AC3D Toolbar editor

Released under the GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE.

This is a standalone Windows application for creating AC3D toolbars for use in your application. While it is a Windows-only executable, the resulting toolbar file that is created by this app may be copied to Mac/Linux.

Latest release
Download Windows version 1.0 (.Net 1.1 installer)
Download Windows version 1.0 (no installer)
Download Toolbar icons (all platforms)
Download source code 1.0 (C#)

Download latest .conf file (31.07.2006)

Toolbar icons provided by Sergio Santagada.
Additional TCL support provided by Andy at Inivis.

Notes on installing new .conf files

If you have already installed the toolbar editor and need to update the .conf file, use this procedure so that you do not have to uninstall/re-install the entire program.

The .conf file is a text file that drives the toolbar icons in the toolbar editor, and it exists in the same folder as the toolbar editor program. The default installation path for this file is:

C:\Program Files\SuperColdMilk\AC3D Toolbar Editor\ac3dtb.conf

Changes may be made to this file to "fix" certain toolbar entries or to add new entries.

If you add a .conf that contains fixes to existing buttons, you can still use your old .tcl button, but you will have to remove and replace the buttons that have changed in the .conf file. Simply loading and saving the toolbar.tcl file again will not do it, you have to explicitly add the changed buttons/controls.

Sample toolbar

AC3D Toolbar Editor interface

Requirements

This application was developed using the Microsoft .Net 2.0 Framework. You may be prompted to download or upgrade to version 2.0 of the .Net framework during the installation process.

Description

The AC3D Toolbar editor creates a .TCL script that AC3D runs at startup to configure a custom toolbar. The user chooses commands to add to the toolbar along with labels and spaces. You can customize the labels to display whatever text you'd like. With the optional toolbar images, some buttons may have graphics assigned to them instead of text.

Installation

Launch the Setup.exe file to install the editor and follow the prompts to install the software. A "SuperColdMilk" entry will be added to your Programs menu, underneath which you will find the AC3D Toolbar Editor shortcut. This launches the program.

.Net 2.0 users: You may have trouble with the setup version if you have never had .Net 1.1 on your system. A fix may be forthcoming for this, but meanwhile, download the "no installer" version and unzip the contents into a folder of your choosing. This is essentially the same thing the setup program does (the toolbar editor does not write registry entries/etc that require uninstalling), only you'll have to create your own shortcut to the executable using this method.

For toolbar icons, get the toolbar images archive from the download link at the top of this page, and extract the contents of the .zip file into your AC3D "scripts" directory. For example, if installing the images to a Windows system, you might end up installing these to the "C:\Program Files\AC3D 6.0\scripts" folder. When you unzip the files, make sure you include folders (the images will ultimately end up in a folder under the scripts folder).

To uninstall the program, open your Control Panel and select Add/Remove Programs, then select the AC3D Toolbar Editor and uninstall it.

To uninstall the toolbar icons, delete the "toolbar_icons" folder that was created when you unzipped the toolbar images zip file.

Quickstart guide

Launch the Toolbar editor.

Each numbered area/control is as follows.

1	Custom toolbar area. Your custom toolbar's labels, buttons, and spaces will be listed here.
2	Label editor. Typing text here while a toolbar item is selected will edit the selected label.
3	Image filename editor. Typing text here while a toolbar item is selected will edit the selected toolbar item's image location. Note that not all toolbar items will have images, and labels and spaces will ignore this entry.
4	Adds the selected toolbar action (from the right) after the selected toolbar item, or to the end if no toolbar items are selected.
5	Moves the selected toolbar item up in the list.
6	Moves the selected toolbar item down in the list.
7	Adds a toolbar spacer after the selected toolbar item, or to the end if no toolbar items are selected. A space just puts a little space in between buttons to keep them from running together.
8	Adds a label after the selected toolbar item, or to the end if no toolbar items are selected.
9	Removes the selected toolbar item.
10	Available commands. This tabbed area contains almost all of the AC3D menu entries as of version 6.0. Most of the plugins available from http://supercoldmilk.com are included here as well, but you'll have to download and install the plugins themselves if you want to use them.
11	Save the toolbar. Once your toolbar is built, click here to save it. Toolbar files must be saved as .tcl files in the AC3D scripts directory before they will work.
12	Load a toolbar. Load a toolbar that you previously saved.
13	Enable images. If checked, images may be used for icons where available. See the Installation section above for details.

