How do I copy a toolbar?

[theblackwidower]

This may seem like an odd problem, but let me break it down.

I’ve been using Draw’s flowcharting function for a while now, but I ran into a bit of a problem: There are too many items in the flowcharting toolbar.

So, to make things easier, I’m trying to create a new toolbar that only contains the seven or eight items I actually use. Which I haven’t been able to do. For some reason, I can’t find the flowchart objects in the list of available buttons. I thought I could just look at the original toolbar, and just copy the buttons over, but I can’t do that either. There doesn’t appear to be any way to look at the actual code for each button.

I figure the easiest way is to copy the toolbar over and edit it, but I can’t find a way to do that either!

I know I can just edit the flowchart toolbar directly, but that’s not what I want to do. I still want the other tools available, I just don’t want them cluttering up my screen since I never use them!

Any ideas?

[Regina]

Your personal toolbars are stored in the LO user directory in the folder config/soffice.cfg/modules/sdraw/toolbar. They are .xml-files, which you can edit with a normal editor, for example PSPad. You can use other editors too, but make sure to use UTF-8 character coding and UNIX line ends.

• First you need the frame part of the file, which contains the doctype, namespaces… To get this, you create a new toolbar and temporarily add a command.
• Then you should make a little change in the flowchart toolbar (context menu > customize) , for example hide an item by unchecking the box. Doing this will copy the file containing this change to your LO user directory.
• Close LO now, including quickstarter.
• Now go into your LO user directory to the above mentioned folder. It should contain a file “flowchartshapes.xml” and a file with a name starting with “custom_toolbar…”.
• Open both files in the editor and copy those lines from “flowchartshapes.xml” which correspond to the desired icons over to the file “custom_toolbar…”. You can put them directly behind the line, which correspond to the temporarily added command. A ‘line’ starts with <toolbar:toolbaritem and ends with />.
• When you then start LO again, your toolbar will have the copied icons. You can now delete the temporarily added command.

This way will give you a toolbar, where the flowchart icons are visible directly. You will not get a sub-toolbar. I do not know, how to get a selfmade sub-toolbar.

[carnendil]

In your case, I think you don’t really need to create a brand new toolbar, it might suffice to follow the procedure below. However, you can easily create custom toolbars by clicking on the New… button while at the Personalize dialog box (see second image, below).

1. Go to the menu View > Toolbars > Personalize….

^{Click for a full-resolution image.}
2. Select the tab Toolbars and find “Flowchart” in the drop-down list.
3. In the Orders section, un-check those buttons you don’t want to appear. When done, click the button OK.

[![personalize toolbars dialog box](http://i.imgur.com/hb40PYmm.png)](http://i.imgur.com/hb40PYm.png)

^{Click for a full-resolution image.}
4. Having the Drawing toolbar visible (from View > Toolbars, check “Drawing”), click on the “Flowchart” button, which deploys the Flowchart toolbar. It will now have only those buttons you left checked. Notice on the bottom of the toolbar box a symbol with three small horizontal lines (see where the pointer is located in the image, below).

![Flowchart toolbar deployed](http://i.imgur.com/CSxyCyr.png)
<br><br><sup>Note: No changes have been made to the toolbar in this image.</sup>

5. Drag the box away a little and release the mouse button. Now the Flowchart toolbar is separated from the button, and can be re-positioned anywhere you want, either docked together with the other toolbars or left floating.

   
   
   
   ^{Click for a full-resolution image. Note: No changes have been made to the toolbar in this image.}

6. You can hide the Drawing toolbar if you want (the opposite of what you have done at the beginning of step 4.)