Network toolbar and workspace

Rhino Rhino for Windows
1

We have plugins and toolbars located on a server. Yesterday I made a custom toolbar (5 tabs, 15 buttons…) and somehow the complete toolbar is overwritten.
I asked my colleagues but they didn’t made any changes.

This is the setup:
-a local default rui on every workstation (everybody wants there own layout)
-a network rui located on the server

Any ideas?

2

Hello,
Was your custom workspace named differently than Default? It is extremely important to name it differently as Default can get “accidentally” overwritten under a number of circumstances (both local and network). For example if you have several instances of Rhino open at one time, the last one to close overwrites the previous ones. If you made your changes in another instance, they will be lost.

Also, since you have other colleagues customizing and using workspaces, I would make sure everyone has their own name…

–Mitch

3

Hi Mitch,

Just to clarify it for me:

  • both workspace and toolbars are saved in the rui file?
  • I need to closed all Rhino instances on all workstations, make the changes and save?

Something I was wondering for a long time no:
-How do I deploy all settings in the network? (eg. Search path, workspaces, options)

Thanks!

4

What is saved in the .rui file (as far as I know):
Toolbars, their macros, images, etc.
Menus

What is not saved in the rui file:
Toolbar locations on-screen, whether they are open/closed/docked, etc…
These settings are stored in the registry per user.

All the other options (colors, search paths, etc. ) are also stored in the registry.

Here is a synopsis of the above…

As far as network deployment goes, if @DanBayn is watching, he manages a network with over 100 licenses of Rhino, maybe he has some sage advice…

–Mitch

5

This is how I do it:

I have a “master” folder saved in the server with all my Rhino related files (.rui, plug-ins, etc.). I have a script that runs at login (but also has a shortcut on everyone’s desktop). What this script does is copy files from the server to a folder in each hard drive (separate from the default folders that Rhino installs to). When the update happens (at login or when invoked by the user) the files are overwritten in this custom Rhino folder. I have each installation configured to pull the necessary files from this location. To make all this happen on a fresh install, I have a registry key that I import. Setting up the customizations to work this way on a new install takes a matter of seconds.

Now as for custom toolbars, each person is responsible to save their own if they don’t want to use the default one that I provide. When the login script updates their system, they will have a copy of it in their “special” Rhino folder, where they can open it and copy any new buttons to their toolbar if they wish.

Hopefully this is more helpful than it is confusing!

Dan

6

I copy my rui file onto the network here for the other guys to use. I use one on my local drive and copy it over after making any changes to the toolbars. As soon as I copy it onto the network, I make the network copy “read only”. Otherwise it would be overwritten by several other people that use it. Caused the people using it lots of problems before I changed it to “read only”.

7

Thanks for the quick response!

I made a backup so I can overwrite it manualy if I made any changes. I changed the network rui to read only, that did the trick.

This is a little bit to difficult for me… For now I can manage 10 workstations manually :smile:

8

Yeah, if I only had a few I wouldn’t bother with all this either. However, at last count I have 112 Rhino installations. Not everyone is a full time user, but they still need to have their Rhino updated with the latest changes (plug-ins, scripts, toolbars etc.)

Dan