Important notes

The AC3D toolbar editor creates a .TCL file that will be placed in your AC3D /scripts folder. If you are building a toolbar on a Windows system and copying it to a non-Windows system (Mac/PC), simply copy the TCL file to the AC3D scripts folder.

Note, also, that you do not need the toolbar icons to actually build the toolbar. You only need them in the AC3D scripts folder if you want them to appear.

Also, only save one toolbar .tcl to the scripts folder. If you save more than one, only one of them will be used, but both of them will be read and implemented, consuming a few extra resources.

Creating a sample toolbar

We will create a sample toolbar to give you the feel for creating toolbars.

In the available commands tabs to the right, click the "Edit" tab and select "Group". Click the "Add" button in the top center.

This adds the "Edit -> Group" functionality to the toolbar.

Now, do the same for "Edit -> Ungroup".

This will create a new toolbar with Group and Ungroup functions.

Now we'll add functions to flip geometry along the X/Y/Z axes.

First, add a space after the Ungroup item by clicking the "Add space" button. Then, navigate to the "Other" tab on the right and add the "Flip X", "Flip Y", and "Flip Z" functions.

You can see the labels that will be assigned to each button by clicking on one of your custom buttons and looking at the "Label" property underneath. You may have noticed that "Flip X" is simply labeled as "X", etc. This will not be terribly helpful, so we'll either need to change the label to "Flip X", which will take up more room on the toolbar, or we can add a label to show us what these items are.

To add a label before our Flip buttons, select the last "space" you added and click the "Add label" button. Enter the text "Flip:" (without quotes) when prompted.

Note that you could have also added the label anywhere in the list, then repositioned it using "Move up", "Move down", or drag-and-drop.

We'll add one last function. Add a space to the end of the list, then add the "3D -> 3D Vertices" function. This shows/hides vertices in the 3D view.

Notice that the label isn't very informative here --- it simply reads "vert". If we were adding more 3D items, we could prefix this with a label, but since this is our only one, go ahead and change the label to "3D show verts".

Let's give our toolbar a test drive. Click the "Save toolbar" button and save your toolbar into the AC3D scripts folder. Name it "toolbar.tcl" (although the name doesn't really matter --- use "my_toolbar.tcl" or something if you prefer --- just something to indicate that it will create a toolbar). Any .tcl files in this folder are read by AC3D on startup.

Now start AC3D, and you should see this toolbar in place of the old one:

It's rather sparse at the moment, but you can fill it out as needed, of course.

Another important note

You may notice that the Group/Flip buttons are all grayed out. This is because they are context-sensitive, and will highlight/unhighlight as geometry is selected.

It is important to note that the vast majority of the toolbar buttons you can add with this tool are not context sensitive, which will cause seemingly unusual behavior if clicked out of context. For example, if you added the "Extrude along path" button, which only works in Object mode, you could still click it while in Surface or Vertex mode, and the error would report that you need to select two Objects, even if you've selected all the surfaces/vertices of two objects.

We'll try to get all of these items "context-sensitized", but in the meantime, please be patient and report anything that you find that may cause serious if clicked out of context to the AC3D forums.

Adding images

The icons created by Sergio Santagada for the AC3D toolbar are referenced for certain commands. This section assumes you have installed the toolbar icons (see the Installation section above).

Back in the AC3D Toolbar Editor, reload your toolbar .tcl file if you closed the editor. Click the "Save toolbar with images where available" checkbox at the bottom.

Now save the toolbar over the old one, and the next time you start AC3D you should see this menu, if all went well.

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All content Copyright © 2006 Dennis Hawthorne, except where explicitly noted supercoldmilk © 2006 Dennis Hawthorne