Softimage lets you create and edit your own custom toolbars and shelves. This gives you convenient access to commands, presets, and other files.
Toolbars contain buttons for running commands or applying presets.
Shelves are floating windows that contain tabs. Each tab can be a toolbar, display the contents of a file directory, or hold other items.
Toolbars and shelves can be floating windows, or embedded in a view or layout. They are stored as XML-based files with the .xsitb extension in the Application\toolbars subdirectory of the user, workgroup, or factory path.
At startup, Softimage gathers the files it finds in these locations and adds them to the View 
Toolbars menu. Toolbars and shelves that are found in your user location are marked with u in the View menu, and those that are found in a workgroup location are marked with w.
As with all customizations, you can package toolbars and shelves into add-ons so that you can easily distribute them to other users. See Building and Deploying Customizations [SDK Guide].
