Work Environment

Much of ArchiCAD's User Interface, such as the number and location of Toolbars and Palettes, Autosave frequency intervals, Keyboard Shortcuts, Background and other on-screen colors, and much more is set up and save here.  In the Work Environment, certain Preferences are saved as Schemes, and the organization of each of these Schemes is saved as a Profile.

Work Environment Profiles can be set up, saved, set as a default, Exported, and Imported.  Work Environment Profiles are set per installation of ArchiCAD, not per Project.  So if you've set up or rearranged, or imported a new WE Profile on your current Project, that Profile will be present when you Open a new Project or Join a Teamwork Project, as long as it is in the same version of ArchiCAD, for instance, version 17.

I have set up a couple basic CJMW standard Work Environment Profiles which contain several customizations from the out-of-the-box, default ArchiCAD Standard Profile.  The two main WE Profiles I've set up are for whether you are using a single monitor arrangement or whether you like to spread your instance of ArchiCAD across both monitors if you use two.

To Import one of the CJMW standard Work Environment Profiles, while in a running instance of ArchiCAD, go to Options > Work Environment and click Import.

Then navigate to the V:drive, cad-win server > ArchiCAD > CJMW Work Environment.  Click on either CJMW 1 for a single monitor-based Work Environment Profile, or CJMW 2 for a WE Profile set up for work at the office with the double monitor configuration.  Both WE Profiles have the added Keyboard Shortcuts hightlighted in blue in the shortcut PDF, which includes custom Keyboard Shortcuts for toggling on / off many of the Palettes typically used: (Ctrl+Alt+_) Quick Layers (Ctrl+Alt+L) and Quick Options (Ctrl+Alt+Q), Navigator (Ctrl+Alt+N) and Organizer (Ctrl+Alt+O), Favorites (Ctrl+Alt+F), Trace & Reference (Ctrl+Alt+G), Renovation (Ctrl+Alt+R), and also the Toolbox (Ctrl+Alt+B) and Info Box (Ctrl+Alt+I) Palettes.  Other useful custom shortcuts include True Line Weights (V), Reserve Selected Element (J).

Other settings found within the Work Environment include how the Pet Palette behaves, when and how often ArchiCAD will check for available updates (please leave this set to not check for updates, as all instances of ArchiCAD will need to be updated sequentially, starting with the BIM Server, followed by each user's computer), and many other settings, most of which you'll probably never need to modify, but it is a good idea to browse through the entire Work Environment dialog to see what all is in there under the hood.

If you do make modifications to one of the CJMW Standard WE Profiles and wish to save your settings as your own custom Work Environment, simply click each of the Schemes under WE on the left of the dialog, notice that if you've made changes to the scheme, it will read Custom over on the right panel.  Click Store As, and provide a name for each of your customized Schemes.

Once you've saved each Scheme, pick WE Profiles at the top, then New Profile over on the right, give your Profile a name, then you can Export to save your Profile for later retrieval.  Don't forget to then Apply Schemes of Profile before clicking OK and leaving the WE dialog.

Let me know if you need assistance in setting up, saving, or Importing any Work Environment Profiles.