The tool catalog is one of the most critical components of any office’s custom content collection. It is the central repository for all tool-based content, which can and should include tools that provide access to styles, AEC content, callouts, schedule tags, and other miscellaneous annotation items. Because it is central to an effective content distribution and management system, you should spend time planning its location, organization, and structure. You should also take steps to protect the contents of the tool catalog from unauthorized or inadvertent modifications.
If users are going to manually load the catalog into their content browser library, pathing is not critical; it simply needs to be placed in a location that all users can browse to. If you choose to automate the loading of the palette by creating a catalog install file, you need to ensure that the network location of the catalog file is accessed in the same way by all users. As with other types of network-based content, carefully consider the advantages and disadvantages of both mapped network drives and UNC pathing.
If you need to control the ability of users to make modifications to the tool catalog, you can store it in a read-only folder. Users will still be able to access the catalog to use the tools, however only those people with permission to write to that location will actually be able to make changes to it.