How CUI of ZWCAD 2018 Helps You Improve Work Efficiency

CUI (Customize User Interface) is one of the shinning points of ZWCAD 2018, helping you customize the operation interface to make it fit in with your working habits by inputting the CUI commands and defining the interface including tool bar, menu, shortcut key, etc. by yourself, so as to enhance your working efficiency significantly.

Toolbar Customization

If you use Match Properties frequently in your work, you can place this command on a toolbar or ribbon interface. Use CUI editor and drag the Match Properties tool to the ribbon or toolbar as you wish, so that instead of inputting the command, you can click the brush pattern as Figure 2 directly in the toolbar every time you want to use Match Properties, realizing quicker draft by handy tools.

Figure 1. steps to set Match Properties on Toolbar

Figure 2. click Match Properties in Toolbar directly

Shortcut Keys Setting

You can also set shortcut keys for Match Properties by CUI editor. The way is similar to toolbar customization. Drag the Match Properties tool to the Accelerator Keys in menu, then define the shortcut key such as Ctrl+M for Match Properties. In this way, Match Properties can be employed easily and conveniently by pressing Ctrl+M instead of typing command or clicking button. What a time-saving feature!

Figure 3. steps to set Short Cut Key for Match Properties

Partial Customization Files

CUI also supports Partial Customization Files, allowing you to create extra user interface elements in a separate CUIx file without changing the main one which is located in C:\Users\[UserName]\AppData\Roaming\ZWSOFT\ZWCAD\2018\en-US\Support\ZWCAD.CUIX. For example, ZWCAD Mechanical is an application of ZWCAD, which contains additional drafting tools for mechanical design. Two more tabs, Mechanical Annotation and Mechanical Drawing, are added to the ribbon interface. All the additional tools and Ribbon tabs are defined in an independent ZWCADM.cuix file located in C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Roaming\ZWSOFT\ZWCAD\2018\en-US\Support.

(Note: For ZWCAD Mechanical, icon files are stored in ZWCADM.dll in order to protect the icons, but you can simply store the icon files together with other interface files in one cuix file.)

Figure 4. the interface of ZWCAD Mechanical with two more tabs

Figure 5. find the independent ZWCADM.cuix file

It not only supports to define new partial CUIx files in ZWCAD, but also supports you to use existing partial CUIx files directly. That means application developers can benefit from Partial Customization Files a lot when porting their apps -- if you have an existing partial CUIx file for your app, you can also directly load it into ZWCAD as a partial CUIx file , and use it without changes. It helps developers focus on migrating the application itself, without concerning about its user interfaces.

Figure 6. load partial customization file

From MNU to Partial CUI

What if my application doesn’t have an existing CUIx file before? Should I need to create a new one from scratch? Good news is that you don’t. You just need to load your former MNU file, then a corresponding CUIx file will be automatically generated and loaded as a Partial Customization File, still keeping all the original definitions in MNU. You can edit all the elements inside, and even add a Ribbon interface for it.

CUI of ZWCAD 2018 enables you to intensively customize interface, to make it conform to your working habits and thus improve your working efficiency.

It is so user-centered and convenient that you must not miss the chance to take a look and have a try at https://www.zwsoft.com/zwcad/ZWCAD_Overview/.