Tips & Tricks — Create more MicroStation screen real estate.

By Rick Sewell
It seems that for every project that requires design work there are special menus that you have to use, certain palettes you need to keep open — not to mention the usual main menus you keep open all the time. Sometimes you cover more of your screen with menus than you do with your actual view window.

By default, MicroStation loads with the title bar at the top, a row of pull-down menus below that, then rows of docked menus (or at least one row) and finally your MicroStation View window. Did you ever notice that the row of pull-down menus usually spans across half or less than half of the MicroStation interface? You’ve got half a row of blank space after that! Seems like a bit of wasted real estate to me.

The typical user has at least one custom pull-down menu and a whole lot of space-eating menus and palettes.

1. Here is a great tip to get that space into use and to free up a bit more real estate for your view window.
2. From the main MicroStation menu, choose Workspace|Configuration. This opens the Configuration dialog box.
3. Along the left side, set the “Category” to “All (Alphabetical)”.
4. Scroll down the list of configuration variables until you find “MS_MAINMENUDOCKINGBESIDE”.
5. Double-click on the variable or select the name with a single data point and press the <Edit…> button. This opens the “Edit Configuration Variable” dialog box.

Use the “Edit Configuration Variable” dialog box to change the value for the MS_MAINMENUDOCKINGBESIDE variable. Changing the value to “1” (as shown here) will allow you to dock toolboxes right next to the Main Menu.

1. Type in the number “1” as the value.
2. Press the <OK> button to close the Edit Configuration Variable dialog box.


Using the secret “no mouse required” method, you can easily select all files with a “.dgn” or other extension in a folder and, optionally, all its subfolders and then add them to a list of files in one fell swoop. The list is now ready to process by many of Axiom’s software tools such as FileFixer.

3. Press the <OK> button to close the Configuration dialog box. You will be prompted to save the changes made. Press <Yes> to accept the changes.
4. Finally, close and restart MicroStation for the change to take place.Once MicroStation has been restarted, toolboxes can be docked right next to the Main Menu.

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