3DSMax 2009 UI - nesting quad menu items?

pior

Hi all!

So I have been reorganizing my Max shortcuts and menus lately and felt kindof dumb with the quad menu editor. I manage to organize my quads just fine but I cannot figure out how to create nested items!

The default quads have a lot of them (most obvious example : right click > Convert >Convert to Edit Poly), yet the documentation says nothing about this feature.

Basically I want to turn this into that :


It doesnt help that menus and quads are saved inside the same .MNU file! I guess it would be possible to hand edit it but it looks so cryptic!

Am I missing the obvious?

Thanks if you can help!

zOffTy

Hi Pior
just right click in menus, create a new menu and drop it !


yup

pior

Oh snap! Trying this first thing tomorrow!!!

NyneDown

Been trying to figure that out myself for Max 2010. Also, does anyone know how to nest/dock the layer manager window?

CodeFather

Wow, this is great. 10x
Do anybody know how to create some of the items context sensitive so they won't stay as gray options when inactive, but rather disappear ?

pior

Code, for that I just hack through the existing menus (context edit spline, context edit poly and so on), by removing what I dont want and placing my own stuff in them. Its dirty but it works!

CodeFather

pior, 10x, that is nice way to do it , I didn't think about that !

NyneDown

So nobodyz knows if or how the layer manager window can be docked?!? =*(

pior

Nyne, you should post a mockup, I am sure someone knows a script doing that, or would be willing to help!

Bryan Cavett

Nyne: Doesn't look like you can bind it by default. Here's a quick script that you can bind to a quad menu or hotkey. Didn't really test it much but its a super simple script.

macroscript bindLayerManager category:"BCTools"
(
	case LayerManager.isDialogOpen() of
	(
		true: LayerManager.closeDialog()
		false: macros.run "Layers" "LayerManager"
	)
)

Edit: It seems they do let you bind it to a quad by default.

Group:Main Ui > Category:Layers > Manage Layers...

Ohwell

Autocon

zOffTy thanks a ton for that, always wondered how to do it.

now if I could only get my quad menu to stay as my default quad instead of having to reload it every time I start max we would be in business. Anyone know how to do that by any chance?

pior

Hi Auto, I had the same issue for a while. I was saving my custom UI as usual, whatevernameworks.ui, including all the files, .kbd .mnu and others, but my nice new quad wasent showing up the following startup.

Then when I started saving a copy of my latest config with simply the suggested name (Maxstart.ui IIRC ?) my custom quad appeared fine without extra work.

I actually don't mind because thanks to that its all safe and backuped in two places. I guess it's just one more thing to remember about MAx's weird custom setup process!!

(using 2009 here)