept anywhere on the network but we must be careful that the directory is available to all users and has the same network. We'll see why shortly. Let's take a look at how to create a basic menu file!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;My Civil MDF File&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Creating and editing MDF files is a very easy process. But having said that, it's important to point out that all editing should be done in a simple text editor such as &lt;em&gt;WordPad&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;Notepad&lt;/em&gt;. This will eliminate any formatting and syntax errors which may occur with editors such as &lt;em&gt;MS Word&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
To create your first MDF file, open Notepad and save the default empty file to any directory and call it &lt;em&gt;civil.mdf&lt;/em&gt;. This file will be then be used to set our standard levels, colours, line codes and weights. Rather than go on about it too much, you can download my &lt;a href="askIngaPics/59_seans_civil.Mdf"&gt;CIVIL&lt;/a&gt; file and open it with the appropriate text editor. (Note, you may want to rename this file) Let's take a look at the completed MDF file below: 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic1.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
There are a few important things to remember with MDF files. The first is that any MDF file must start with a semi-colon ( &lt;strong&gt;;&lt;/strong&gt; ). This denotes the beginning of the menu structure and becomes important when dealing with multiple menu headings, as we will see in future tutorials.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The next line is the name of the menu item, which in this case is &lt;strong&gt;CIVIL&lt;/strong&gt;. The next part is to create the notation for the pulldown section of this menu item, where a curly bracket ( &lt;strong&gt;{&lt;/strong&gt; ) denotes the start of the pulldown. For example, notice that the line which reads &lt;strong&gt;Levels 1-31&lt;/strong&gt; is preceeded and superceeded by a &lt;strong&gt;{&lt;/strong&gt;. This indicates the name of the sub-menu. Nothing to it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Next we create the individual line notations for the sub-menu and the commands associated with them.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;LV=1 EXISTING/NATURAL SURFACE, &amp;quot;LV=1;CO=0;WT=O;LC=0&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Let's take a closer look at this:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;LV=1 EXISTING/NATURAL SURFACE,&lt;/strong&gt; is what might be called the descriptor and it's what we click on from the menu. Note that the comma ( &lt;strong&gt;,&lt;/strong&gt; ) indicates the end of the descriptor.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;LV=1;CO=0;WT=O;LC=0&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; is the actual MicroStation command string enclosed in double-quotes ( &lt;strong&gt;&amp;ldquo; &amp;ldquo;&lt;/strong&gt; ). For more information about MicroStation command and command strings, please refer to the following resources: 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="/article.asp?articleID=34"&gt;The Power of Keyins Part 1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="/article.asp?articleID=37"&gt;The Power of Keyins Part 2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="/article.asp?articleID=33"&gt;MicroStation Keyins&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="/article.asp?articleID=31"&gt;MicroStation Shortcuts&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Lastly we close the sub-menu by placing two lines - each consiting of a curly bracket ( &lt;strong&gt;}&lt;/strong&gt; ) as shown in the image above. Now we're ready to go. All we have to do is configure MicroStation to recognise the mdl and it's associated MDF file. 
