19 October 2019
Updated 4 June 2021
Full Path in Title Bar
What file am I in anyway?
By Rick Sewell
Ever have one of those super busy days where umpteen different people are pulling you in multiple directions for one thing or another? This happens to me almost daily. Eventually you manage to handle their issues and finally get back to your desk to get some real work done. So, you wiggle your mouse to ditch the screen-saver and find MicroStation loaded with a DGN file already open. And you think to yourself something like, “What was I doing here?” or “What file am I in anyway?”
I can’t solve the fact that: If you’re capable of solving other people's problems, they will come for you. What I can offer is a MicroStation tidbit that might help you regain your orientation once you’re ready to get going on your own stuff.
By default, when MicroStation is open, you can see the name of whatever file you have open in the MicroStation title bar. For me, this isn’t particularly helpful. I work on a lot of files in a lot of different directories. From my experience, the names of some of the files in a typical project aren’t going to give you any clarity. However, knowing the location of the file that’s open can tell me everything I need to know. So, my tip is on how to display the full path and filename in the MicroStation title bar.
- Load MicroStation and open any file.
- In the MicroStation Search Ribbon, enter “Configuration Variables” and press .
- For convenience, ensure that the “Category” on the left is set to “All”.
- In the list of variables in the center, scroll down to the variable named: MS_FULLPATHINTITLEBAR.
- Press to load the “Edit Configuration Variable” dialog box.
- In the “New Value:” field, enter “1” (no quotes) and press to exit the dialog box.
- Press on the “Configuration” dialog box and then to accept the changes.
- Re-start MicroStation and check out the MicroStation title bar now.
The full file path is so much more helpful than the lone file name!
