How to create a shortcut to your custom Add-On menu

TechTip Winner of the Month of October 2002

originally submitted by Alex Schamenek

This tip describes how to create a menu for your Add-Ons and how to assign a shortcut key for it. The tip applies to ArchiCAD 7.0 on Windows.

ArchiCAD's Add-Ons are located in the 'ArchiCAD' folder/'Add-Ons' folder. If you create a subfolder here and place any add-on in it, a new menu with the name of the subfolder will appear in the menu bar when you next launch ArchiCAD. All the Add-Ons located in the subfolder will be listed in the new menu.

E.g.: create a folder named 'Custom menu' in the 'Add-Ons' folder. The menu 'Custom menu' appears in the menu bar.

By default, the shortcut to this new menu is the 'Alt' key combined with the first letter of the menu. However, some Alt+letter combinations are already used by ArchiCAD, so you might want to use something different than the first letter. Add a '&' character in the name of the folder, before the letter you want to assign as a shortcut. ALT+ the letter following the'&' character will be then the shortcut. If you use the 'ArchiCAD default' or the 'ArchiCAD 6.0/int'l' shortcut schemes, the letters B,J,K,M,N,P,Q,S,U,V will be free to assign. E.g.: Change the folder's name to 'C&ustom menu.'

The menu 'Custom menu' will now have the Alt+U shortcut.

Note: In ArchiCAD 8 use the Add-On Manager from the Tools menu to manage your Add-Ons.

Page last updated: Thursday, June 10, 2004