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Configuring a Barmenu.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
To be able to get the barmenu to work, we must add a new configuration variable to MicroStation. If you have a CAD Administrator, please ensure that you have their permission before changing or adding any MicroStation configuration variables.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Too add the new variable, open a file in MicroStation, go to &lt;em&gt;Workspace &amp;gt; Configuration&lt;/em&gt; and the Configuration dialog box will come up. Click on the &lt;em&gt;New&lt;/em&gt; button and in the dialog box type &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;barmenu&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; in the &lt;em&gt;Variable&lt;/em&gt; section.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Next we type the full path and the name of our mdf file in the &lt;em&gt;New Value&lt;/em&gt; section of the dialog box. For this tutorial we'll use the civil.mdf we have just created as our file name. The following image is an example path and file name. 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic2.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Now we click on &lt;em&gt;OK&lt;/em&gt; to accept the new variable and then &lt;em&gt;OK&lt;/em&gt; again to accept the change to the configuration. We also click on &lt;em&gt;Yes&lt;/em&gt; to accept all of the changes we have just made. These changes are now active and there is no need to restart Microstation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
All you have to do now is go to &lt;em&gt;Utilities &amp;gt; MDL Applications&lt;/em&gt; and load &lt;em&gt;barmenu.ma&lt;/em&gt; 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic3.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Trouble Shooting&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
If you have trouble loading the barmenu, check the following: 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ol&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;Ensure that the path and mdf name are correct in the configuration variable we just created.&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;Make sure the syntax for the mdf file is correct and that all notations are in place.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you still have trouble, it could indicate a corrupt mdl or mdf file. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Well, that's it for the first lesson. I encourage you to give this a try and reap the benefits of barmenu's today! 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Ask Inga Article #59
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div style="font-size: 90%;"&gt;Tags: &lt;tags&gt;&lt;/tags&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
</description></item><item><title>Fly with Barmenus - Part 1</title><link>https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/w/askinga/1168/fly-with-barmenus-part-1/revision/1</link><pubDate>Thu, 29 May 2008 14:49:52 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">6dad98f5-dbc9-4c4d-a9ba-e9da8dc6aa8e:256ab11c-f605-48ba-af10-f4ad4173302e</guid><dc:creator>Anonymous</dc:creator><comments>https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/w/askinga/1168/fly-with-barmenus-part-1#comments</comments><description>Revision 1 posted to [Archived] AskInga Wiki by Anonymous on 5/29/2008 2:49:52 PM&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/askingalogo.gif" border="0" alt="Ask Inga logo" title="Ask?Inga" width="230" height="76" /&gt; 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Ever hear of a &lt;em&gt;barmenu&lt;/em&gt;? How 'bout a &lt;em&gt;menubar&lt;/em&gt;? Well, besides being able to order munchies to eat with your beer, they can also help you set up and maintain your corporate drafting standards! 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style="border-bottom: #cccccc 1pt solid"&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Many thanks to &lt;em&gt;Mr. Sean Forward&lt;/em&gt; for authoring this article! &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Next to the &amp;lsquo;Settings Manager', Barmenus are the most powerful customisation tool you can have at the click of a mouse. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The beauty of the barmenu is that they are easily linked to text files &lt;em&gt;(mdf files)&lt;/em&gt; which enable you to create standardised menus for everything. This includes things like discipline-specific level allocations, applying project specific title blocks and loading commonly used mdl's and macros. The limits are endless!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
What we are going to look at over the next series of articles is how to set up your first barmenu, link it to an &lt;em&gt;mdf&lt;/em&gt; text file and learn to fly from there! To get started, we'll walk you through the very basics of barmenu building - we'll take a look at creating the menu below with the &lt;strong&gt;CIVIL&lt;/strong&gt; item and associated picklicks! 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic3.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;How does a Barmenu Work&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
To be able to use a barmenu, you need two files. The first one is &lt;em&gt;barmenu.ma&lt;/em&gt; which can be downloaded from &lt;a href="http://members.optusnet.com.au/~forwardthinking/html/mdl_mac_ucm.htm"&gt;Forward Thinking&lt;/a&gt; as well from a number of other sites on the Internet. This file should be placed in the &lt;em&gt;.../Bentley/Program/Microstation/mdlsys/required &lt;/em&gt;folder to ensure that the mdl is automatically activated when you start MicroStation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The second file is a text file with the extension of &lt;em&gt;MDF&lt;/em&gt;. This file contains the information required by barmenu.ma to build the menus you wish to use. This MDF file can be kept anywhere on the network but we must be careful that the directory is available to all users and has the same network. We'll see why shortly. Let's take a look at how to create a basic menu file!&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;My Civil MDF File&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Creating and editing MDF files is a very easy process. But having said that, it's important to point out that all editing should be done in a simple text editor such as &lt;em&gt;WordPad&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;Notepad&lt;/em&gt;. This will eliminate any formatting and syntax errors which may occur with editors such as &lt;em&gt;MS Word&lt;/em&gt;. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
