You are currently reviewing an older revision of this page.
Original Article Date: Sep 2, 2002
MicroStation V8 is delivered with a utility called WinOpen that replaces most File dialogs including New, Open and Save As with the standard Windows dialogs that you're so accustomed to. 2003-12-01 Updated for MicroStation V8.5. 2006-07-06 Updated to include a couple of keyins (Thanks Duane and Phil!). 2007-01-02 Updated for clarity.
The new WinOpen utility will allow you to locate, open and save files within MicroStation using dialogs that follow the Microsoft Windows conventions for look and feel. For MicroStation V8.5, go to Workpace > Preferences > Look and Feel and simply turn on Use Windows File Open Dialogs. That's it. That's all. Duane Marshall offers this handy keyin to switch to the Windows dialogs: mdl keyin calculat calculator userPrefsP->extFlags.useWinopen=1. And Phil Chouinard offers this keyin if your want to toggle between the MicroStation and Windows dialogs: mdl keyin calculat calculator userPrefsP->extFlags.useWinopen=!userPrefsP->extFlags.useWinopen
What's cool about WinOpen is that you can always go back to the MicroStation dialog by simply pressing SHIFT + ESC when the Windows dialog is open. Note that this keyin combo is one-way only in that it will take you from the Windows dialog to the MDL dialog, but not vice versa. To get back to the Windows dialog, you'll need to close it and then simply re-open it. Of course this will only work if the Workspace preferences toggle mentioned above is enabled.
For pre-V8.5, follow these instructions: Navigate to ...\Bentley\Program\MicroStation\mdlsys\asneeded\ and copy the winopen.dll and winopen.ma to ...\Bentley\Program\MicroStation\mdlsys\required\ The next time MicroStation is started, it will use WinOpen for the File based dialogs including the MicroStation Manager. For earlier versions of MicroStation you can download WinOpen/J from the "Enhancements and Updates" area of http://selectservices.bentley.com/downloads/web/index.htm
AskInga Article #121