Customizing a workspace

VectorWorks makes it very easy to customize your Workspace: add, remove, or move around tools in tool palettes, add or remove menu items from menus, and to add or change keyboard shortcuts. Here's how.

First, access the Workspace Editor

In most workspaces, you'll find this at the bottom of the Tools menu, in Workspaces > Workspace Editor.
NOTE: The current workspace you're working on has a checkmark next to it.

To make changes to the toolsets

The Editor has three sections to it: Menus, Tools, and Keys. To add a new tool to an existing toolset, click Tools [1], and in the lefthand pane, click on the small triangle next to All Tools [2] to open the list, and scroll down till you see the tool you wish to add.
NOTE: The list is alphabetical, so if you know to tool name, you can find it easily. You could also find it in the appropriate tools category, but this method is simpler.
In the righthand pane, open the appropriate toolset that you wish to add it to.

Adding a new tool

Click and drag the name of the tool (not its icon, for some reason), and drag it into the position you wish in the toolset [1] (at the top right of the dialog, you'll see what the toolset would look like). That's basically it.

Make sure it's not a "sub" of another tool

The positioning of a tool is sensitive: if you drag onto an existing tool, it becomes a "sub" of that tool [1].
To fix this, simply drag the name of the tool to the left, so it becomes placed at the same hierarchical level as the other tools [2]. Then release.

To add a menu item

Adding a menu item is very similar: click the Menus section [1], locate the menu item that you want in the lefthand pane [2], open up the menu that you want to add it to in the righthand pane [3], and drag the new menu item from one to the other [4].

Give the new a keyboard shortcut

Whether it's a tool or a menu item, you can assign a keyboard shortcut to it by clicking on its name and pressing the relevant keys and modifier keys that you want on the keyboard.
If that particular combination has already been assigned to something, VectorWorks will notify you, and ask if you wish indeed to make this reassignation (to which you answer Yes or No).

General keys

Click the Keys section to view and – if you wish – change the single-key shortcuts for various general behaviours, such as the Snapping Keys, or Modes, etc.

Save the new workspace

VectorWorks will tell you where you can find it. This is a file that you can transfer from one machine to another: if placed within the Workspaces folder, it will provide you with the same workspace over there.