MicroMenu
From my past life as a CAD monkey in process plant engineering, MicroMenu was an icon-menu addon for Intergraph's PDS2D and Intergraph/Bentley's MicroStation CAD software.
It was initially written in 1997 as "MacroMenu" for the old MicroStation-based versions of Intergraph PDS2D, as a standalone Visual Basic program that used SendKeys
to enter commands from a single icon menu. I wrote the proof-of-concept in an evening, after our sysadmin spent several months failing to customise PDS2D's own menu system for us.
I later modified it to provide multiple menus, for use in MicroStation, as seen in the unblurred parts of the screenshots below:
Later still, when SendKeys
became increasingly unreliable, and MicroStation gained VBA integration, I rewrote it again within MicroStation VBA, so that it could use the provided APIs to inject commands directly.
Menu content was stored as a series of bitmap images and text files, allowing any user to make changes with common tools like MS Paint and Notepad. Microstations own GUI customisation facilities were rather more esoteric.
Over the years, I added a library of custom CAD macros and commands written in MicroStation BASIC or VBA.
Over its lifespan, from 1997 until at least 2015, MicroMenu and its libraries saved thousands of workhours and improved drafting quality through:
- Instant selection of symbols without using manual keyins or opening library browsers
- Easy access to menu items incorporating standard settings, promoting use of in-house or client CAD standards
- Provided a layer of MicroStation user interface which could be customised by end users without needing to join the IT support queue
- Custom commands for importing and reformatting spreadsheet data, bulk printing, etc
Since this software was written for and remains the property of a former employer, I am unable to provide downloads of source code or executable files.