Migrating profiles and workspaces to get an identical user interface on multiple machines

Barticus

Our department recently switched from AutoCAD 2010 to BricsCAD v18. Our AutoCAD user environment is highly customized and I managed to bring the majority of it across successfully into BricsCAD. I individually configured each machine as we were in a bit of hurry at the time. I’m now going back and figuring out how to deploy the custom environment via batch process as we routinely make updates and changes. However, I have met with limited success. Deploying and loading the custom profile is easy enough, but I’m struggling with getting the workspace to look as it should upon setting it current.

Here is the process I’m trying to do.

I created a new profile via profilemanager in BricsCAD and then imported our partial .cui file from our previous version of AutoCAD. I created a custom workspace within my newly created custom profile using the 2D Drafting workspace as a starting point and then did a Save As in the Workspace command to create a new workspace. From what I understand, this data will be stored in the default.cui file. So, now I should have a new profile (.arg file) and a new workspace in that profile in which the workspace settings are recorded in the default.cui file. To copy this customized BricsCad environment to each of the machines in our department, I should be able to copy the default.cui file and the custom profile (.arg file) from the machine that it was created on, up to a network shared directory and then copy the same files to each of the machines via a batch routine. However…. After the files are copied into place, I open BricsCAD and import the custom profile, the menus are present and the toolbars are “available” but not “checkmarked” as “on” and thus not onscreen. I can checkmark them and then they are visible on screen but all piled on top of each other and not in their correct location. Is there a way to copy the files to workstations and upon loading the profile and setting the workspace current, to have the desired toolbars already on and in the correct location?

Owen Wengerd

I think what you're doing should work, but make sure the profile you've exported has the correct workspace set current, and that WSAUTOSAVE=1 in that profile. There is an alternative approach if you can't get this one working: set WSAUTOSAVE=0 in the profile, configure all the UI elements the way you want, then exit BricsCAD so they get saved in the profile. With WSAUTOSAVE=0, the visibility and positions saved in the profile will override the settings from the workspace. But be warned, with WSAUTOSAVE=0, future changes will not be automatically saved back to the workspace.

Barticus

Thank you Owen, the first process worked without having to try the alternative approach. I just needed to step through the first process again, step by step making sure the right files landed in the correct location and that the workspace was correctly set current. The only shortfall is that several of the icon bmp files referenced by my custom toolbar buttons stopped showing even though they are in the same location as the rest of the custom toolbar buttons with a matching search path. I'll give it another run and see if I can reproduce it on another machine. Thanks for your help!