Axiom Menu Basics

What displays on your Axiom menu is determined by the contents of a simple text file named aximenu.cfg. The aximenu.cfg can be modified in various ways to customize your Axiom menu, but in this article, we’ll show you how to prevent menu items from displaying, even when that product is installed.

The default location for the aximenu.cfg is C:\Program Files (x86}\Axiom\V8\aximenu\

Why would I prevent my installed Axiom products from displaying?

Often it is beneficial to change what products are displayed for users versus admins. Axiom produces some very powerful tools that can make global changes to your files. While the software is awesome, all users wielding that sort of bulk file-changing power can make admins nervous to say the least. It is often better to restrict the typical user to just the products that allow them automation and production conveniences one file at a time.

How to remove items from your Axiom menu

There are two ways to modify the aximenu.cfg to suppress menu items.

Here is an excerpt from a default aximenu.cfg file with its corresponding Axiom menu display:

Notice each product that you would see listed on the Axiom menu (right) has two adjacent entries in the aximenu.cfg file (left). One acts as a label, and the other is the product load command.

Comment method

To cause a particular product to not display, you can comment the two lines for that product. By “comment” means to render information as nothing more than comments in the file — as opposed to something that is read and loaded.

To comment a product, place a colon (:) at the beginning of each of its two lines. For example, of the first four products on the menu, perhaps you only want users to use DgnCompare for V8. Look at the illustrations below to see how simple it is.

(Three of the first four products no longer display on the menu.)

Deletion method (brute force)

This one is incredibly easy. Instead of using the colon to comment lines, you can just delete the lines entirely. If you ever consider that you might want to display some Axiom products again, then deletion is not a great idea. If you prefer this method, you can always store a backup aximenu.cfg.

Note that whatever method you choose, you’ll need to save your aximenu.cfg file and then restart MicroStation for the changes to become visible.