Saving Views with
Part 3: Custom Views / Named Views
Overview
Welcome back! This is our 3rd and final installment of our series on saving views in SmartCAM. If you missed the first two, you can check those out by going back to our blog’s home page.
In this post we’ll put together the things we learned in the previous months and learn some new things that allow you to quickly switch between views using custom macros and buttons. Our hope is that by adding these in, you increase your productivity by having the control you need in easy reach instead of having to ferret around in different menus.
This month's post will cover:
- Named Views
- Creating your own toolbar
- Adding Macros/Buttons
- Putting it all together
- Adding your custom toolbar
Named Views
Named Views is a toolbar that you can add to your workspace that allows you to quickly switch views. The defaults in this toolbar are Top, Right, Front, and Iso. You can access this toolbar by right clicking on the File toolbar and going to Named Views.
This will open the default Named Views toolbar:
This toolbar will act like any other toolbar. You can change its Position, add Text, resize Text etc by right clicking and making the needed changes.
Creating your own toolbar
Since the point of all these exercises is to be able to create and save views that will be available even after you update and upgrade, here are instructions for creating your own toolbar:
Once you have the Named Views open, right click on one of the icons or the bar itself, and go to Copy Toolbar.
Just like the macros and the icons, to preserve this toolbar, you’ll want to store the toolbar file in \ProgramData\SmartCAM\Common\ICON you created in the previous post. Give the file a name and Save the .bgp19 file.
Sample macros
To get you started and give you an example of some additional things you can do with views, there are a couple macros we’ve built for you to use for testing. Zoom50.mcl will zoom out your view by 50%. UnMaskTop.mcl selects everything and then Unmasks it. It also shifts the view to the Top view. This is useful if you have multiple items Masked and want to get them all Unmasked at once and change your view. To follow along, go ahead and download those. Remember from last month’s post, you’ll want to store them in your custom folder \ProgramData\SmartCAM\Common\ICON.
You can also create your own Macros by recording what you are doing. Check out this document on Recording a Macro. This is especially helpful if you have views you find yourself going to regularly. You can simply set up SmartCAM to record your actions and voila! You have a Macro you can use and create a button for with these instructions.
Putting it all together
Now that you have your own custom Views Toolbar, place it where you want it and add text, change size etc if you like. Once you have the toolbar the way you want it, go ahead and add in your custom macros.
For this tutorial, we are going to use the .mcl files from the section above and icons Z2.ico and M1.ico from the SAMPLE ICONS offered last month.
Make sure you have those downloaded and in \ProgramData\SmartCAM\Common\ICON. Also, make sure they are in the same subfolder with the macros you will be using (if you have created subfolders).
2. Click the Add Macro button in the middle.
3. Fill in the Button Name, Help Line, Icon Text 1 and 2 as desired.
4. Click the File Select button and browse to the location you have stored the Zoom50.mcl file and Open that.
5. Type in the name of the Icon file: In this case, we'll used z2 (the file is Z2.iso).
6. Click Accept.
7. Follow steps 2-6 again for UnMaskTop.mcl. We’ve used M1 for the icon.
Note: If you need a refresher on the Macro options, please see last month’s post.
Here are what the Macro configurations could look like:
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And how they look on a custom
Views Toolbar: 
Feel free to add in other macros/buttons as desired.
Adding your custom toolbar
Once you have created a custom toolbar, it is available after you update or upgrade and/or you can add it to any SmartCAM products.
· To use your custom Views Toolbar, right click any toolbar and select Add Toolbar. Browse to your custom toolbar file (.bgp19) and Open it.
· Configure the toolbar as you like; putting it where you want it, adding text etc.
This is why its important to store your files in \ProgramData\SmartCAM\Common\ICON. This folder is one of the folders that does not get overwritten during updates and upgrades, and it helps keep all your custom toolbar files together.
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That’s it! You now have the information you need to customize views and toolbars to make your SmartCAM product(s) help you be more efficient.
We hope you enjoyed this series. If you have other things you’d like us to cover, feel free to comment here or any of our blog posts, and we’ll be happy to look into it. Also, do let us know if you have any questions about this or any of our other posts. We want to help ensure you are successful with SmartCAM.
Cheers!
