Defining the Tool Category

By default, a custom tool is shown in the Tool Library of MERLIC in the category "Additional". However, you might want to provide the custom tool in a different tool category. You can define a new tool category or use one of the existing tool categories. This can be done in the procedure settings of the HDevelop that was created for the custom tool.

To define a specific tool category, open the procedure interface dialog as described in the topic Defining the Procedure Settings and click on the button "General Documentation". Then, the tabs for the documentation of an HDevelop procedure will be displayed. For the tool category of a MERLIC tool, only the fields for "Chapters" in the "Basic" tab are relevant.

  1. Set the language on the top right of the procedure interface dialog to English.
  2. Enter the name of the tool category in the left text field of the "Chapters" fields.
  3. Optionally, define a subcategory in the text field on the right. Your custom tool will then be available in the Tool Library of MERLIC in the defined subcategory. Otherwise, the tool will be available in the tool category that is defined in the left "Chapters" field.

In MERLIC, the default tool category for custom tools as well as newly defined tool categories will be assigned the icon .

The fields for the short and detailed description are still empty because they have no effect, e.g., regarding the Quick Info help, on the custom tool. If you want to add a short documentation that is shown as Quick Info at the custom tool, you have to create an HTML file for the documentation as described in the topic Adding a Quick Info for a Custom Tool.

Using a Predefined Tool Category of MERLIC

If you want to add your tool to one of the predefined chapters in the MERLIC Tool Library, e.g., "Processing → Checking", you have to enter the English names of the desired tool category, otherwise the tool is not inserted correctly into the desired category.

The following image shows how to set the tool category to the existing category "Processing → Checking". If this category is selected, the custom tool will be listed beside all other standard MERLIC tools of this category.