As an example lets say you always seem to need to copy the contents of a fence from one place to the other and you want to be sure it is set to inside. Set up the following key-in commands and assign them to a function key:

lock fence inside;place fence;%d;%d;fence copy

Each separate command is separated with a semicolon. The two %d commands cause MicroStation to wait for two consecutive data points from the user, when it receives the second data point the last command activates the fence copy command. The function key commands are done and MicroStation is waiting for the user to define his start point for the fence copy.

The basic concept of function keys in MicroStation is to associate a key-in command or a series of key-in commands to a function key on the keyboard or a combination of a function key and the “Shift”, “Alt” and “Ctrl” keys. This gives you 96 unique combinations. Since almost anything can be done with key-in commands in MicroStation, the possibilities for their use is only limited by your imagination.

After a default installation of MicroStation, a standard function key menu is loaded when MicroStation is started. To find out which function keys are mapped and the commands they are mapped to, click on the “Workspace” pulldown menu on the main MicroStation menu bar and select “Function keys…”. This opens the “Function Keys” dialog box as shown below.

Notice that the name of the file which defines the values in this dialog box is displayed in the title bar at the top. Funckey.mnu is the default menu file name. It will normally be located in the ..bentley\workspace\interface\fkeys\ folder. The function key menu file that MicroStation opens when started is defined by the configuration variable “MS_FKEYMNU“.

Any function key combination that is currently being used is listed in the display area at the bottom of the dialog box. To see all the values you can simply scroll down the list. If you notice a missing function key or combination it just means that it has not been defined yet. In the image above you can see that function key “F1” is assigned to the key-in command “help”. That’s why when you hit the F1 key the MicroStation help file opens up. The “F2” key in the image above is assigned to a series of two key-in commands. If you look closely you can see they are separated by a semicolon (;). The semicolon is the character you use to separate multiple key-in commands entered on a single line. The MicroStation key-in “dialog reference” opens the reference file dialog box. The second key-in “reference display design” makes sure the reference file dialog displays the vector reference file attachments. As a note I have the “Shift-F2” combination mapped to “dialog reference;REFERENCE DISPLAY RASTER”. This allows me to quickly change between raster and vector reference display, which is something I frequently do.

The area at the top of the dialog box labeled “Shortcut Keys” is used to designate the function key you want to view, change or define. The check boxes next to “Ctrl”, “Alt” and “Shift” can be clicked on or off independently in any combination. The “Key” drop-down button to the right of these check boxes and labels has the choices “F1” through “F12” representing each of the function keys on your keyboard. By clicking on the appropriate check boxes and selecting a function key in the “Shortcut Key” section, you can view that combinations current value, click the delete button at the bottom of the dialog to remove it’s current assignment or use the “Edit” button to change its existing value or create a new value if it is currently undefined.

As a simple example of how function keys can save a lot of time in doing repetitive tasks, let’s set up the function key combination “Shift-F11” so that when pressed, it will close all view windows, then open view one maximized and fit the view. This could be used as part of setting up deliverables to meet a client’s standard. To start you would want to work out the key-in commands required to accomplish the above and test them manually to make sure they worked. The string that we will use to do the above is.

“view off all; view on 1;window tile;fit all;selview 1”

Now open the “Function Key” dialog as described above and click on the “Shift” checkbox and select “F11” from the drop-down button. If this combination is being used it will highlight in the display box in the bottom section of the dialog box. If it is not defined you will see (undefined) next to the label “Current”. In either case click the “Edit” button. This opens the “Edit Key Definition” dialog box. Now type the key-in string from above into the “New” field. Keep in mind that there is a 56 character limit in entering key-in commands in this dialog. In another tip I will show you how to overcome this limitation, but for now, when the string is entered click the “OK” button to close the dialog. When you are done making changes to the function key list click the “OK” button on the main “Function Key” dialog box.

Clicking the “OK” button will bring up an “Alert” dialog box asking the question, “Save changes?”, with three choices: “Yes”, “No” and “Cancel”. “Yes” saves the changes to the file listed at the top of the “Function Keys” dialog box. “No” closes the dialog box with your changes active for the current session but does not save the changes you made to the file. “Cancel” returns you to the “Function Keys” dialog box.

As a final note the main “Function Keys” dialog box has a “File” pulldown menu that allows you to “Open”, “Save As” or “Save” function key menu files. If you create a new menu file and open it remember that it will only remain active in the current session unless you update the value of the MS_FKEYMNU environment variable to point to this new file.

