Add or Modify Workspaces in ARES Commander

Working with Default Workspaces

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ARES Commander 2015 provides three default workspaces that we see here.

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However, depending on the type of work that we have to do,

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it can be required to customize the workspace

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to suit better the needs for specific activities such as electricity, architecture, structure etc.

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For example, when we select the workspace “3D MODELING”,

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the program will give priority to tools that will allow us to work in 3D.

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By using the option “DRAFTING AND ANNOTATION”, we are prioritizing the 2D tools.

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We can also return to the “classic” look,

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without Ribbon but with drop-down menus and toolbars.

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But … how do we create a customized workspace?

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For this let’s go to the “MANAGE” tab and
select the “INTERFACE” command.

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Among the options on the left of the dialog choose “Profiles UI”.

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We now see the 3 workspaces that we have seen before.

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This arrow here indicates the current workspace.

Creating New Workspaces

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To create a new workspace you click here.

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Now select, right-click and choose a name.

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We create another space and assign a name to it with “rename”.

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Press OK.

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Our new workspaces are now listed.

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Select “ELECTRICAL”.

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What happened? You can see we have lost most of the user interface.

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And therefore have no ribbon, menu or toolbar to access to commands.

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This is because we have not assigned yet any item to the workspace.

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But this is not a problem. Thanks to the command line we can write UIProfile.

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This allows us to return to this dialog box.

Activating Workspaces

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Now we can activate another workspace

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by double clicking in the “ACTIVE” column.

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Press APPLY to change to another workspace.

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Now let’s return to ELECTRICAL.

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Double click to make it active.

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Open the drop-down “RIBBON TABS” where we note that there is a series of tabs that correspond to each workspace.

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All we have to do is to assign to this new workspace what should be included.

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Let’s therefore, click on this button, which opens a browser with different options.

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For example, let’s drag the tabs “HOME-2D”,

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“Annotate”, and “Constraints”.

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Into the workspace “Structure” we add “HOME-2D” and “Insert-2D”.

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So, to summarize, we can create a new workspace with this button.

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The “Ribbon Tabs” section helps us to assign tabs to the workspace.

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These tabs were configurated before and can be chosen from the list displayed in the “Ribbon Tab Explorer”

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The same can be done with the menus.

Custom Workspaces

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As you can see, they are currently only activated in the workspace “Classic Default”.

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But we can also incorporate them into our custom workspaces.

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We drag the menus we like and here we will add the Dimension menu.

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The same can be said for the “Toolbars” which are also currently only activated in the space “Classic Default”.

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In the “Elements” section we can find the
status bar, the command line, the properties palette, and other UI elements.

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As an example, we can add the “Parameters” palette to the Electrical workspace

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and do the same for the Structure one.

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When checking the options, we see that here we missed one.

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It is the “Quick Access bar”. Let’s activate it also for our custom spaces.

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Press OK.

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I press ENTER to run the last command again and compare what we can see on screen

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with the options, we have activated.

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Let’s click here

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First of all, we can check that the ELECTRICAL workspace is activated –

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as indicated up here.

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For the Quick Access Bar (which can be seen here) we see that it is activated for this workspace.

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In the Ribbon Tabs section, we see the tabs. Home – 2D, Annotate, and Constraints.

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Which is what you can see here.

Activating Parameters Palette

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For MENUS we defined that we only wanted the File menu.

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We can find it here.

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In TOOLBARS, for ELECTRICAL we have not assigned any which explains why nothing is displayed.

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In the ELEMENTS section, we see that for the workspace ELECTRICAL

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we have activated the PARAMETERS palette,

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which is the one we can find here

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As a result, following these steps, we can
set up and customize any workspace.

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If you want to learn more about the customization of Ares Commander 2015’s user interface,

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do not hesitate to visit our HELP section.

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By using this button or pressing F1 or using this other button here.

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Thanks for listening.

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And don’t miss our free Trial of Ares Commander 2015 on our website www.graebert.com

To learn more about ARES Commander, visit our Youtube Channel: GraebertTV