Contextmenu

Patrik Sparrman

 Hi Im lost again. Setting up a new computer Ive lost trackmof how to invoke my contextmenu at rightclick of mouse.

T o me it looks like the setting is the same as the old computer.

Any ideas ?

Anthony Apostolaros

I think you need SHORTCUTMENU set to 7.
Or maybe higher, depending on your preference. Search for "shortcutmenu" in the Settings window.

Patrik Sparrman

Thank you was not aware of that one . There are so many settings you dont even know what to look for.

2 was all I needed

Patrik Sparrman

Maybe someone else is interested.

I have made my own "rightclick" menu . Pick something click and get a menu of your own choosing. I have used the most common things to do with the picked objects. I could not live without it. Im sorry but quad is to cumbersome. The quad seems to change as you go along and depending on what you are doing. To slow for me.

See pic.

context.jpg

UMAKANT

hi patrik,
it's good you made your own right click menu, can u guide me how to do it

Michael Mayer

I was always a notorious Icon clicker in Microstation and Max.
I pulled out what I need and hide what I don't need.
Modo made me use Short Cuts for the first time because of Tools
hidden in hierarchies.

Vectorworks hides most important Tools behind the Menu Bar
because they think these are "Commands" not Tools and should be
separated + Short Cuts get "short".
When starting using Pen Display input I also started to extend and
rearrange my RMB Option Menu in VW.
That was the best idea ever. It is a bit Selection sensitive like BC Quad
and so productive. I realized that also C4D has a very powerful RMB
Option Menu and started using that too.

For Bricscad's Quad I am also not sure.
Does it really help me more if it opens itself and is so very context sensitive
than distract by all time different arrangement or appearing when not wanted.
And there is always the feeling of a delay, no matter how I set up times and
the fear that it disappears when you move your cursor wrong that forces
too much concentration.
And I often miss Tools because not there or I am in a wrong Selection Mode.

So I can understand that one will prefer a custom RMB Option Menu that
will only appear when needed but then instantly, look mostly familiar the
next time it opens and shows only tools you need and hides others.

Anthony Apostolaros

In the "Menus" tab of the Customize window, there's a "Context menus" folder for each CUI file that's loaded. Each such folder has 3 sub-folders, for the 3 types of context menus: Command, Default, and Edit. I have all 3 context menus customized. For the first item in each, I have a nil command with the name of the menu, i.e. "COMMAND menu," "DEFAULT menu," and "EDIT menu," just so that I can relate what I see when I right-click to what I see in the Customize window.

I do all my menu customization in a small custom CUI file, which is loaded as a "partial" CUI file. That's analogous to a DWG file that's loaded as an xref. A "partial" is not a different type of CUI file; it's just that it's attached to the one that's loaded as the main CUI file. I don't make any changes to the Default.cui file that comes with the installation. That way I can use the new default.cui that comes with an update and don't have to customize all over again.

If multiple CUI files are loaded, i.e. a "main" and one or more "partial" CUI files, the Context menus of the last one loaded supersede the ones above it. So the ones in my small custom "partial" CUI file supersede the ones in Default.cui, which is the "main."

Michael Mayer

So DEFAULT means when you click in an empty Space and nothing is selected.
Could you explain a bit on the other 2 States ?
(I had only 2 States in VW so far)

Anthony Apostolaros

"Command" is the context menu you get when a command is in progress. So in that one I just have Cancel, Enter, and Entity Snap Overrides.

"Edit" is the context menu you get when there's a selection set but no command is in progress. So in that one I have all the commands that I might want to use on a selection set. Bricscad automatically adds commands to this one -- commands appropriate to whatever's selected.

Michael Mayer

Thanks Anthony.
I think I should try that too.

Michael Mayer

@Michael Mayer said:
For Bricscad's Quad I am also not sure.
Does it really help me more if it opens itself and is so very context sensitive
than distract by all time different arrangement or appearing when not wanted.
And there is always the feeling of a delay, no matter how I set up times and
the fear that it disappears when you move your cursor wrong that forces
too much concentration.
And I often miss Tools because not there or I am in a wrong Selection Mode.

BTW,
when thinking about Shape.
The quote above is the reason why I still have cluttered my Bricscad UI
with lots of Tools by partial UI boxes. Even redundant because I also
use the Ribbon and see no way to work completely without the unliked
Command Bar.
Tools that I want a) all time available and b) always at the same place
(for muscle memory).
Things like View Navigation and Settings, Element Isolation, but also
BIM, Basic 2D and Basic Modeling, ....

It is so much easier for me to stay in my flow and click on such Icons than
wait for the Quad and reorient.
But that gets counteracted by onetime-only Commands and disappearing
Selections anyway.

Anthony Apostolaros

I'm just the opposite -- very little clutter. I do everything by keyboard, using one- or two-key aliases or function keys. No toolbars or ribbon. For things I rarely need, I use pull-down menus. I try to use the mouse only for moving the cursor around and picking points and entities. I used to keep the Properties panel open all the time, but I've started making custom commands to do the few things that I ever used the Properties panel for, and I made a toggle command to turn the Properties panel on/off, aliased to ].

Michael Mayer

In CAD (BIM) or 3D Apps,
I use Properties Panel all the time since Windows NT.
I realize this by how much I miss it in Shape.
Same for the Layer Panel which shares the Panel Column,
although BC Layer Panel isn't as capable as I was used to.

Whenever I do a real Selection, not just while modeling,
I watch my Property Panel. Not only that I use about 25 of all available
Drop Downs to assign ... ah ... Properties, I just want to be able to
all time check if everything is still well. Like is my object on the Layer
it should be, are the coordinates and dimensions still fine or had
snapping failed and such things.
Same for the coordinates in status bar from time to time when
snapping. And so it irritates me if these aren't visually separated and
readable as as 3 values but smeared together like 1 large number.

The amount of Tools I regularly need and use exceeds by far the
amount of Shortcuts I could remember.
Things like Solid Repair Tools and such things that don't appear
ever in Quad and if they would do you could not read it anymore.
And by default, Bricscad doesn't make use of Shortcuts as I
understand them (key+letter) but autodesque typing whole
Commands, by the help of an auto complete feature.
That is not the same for me, although I can see that many people
like this and it feels natural for them.

I really have to try custom RMB option menus and rethink how many
more of my Tool Icons I could get rid of setting a few 1-letter short cuts.