After V19 upgrade toolbar layout messed up in V18

Tim Neumann

After upgrading to V19 all seemed well, toolbar locations were the same as in V18. The problem is going back in V18 all
the toolbar locations are messed up. Tried creating a new V19 profile but it still does it, no matter if it's V18 or V19.
Apparently one is affecting the other, despite having different profiles. I don't understand, this didn't happen upgrading
from V16 to V18. I like to work in the older release until the newer one's "kinks" are worked out but I guess I'll have to
commit one way or the other. Anyone have any solutions for this please?

Richard Webb

For what it's worth, I'm keeping V18 active for the foreseeable and haven't experienced what you describe. The V19 and V18 toolbars are both behaving normally, with no cross action between the two installations.

So, not a global issue. Reaching deep for possible causes ... Any chance that you have a hardcoded environmental variable that was set outside of the normal installation routine? Do your %APPDATA%\bricsys\bricscad and %LOCALAPPDATA%\bricsys\bricscad directories have separate subdirectories for V18 and V19?

Tim Neumann

Well that's not good, was hoping someone else was going thru the same thing.

Everything seems to be setup ok regarding directories, V18 & V19 are separate. Didn't do anything outside the normal install, it asked me about
keeping the settings in V18 so went with that. I'll keep digging, it's driving me nuts.

Roy Klein Gebbinck

By default some GUI information is stored in the CUI file. So if V18 and V19 use the same CUI, GUI changes in V19 may impact V18.

Tim Neumann

Yep, had to create a new V19 profile from scratch and tweak the toolbar locations on a "bare-bones setup". All is well now, hopefully when V20 comes out this won't be an issue again.

Tom Foster

@Roy Klein Gebbinck said:
if V18 and V19 use the same CUI, GUI changes in V19 may impact V18.

How do you mean Roy? Not merely that the cui's for V18 and V19 are identical, but that both versions of Brics are pointed to a single location for their cui file? Why or how should that happen, during new-version installation, other than as a manually created mistake?

Roy Klein Gebbinck

@Tom Foster
During the installation process there is an option, which I never use, to copy settings from the previous version. I am not sure if the main CUI is one of those settings. If it is a setting that is copied, then the problem that Tim encountered can occur.

Tom Foster

Surely, copied means same as before but in new location, which is then pointed to? And it can't mean that any subsequent modification of the cui in V19 wd propagate back to the V18 one? it's not that V18 and V19 are pointing to the same single cui file - unless by deliberate or accidental manual user choice?

Tim Neumann

@Tom Foster said:
Surely, copied means same as before but in new location, which is then pointed to? And it can't mean that any subsequent modification of the cui in V19 wd propagate back to the V18 one? it's not that V18 and V19 are pointing to the same single cui file - unless by deliberate or accidental manual user choice?

This is what kind of got me "befuddled" as this issue didn't occur when I upgraded from V16 to V18. I know for a fact I used the option to copy
settings from previous install. I don't have an overly complicated setup, just like my toolbars in a certain spot and some settings here and
there tweaked.

Tom Foster

Have you checked what location of cuis are pointed to in each of V18 and V19?

Tim Neumann

They were pointing to the same custom cui but support advised me to ditch that and start with a fresh cui for V19 and then arrange toolbars.
All works fine now, but when I upgrade to V20.....

Tom Foster

@Roy Klein Gebbinck said:
During the installation process there is an option .... to copy settings from the previous version.
@Tom Foster said:
.... copied means same as before but in new location, which is then pointed to

So there shouldn't be any danger, during V20 installation, that both V20 and V19 would be

@Tim Neumann said:
.... pointing to the same custom cui

unless you deliberately do it that way manually.

Roy Klein Gebbinck

@Tom Foster
Judging by Tim's experience what you are saying is not the case. Maybe you should send in an SR.

Tom Foster

There's a big lack of explanation of the principles and alternative tactics of preserving customisations at new-version time - and even the default procedures keep varying from version to version. Looks like Brics itself is floundering in this respect - senior Help people have said they don't understand it. Even Grabowski's magnificent Customization book doesn't touch the subject.

The inconsistencies of procedure that have to be painfully kinda-understood and learned for the different tabs of the Customize dialog are incredible. Some of them are stored in a custom cui (so's to stand a chance of surviving a new-version), but others incl, unbelievably,
Workspaces, are stored in the main cui so get over-written and have to be re-imported from somewhere - invitation to mis-step and unintended chaos.

How much Support time and resources are spent on firefighting the holes left by Brics Help, whose big gaps, ambiguous and un-style-checked writing, and sections non-updated after changes, are becoming more and more obvious and frustrating. The live online format is a big improvement over the old chms but the content ...

James Maeding

@Tom Foster
I am also seeing some wackiness in the CUI system, actually in V20. The funny thing is, autodesk is also bad at its own CUI system.
Part of the problem is the undocumented xml format the CUI uses. When acad 2006 came out, half the help people did not know only workspaces in main menu can be edited. Robert Green and I spent weeks trying to figure out how things worked.
In the end, here is what I do for every acad and bcad new version (say V19 to V20):
1) Copy any company menus from V19 to V20 menu folder. Note that I start with .mnu, and will never give that up. Its 100x simpler to maintain than using CUI dialog, and not cryptic compiled xml...
2) Copy my blank Custom.cui from my V19 menu folder to V20 (don't share menus between versions, especially the main.)
3) start with an OOTB profile in V20, and tweak paths to where my V20 stuff is
4) load custom.cui as main, and company menus as partials to it.
5) tweak my startup lisp to V20 version
6) save a workspace once toolbars and things in place
7) export the profile for easy setup of other machines (I make an icon with /P " to set others up)

I basically do not share anything between versions except:
lisps/scripts that are not version specific (almost all are not specific)
linetype files
pen tables
fonts
..generic type things that

I actually control most all the menus and tools and things by robocopying from server to local machine on login.
I don't control the custom.cui though, that becomes user specific once set up in beginning.
The point is, enough users do have an understanding of the CUI system to get people out of trouble so keep plugging the forum for info