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Author Topic: Tool Palettes  (Read 12045 times)

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Glenn R

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Tool Palettes
« on: February 08, 2006, 09:26:35 PM »
Has anybody done anything to programatically access these little beasties? I'm not talking about creating a custom palette - there seems to be plenty of information for that.

What I'm talking about is iterating the currently loaded palettes and doing stuff ie. Loading/unloading, visible/not visible etc.

Any thoughts anyone?

Cheers,
Glenn.
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Kerry

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Re: Tool Palettes
« Reply #1 on: February 08, 2006, 09:52:13 PM »
I'm blissfully ignorant Glenn ...    :wink:
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kdub, kdub_nz in other timelines.
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MickD

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Re: Tool Palettes
« Reply #2 on: February 08, 2006, 09:59:53 PM »
As you create them, can you create an array (like a control array) of ref's to them for iteration?? There must be some type of handle to keep track of to have access to them you would think.
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"Programming is really just the mundane aspect of expressing a solution to a problem."
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Glenn R

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Re: Tool Palettes
« Reply #3 on: February 08, 2006, 10:27:03 PM »
I'm not creating them as I mentioned. These are ones that are laoded into AutoCAD, either the standard example ones or the custom ones that I have.

It's difficult deciphering the docs...as we all know....:(

So far:
Code: [Select]
// get apointer to the editor
Editor ed = acadApp.DocumentManager.MdiActiveDocument.Editor;
// Get apointer to the tool palettes manager...
ToolPaletteManager tpMan = ToolPaletteManager.Manager;
// Get the tool pcatalog paths
ed.WriteMessage("\nCatalog path: {0}\n\n", tpMan.CatalogPath);
// get the cdollection of tool catalogs loaded
CatalogItemCollection catalogItems = tpMan.Catalogs;

tpMan.LoadCatalogs();

foreach(CatalogItem catalogItem in catalogItems) {
ed.WriteMessage("\n\nCatalog item type: {0}", CatalogItem.GetType(catalogItem.LocalFile).ToString());
if (!catalogItem.HasChildren)
continue;

for (int i = 0; i < catalogItem.ChildCount; i++) {
CatalogItem paletteItem = catalogItem.GetChild(i);
ed.WriteMessage("\nChild item type: {0}", CatalogItem.GetType(paletteItem.LocalFile).ToString());
if (CatalogItem.GetType(paletteItem.Url.ToString()) == CatalogItemType.ItemPalette) {
ed.WriteMessage("\nGot a palette!");
ed.WriteMessage("\nPalette name: {0}", paletteItem.Name);
}
}
}
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MickD

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Re: Tool Palettes
« Reply #4 on: February 08, 2006, 10:52:53 PM »
Are you getting any feedback from that Glenn?

(I can't test here 'till tomorrow, have to reload 2006 :( )
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"Programming is really just the mundane aspect of expressing a solution to a problem."
- John Carmack

"Short cuts make long delays,' argued Pippin.”
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MickD

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Re: Tool Palettes
« Reply #5 on: February 08, 2006, 11:02:59 PM »
How about "Palette Sets" ?
Quote
The CAdUiPaletteSet class contains a set of one or more palette windows (CAdUiPalette objects), and supports the following palette style constants:

I think this may be what you're after as the TPM seems to be working with the xml data not the actual windows.
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"Programming is really just the mundane aspect of expressing a solution to a problem."
- John Carmack

"Short cuts make long delays,' argued Pippin.”
- J.R.R. Tolkien

Glenn R

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Re: Tool Palettes
« Reply #6 on: February 08, 2006, 11:06:04 PM »
Mick,

Not as yet.

LE,

If you're referring to the BoltUI etc. sample that ships with the ObjectARX SDK, again this is creating a CUSTOM toolpalette.
I just want to programmatically manipulate the existing palettes (load/unload etc).

Cheers,
Glenn.
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LE

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Re: Tool Palettes
« Reply #7 on: February 08, 2006, 11:08:23 PM »
Quote from: Glenn R on February 08, 2006, 11:06:04 PM

LE,

If you're referring to the BoltUI etc. sample that ships with the ObjectARX SDK, again this is creating a CUSTOM toolpalette.
I just want to programmatically manipulate the existing palettes (load/unload etc).

Cheers,
Glenn.

