The Element Creation dialog and/or submenu are available via the Create Element command. This command is available in the element shortcut menu displayed upon right-clicking an element or its symbol in a view. The dialog and the submenu display a list of commands for creating specific elements. Additionally, all commands can be structured into named categories.

While there is a predefined submenu and dialog for displaying the predefined element creation commands, you can either customize the predefined dialog or create a new one from scratch. This way, you can create a custom model-based Element Creation dialog, listing only the element creation commands of your choice, allowing you to customize the Element Creation dialog based on the needs of your specific project.

The image on the left shows the Element Creation dialog according to the predefined SysMLElementCreationDialog configuration. The image on the right shows the custom Element Creation submenu.  

Element Creation dialog composition and customization

The Create Element command can invoke either an Element Creation dialog or the command's submenu. The submenu is displayed when there are no more than ten element creation commands. Otherwise, the Element Creation dialog is displayed instead of the submenu. Both the dialog and the submenu display the command categories containing the element creation commands. 

The image displays the Element Creation dialog (predefined) and the Element Creation submenu (custom) with commands structured into categories. 

There are two options for customizing the Element Creation dialog/submenu:

The element dialog/submenu, command categories, and individual commands have specific attributes available for customization. Whether you choose to customize the predefined dialog that comes with the modeling tool or create a new one from scratch, the attributes remain the same. Additionally, if you choose to customize the predefined dialog, you can employ the DS_UIComponents::UIComponents package with the SysMLElementCreationDialog dialog definition, which contains predefined command categories and their commands. Reusing it allows you to easily modify the existing dialog, tailoring it to your needs.

You can activate the needed Element Creation dialog via the Active Create Element Dialog. See the (2026x Refresh1) Activating Element Creation dialog page.