Tweaking the Ribbon.

Kevin Clark is a new poster at Civil3d.com. Let me know what you think of his posts, and encourage him to post more if you like his style! JW

I’m still on board with the 2010 ribbon. Not sure why, I think it’s just cool. I do like how it changed with the element or object you select. It’s called a context menu. The one problem I have is my layers! I have to have my layers panel available at all times. So a little tweaking of the cui is in order. See what I did after the jump.

Open your cui and find the ribbon heading.

ribbon1

There are two main pieces to the ribbon. Tabs are the main groups and are accessed along the top of the ribbon. The panels are the grouped headings within the ribbon and are separated by the vertical lines. The panel titles are along the bottom of the ribbon panels.

ribbon2

We will be trying to edit a Tab by adding a Panel to it. So expand your Panels heading and find the Home Layers panel.

ribbon3

Click and drag the panel up to your tabs in the section above. For this example I put my layers in all the parcel tabs.

ribbon4

I will continue to add my layers to all the other context tabs. You can do this with other panels you find yourself needing.

9 comments

  1. Rick Graham says:

    Welcome to the jungle! 🙂

  2. Good post Kevin. I see many making this adjustment to their Ribbon.

    I’ve had this same request by a few of my clients as well. However, they preferred to continue using the docked Layers toolbar in conjunction with the Ribbon. (they’re OK with a little less screen real estate)

    The only advantage I see with the layer toolbar over the layer panel is that the toolbar doesn’t auto-adjust the width as you scroll down through the layers. If all your layers names are the same width you won’t see this problem. But it is very annoying if you have some longer layer names in the mix.

    • Kevin Clark, P.E. says:

      I tend to use both too. One for light layer work and one for in-depth.

  3. Terry Mullins says:

    Any idea where the Properties panel is located in the CUI? It is available in the Home tab in the 2D Drafting workspace, but for some reason I can’t add it to any other workspace….because I can’t find it listed under Panel anywhere in the CUI.

    • Rick Graham says:

      You could roll your own. It appears that the keyboard shortcut for Properties (aka keytip) is PR.

      • Terry Mullins says:

        Now that would defeat the purpose of the ribbon Rick – to make everything quicker and easier by “ribbonizing”.

    • Kevin Clark, P.E. says:

      Look down at the bottom of your tree for Partial Customization Files>ACAD>Ribbon>Panels>Home-Properties.

      • Terry Mullins says:

        Got it. Thanks. I created a copy of the default C3D workspace, to experiment with, and I added the Properties panel to the copy just fine. Now the Properties panel shows up in both workspaces, the original default C3D workspace and my copy. Oh well.

        I’m really trying to convert, I really am. Thanks for the help.

  4. Matt Kolberg says:

    Nice job. I’m still trying to find everything in the Ribbon. it’s coming along.