Yep... it was about that one....
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Glenn R

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Re: Tool Palettes
« Reply #8 on: February 08, 2006, 11:09:42 PM »
Mick,

I would concur, however getting one/creating one seems to be the difficult part unless I've totally overlooked something..............
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MickD

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Re: Tool Palettes
« Reply #9 on: February 08, 2006, 11:26:49 PM »
<edit - removed useless comments!>
try again!
« Last Edit: February 09, 2006, 06:04:51 PM by MickD »
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"Programming is really just the mundane aspect of expressing a solution to a problem."
- John Carmack

"Short cuts make long delays,' argued Pippin.”
- J.R.R. Tolkien

MickD

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Re: Tool Palettes
« Reply #10 on: February 09, 2006, 06:07:34 PM »
I can see where you're heading with this now Glenn and you're right in there's little documentation! And it's littered with COM and all sorts of nasty stuff.
I was getting confused with the sample in the AU docs on creating a tool pallete from scratch which was more like a stand alone dockable window than a 'tool palette'.
I should have 2006 loaded back on after lunch and I'll have a play. Have you got any further?
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"Programming is really just the mundane aspect of expressing a solution to a problem."
- John Carmack

"Short cuts make long delays,' argued Pippin.”
- J.R.R. Tolkien

Glenn R

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Re: Tool Palettes
« Reply #11 on: February 09, 2006, 08:58:08 PM »
Mick,

No further joy to report I'm afraid. I have some suspicions, but I won't taint your thinking process with them, until you have a chance to play with your own ideas.

Cheers,
Glenn.
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MickD

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Re: Tool Palettes
« Reply #12 on: February 09, 2006, 09:23:36 PM »
It works at my end Glenn, I pretty much just copied and pasted your code in and added a using ...Windows.ToolPalette; directive at the top.
here's the output.

I built the SimpleTools demo as well and it showed up in the list, will have to have a go at doing it with C#


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"Programming is really just the mundane aspect of expressing a solution to a problem."
- John Carmack

"Short cuts make long delays,' argued Pippin.”
- J.R.R. Tolkien

Glenn R

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Re: Tool Palettes
« Reply #13 on: February 09, 2006, 10:37:19 PM »
Mick,

I'm well aware that it works (I wrote it ;) )...it's just a starting point.
I want to be able to switch to another palette, hide tabs, load/unload activate a tab etc....this is the problem. I can't see where to go from there...if that makes sense.

Keep playing if you can...maybe I've missed something blatantly obvious to someone else.

Cheers,
Glenn.
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Kerry

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Re: Tool Palettes
« Reply #14 on: February 12, 2006, 07:28:52 PM »
Glenn, I s'pose you've seen this :

anyway, others may not have, so ...
Code: [Select]
namespace Autodesk.AutoCAD.Windows.ToolPalette
{
     //// stripped by kwb 'cause  'The message exceeds the maximum allowed length (20000 characters). '

}
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kdub, kdub_nz in other timelines.
Perfection is not optional.
Everything will work just as you expect it to, unless your expectations are incorrect.
Discipline: None at all.

Kerry

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Re: Tool Palettes
« Reply #15 on: February 12, 2006, 07:49:49 PM »
jeeze Glenn, I just had a look at the inheritance chain for the Palette class

.. there has to be a books worth of info tucked into that little beastie ..

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kdub, kdub_nz in other timelines.
Perfection is not optional.
Everything will work just as you expect it to, unless your expectations are incorrect.
Discipline: None at all.

Glenn R

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Re: Tool Palettes
« Reply #16 on: February 13, 2006, 06:35:07 AM »
Hehehe...welcome to my world of pain Kerry ;)
Thanks for looking though.
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MickD

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Re: Tool Palettes
« Reply #17 on: February 13, 2006, 03:50:42 PM »
Try as I might I can't seem to find anything either, I tried a few things that 'looked' like they should work but... nada!
From what I have read elswhere the api isn't finished for tp's, looking through the arx api though I'd still like to give PaletteSet's a go but again...
http://discussion.autodesk.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4952797
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"Programming is really just the mundane aspect of expressing a solution to a problem."
- John Carmack

"Short cuts make long delays,' argued Pippin.”
- J.R.R. Tolkien

Glenn R

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Re: Tool Palettes
« Reply #18 on: February 13, 2006, 07:05:38 PM »
As I suspected. Thanks Mick.
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Draftek

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Re: Tool Palettes
« Reply #19 on: February 15, 2006, 03:44:20 PM »
Not sure this applies but I'm doing similar with a custom context menu system.
I'm deriving from the MenuItem base class, adding my own data along with event delegates.

I'm not interested in removing any yet but the method is available. I would assume if you are making your palettes in code, you should be able to manipulate them likewise. I could be wrong because I've not had time to view those objects in depth.

Personally, I'm treating the palettes like I did toolbars - I'll produce them for the user if they want to use them - statically. I'm also deploying the .xml files along with the .atc files so I can re-sync all tool palettes in case the user hoses them.

It sounds like you need more of a dynamic interaction so I'd stick with 100% code generated items and stay away from the tool palettes.  Just my opinion.

If you figure it out, be sure to let us know.
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