To create your first MDF file, open Notepad and save the default empty file to any directory and call it &lt;em&gt;civil.mdf&lt;/em&gt;. This file will be then be used to set our standard levels, colours, line codes and weights. Rather than go on about it too much, you can download my &lt;a href="askIngaPics/59_seans_civil.Mdf"&gt;CIVIL&lt;/a&gt; file and open it with the appropriate text editor. (Note, you may want to rename this file) Let's take a look at the completed MDF file below: 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic1.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
There are a few important things to remember with MDF files. The first is that any MDF file must start with a semi-colon ( &lt;strong&gt;;&lt;/strong&gt; ). This denotes the beginning of the menu structure and becomes important when dealing with multiple menu headings, as we will see in future tutorials.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
The next line is the name of the menu item, which in this case is &lt;strong&gt;CIVIL&lt;/strong&gt;. The next part is to create the notation for the pulldown section of this menu item, where a curly bracket ( &lt;strong&gt;{&lt;/strong&gt; ) denotes the start of the pulldown. For example, notice that the line which reads &lt;strong&gt;Levels 1-31&lt;/strong&gt; is preceeded and superceeded by a &lt;strong&gt;{&lt;/strong&gt;. This indicates the name of the sub-menu. Nothing to it.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Next we create the individual line notations for the sub-menu and the commands associated with them.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;LV=1 EXISTING/NATURAL SURFACE, &amp;quot;LV=1;CO=0;WT=O;LC=0&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Let's take a closer look at this:&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;LV=1 EXISTING/NATURAL SURFACE,&lt;/strong&gt; is what might be called the descriptor and it's what we click on from the menu. Note that the comma ( &lt;strong&gt;,&lt;/strong&gt; ) indicates the end of the descriptor.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;&amp;quot;LV=1;CO=0;WT=O;LC=0&amp;quot;&lt;/strong&gt; is the actual MicroStation command string enclosed in double-quotes ( &lt;strong&gt;&amp;ldquo; &amp;ldquo;&lt;/strong&gt; ). For more information about MicroStation command and command strings, please refer to the following resources: 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="/article.asp?articleID=34"&gt;The Power of Keyins Part 1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="/article.asp?articleID=37"&gt;The Power of Keyins Part 2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="/article.asp?articleID=33"&gt;MicroStation Keyins&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="/article.asp?articleID=31"&gt;MicroStation Shortcuts&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Lastly we close the sub-menu by placing two lines - each consiting of a curly bracket ( &lt;strong&gt;}&lt;/strong&gt; ) as shown in the image above. Now we're ready to go. All we have to do is configure MicroStation to recognise the mdl and it's associated MDF file. 
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Configuring a Barmenu.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
To be able to get the barmenu to work, we must add a new configuration variable to MicroStation. If you have a CAD Administrator, please ensure that you have their permission before changing or adding any MicroStation configuration variables.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Too add the new variable, open a file in MicroStation, go to &lt;em&gt;Workspace &amp;gt; Configuration&lt;/em&gt; and the Configuration dialog box will come up. Click on the &lt;em&gt;New&lt;/em&gt; button and in the dialog box type &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;barmenu&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt; in the &lt;em&gt;Variable&lt;/em&gt; section.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Next we type the full path and the name of our mdf file in the &lt;em&gt;New Value&lt;/em&gt; section of the dialog box. For this tutorial we'll use the civil.mdf we have just created as our file name. The following image is an example path and file name. 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic2.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
Now we click on &lt;em&gt;OK&lt;/em&gt; to accept the new variable and then &lt;em&gt;OK&lt;/em&gt; again to accept the change to the configuration. We also click on &lt;em&gt;Yes&lt;/em&gt; to accept all of the changes we have just made. These changes are now active and there is no need to restart Microstation.&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
All you have to do now is go to &lt;em&gt;Utilities &amp;gt; MDL Applications&lt;/em&gt; and load &lt;em&gt;barmenu.ma&lt;/em&gt; 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;table border="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"&gt;
	&lt;tbody&gt;
		&lt;tr&gt;
			&lt;td align="top" valign="top"&gt;&lt;img src="/askIngaPics/59Pic3.jpg" border="0" align="left" /&gt; &lt;/td&gt;
		&lt;/tr&gt;
	&lt;/tbody&gt;
&lt;/table&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Trouble Shooting&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
If you have trouble loading the barmenu, check the following: 
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ol&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;Ensure that the path and mdf name are correct in the configuration variable we just created.&lt;/li&gt;
	&lt;li&gt;Make sure the syntax for the mdf file is correct and that all notations are in place.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
If you still have trouble, it could indicate a corrupt mdl or mdf file. &lt;br /&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
Well, that's it for the first lesson. I encourage you to give this a try and reap the benefits of barmenu's today! 
&lt;div style="clear:both;"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;div style="font-size: 90%;"&gt;Tags: &lt;tags&gt;&lt;/tags&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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