While I do like the new modeless toolbars for both alignments and profiles in Civil 3D 2008, I do find three potential problems that users can sometimes encounter.
Read on to learn about why your buttons may go “gray” or other glitches.
1) Leaving the toolbars up too long
Because the toolbars hang around until you dismiss them, I find that many new users just never dismiss them. We can debate over best practices here, but I think that unless you are actively working on your profile or alignment, you should hit the red X and sent it on its merry way. Problems 2 and 3 are more likely to occur with toolbars left floating in space.
2) Buttons becoming “grayed out”
Here is what you expect your Profile Layout Tools to look like while you are editing a layout profile.
Note that the name of the “active” profile is in the toolbar header. This means that the tools on the toolbar will actively edit my Finished Ground profile.
Now, if during the course of my clicking and picking, suddenly, my tool buttons turn grey? What happened?
If I look closely, I notice that the “active” profile has changed from my Finished Ground to my Existing Ground. During the course of my working, I must have clicked the green profile from my Existing Ground. Since my Existing Ground profile is sampled, it makes sense that none of the tools would work to edit a sampled profile.
In 2007 and below, such an action would have just kicked me out of the profile toolbar all together, so I never would have this issue.
To fix it, just click back on your layout profile so that you see its name appear back in the header of the toolbar.
3) Along the same vein as number 2, you can accidentally click another layout profile (or alignment if working with alignments). This will switch your “active” profile to the other layout and cause you frustration when you try to edit the original profile and get no response. The fix is the same- just clear out of any active commands and click on the correct profile.
If you are running into any other weirdness, or this doesn’t seem to be your problem- drop a comment and let’s see if we can figure it out!