First, open the “Function Keys” dialog box under the Workspace menu.

Then, assign the following key-ins to your desired function keys:

To move up: move up;dx=0
To move down: move down;dx=0
To move left: move left;dx=0
To move right: move right;dx=0

Note: The “dx=0″ in each key-in represents the origin point for any movement. It represents the distance from the last tentative or data point in the active view. The “d” stands for “delta” or the difference between two data points.

Now, press each of the keys you designated the commands to, and you should be moving through the active view. If not, double-check your key-ins and try again. By default, the “move” key-in will shift the view one fourth of the active view’s screen area. To change this, add a decimal value of the amount you want it to move. For example, to move half the distance of the screen to the left, key-in the following: “move left .5;dx=0″. Enjoy!

“The following key-in easily opens the Level Manager dialog box: mdl keyin lvlmangr levelmanager dialog open. Assign it to a function key and you can work faster.”

Here are some other key-ins to load frequently used dialog boxes:
• Models dialog box: mdl keyin modelmanager model manager
• References dialog box: mdl keyin ref dialog reference
• Raster manager: raster dialog open raster_manager
• Export design file dialog box: dialog export

Peter says, “Let your left hand do something. Every mouse click is one to many!” We agree!

“I used to be a right-hand, mouse-only MicroStation user. But I noticed that when I started to use my left hand, I could work much faster. The greatest speed increase came when I assigned the View Control commands to the first six keyboard function keys, because changing views can take a lot of time if you do it frequently. Now that I’ve programmed my function keys, I find it too slow to use the view control toolbox to change the view.

“To assign View Control commands to the function keys, go to ‘Workspace | Function Keys…’ and assign view commands to the first six function keys. One at a time, select the function key you want to use, press the <Edit> button and type in the command you want for that function key. Select <OK> and you are ready to go.

“My personal set up is as follows:
<F1>: Pan view (key-in: pan view).
<F2>: Make window the shape of the screen (key-in: window area extended).
<F3>: Zoom in (key-in: zoom in).
<F4>: Zoom out (key-in: zoom out).
<F5>: Undo last view operation (key-in: view previous).
<F6>: Fit entire design on the screen (key-in: fit all).
“When I started using the function keys to set the view, it nearly doubled my productivity!”

Busy MicroStation users are always on the lookout for a faster way to get work done. Here is a simple way to speed things up using function keys.

Have you ever noticed that row of keys at the top of your keyboard that start with “F” and seem to get no use at all? Well it just so happens you can make use of those F-keys (function keys) to invoke dialog boxes or commands in MicroStation.

It is really simple to assign commands to the function keys. You can use function keys by themselves or in combination with other keys.

In this example, we’ll load AccuDraw using the key sequence <Shift+F12>.

1. Go to Workspace|Function Keys….

The “Function Keys:” dialog box allows you to assign commands to your F-keys.

2. Toggle on the “Shift” key checkbox at the top of the dialog box. (See “A” in the image above.)

3. Select “F12” from the pull-down list. (See “B” in the image above.)

4. In the “Action:” input box, enter the MicroStation key-in command “AccuDraw Activate”.

5. Press <OK> to close the “Function Keys:” dialog box.

6. Now try out your new trick. Press <Shift+F12> and watch AccuDraw load!

Remember you can enter any valid MicroStation key-in command you want. In case you’re wondering, MicroStation does publish an index of their key-ins, called the “MicroStation Key-in Index”, under the “Help” menu. To access this index, go to “Help”, click on the “Contents” tab, then click on “MicroStation Key-in Index”.

See a list of MicroStation key-in commands by Clicking on the “MicroStation Key-in Index” from the “Contents” tab of the “Help” dialog box.

MicroStation is the powerful CAD system that it is because it can be made to work for you. Take advantage — use this tip and get your projects done faster!

Don’t spend time repairing thousands of files when only a few are the real troublemakers.

It’s a waste of computer resources to repair thousands of files at a time when the majority of them don’t need to be repaired. Instead, use FileFixer’s “Search for Problems” feature and the following settings to generate a list of the true troublemakers. This lets FileFixer identify the design files with serious errors. Then, you can use FileFixer’s “Automatic Design File Repair” to repair just the troublemaker files. This is the efficient way to ensure the integrity of a huge quantity of project design files.

FileFixer’s “Search for Problems” feature will find the true troublemaker files.