Cannot "save as" from Repository

[al-randall]

Cannot "save as" from Repository

Hi,

I can save 2 out of 3 assemblies to a new folder from the repository but on the third one the "ok" button for the confirmation dialogue window is greyed out. Any suggestions? Please?

 

[zzedexx]

i'm not positively sure what/how u are trying to do what u are doing. if i am way off base here, can u give a screen shot or try to clarify?

ie: how do u mean u are trying to 'save as' from the repository to a new folder?


well. i am guessing u have the assembly open and are trying to 'save as'...??
if the OK is greyed out, i think that usually happens where 'make new versions' is checked ON and there is at least one part in sub-assembly/folders that would become a duplicate part in your new folder.

this is annoying but understandable (and a good argument for any folder/subfolder structure to be maintained if a 'save-as-to-new-folder' is performed).

the only way i have found around it is that u need to go back and re-name the duplicate parts to distinguish them from each other, then try your save-as again and u will find the duplicate parts no longer considered duplicate and the OK no longer greyed out.

hope that is what u are talking about.

cheers

Zed.

 

[al-randall]

zed, you read the situation correctly and the "save as" worked perfectly after renaming the duplicate file.

Thank you for taking the time to help this newbie

 

[zzedexx]

Re:

zed, you read the situation correctly and the "save as" worked perfectly after renaming the duplicate file.

Thank you for taking the time to help this newbie

great!
yw

Zed.

 

[mrehmus]

If I understand correctly, you are saying that if I use 4 copies of a screw, say, I have to rename 3 of them with different names?

 

[cherkey]

There has been some discussion on this. Do a Search for 'duplicate' and see what others had to say.

 

[Gaspar]

As a tip, you can rename right from the save window. On the left side of the window, where you can see all the parts you will be "saving as", you can select a particular one and then rename it or even locate it on another folder.

After hitting the "save" button, a second window will show asking for confirmation and telling you the path and name of each item.

Cheers !

 

[zzedexx]

Re:

If I understand correctly, you are saying that if I use 4 copies of a screw, say, I have to rename 3 of them with different names?

AFAIK : if u have multiple seperately saved copies of a part used together in an assembly, then they will come up as duplicates if u save-as (with "make new versions" checked) to a new folder, because to AD there is more than one part with the same name trying to be saved to the one folder. (no matter if the parts are exactly identical and it would be ok if just one copy would be there.

i think either AN OPTION FOR THIS (^) or AN OPTION TO SOMEHOW "MIMMICK SUBFOLDERS" WOULD BE GOOD).

 

[mrehmus]

Now that I've come to an understanding about how this presently works, I've asked Support to request a change from Development.

When I assemble an engine, I use many many duplicate parts from a common hardware library.

It makes no sense in a mechanical design tool to have to rename every 2-56 screw in the engine so I can backup the drawing file. Right now the only way to do it without a lot of pain is to backup the entire drawing depository. Ugg!

I wouldn't be happy if I were designing any assembly and had to have all the bolts named differently.

 

[mrehmus]

Further to this, I took another assembly with multiple instances of the same part and was able to save it as another file name both within and without the Repository. There are at least five parts that are used at least 2 times and three that are used 3 times.

I must still be missing something.

 

[Gaspar]

Hello Mike,

Several instances of the same part still represent only one file so it is not a problem.

A problem would be if your assembly has two different parts with the same name (of course they would be in two different folders). When you try to "save as" the assembly, Alibre tries to place all parts in the target folder and since two files with the same name can't live in the same folder, Ok gets greyed out.

From the same save window, you can select the any one of the conflicting parts and either rename it or relocate it (this action only affects the parts that will be newly created with the "save as", not your original parts).

If this is still confusing, I'd be happy to expand on it.

Cheers !

 

[flyboydave]

Re:

Further to this, I took another assembly with multiple instances of the same part and was able to save it as another file name both within and without the Repository. There are at least five parts that are used at least 2 times and three that are used 3 times.

I must still be missing something.

You can save assemblies with multiple copies of parts with no problems. What you cannot do is a "Save As..." of that same assembly. Hopefully they will fix that soon, saveas should behave the same as save, with pointers in the assembly configuration to one copy of each part regardless of how many times its used in an assembly.

The other day I had to rename about 100 parts. It was a total beating.

 

[mrehmus]

Re:

Hello Mike,

Several instances of the same part still represent only one file so it is not a problem.

A problem would be if your assembly has two different parts with the same name (of course they would be in two different folders). When you try to "save as" the assembly, Alibre tries to place all parts in the target folder and since two files with the same name can't live in the same folder, Ok gets greyed out.

Cheers !

I do not have several instances of the same part but from different directories with the same name. But I may have multiple sub-assemblies that use the same part and those sub-assemblies are then assembled into a larger part (the entire engine). But all those parts, regardless of the assembly either come from the particular engine folder or the common parts folder in the Repository.

I am still lost here so any expansion would be greatly appreciated.

 

[flyboydave]

Re:

I do not have several instances of the same part but from different directories with the same name. But I may have multiple sub-assemblies that use the same part and those sub-assemblies are then assembled into a larger part (the entire engine). But all those parts, regardless of the assembly either come from the particular engine folder or the common parts folder in the Repository.

I am still lost here so any expansion would be greatly appreciated.

When you do a saveas, it pulls all parts of the assembly, regardless of which folder they reside in, and saves a copy of them into the target folder. There is no problem saving an assembly with multiple instances of a part in that assembly, whether it be as a member of sub-assemblies, or just as duplicate parts. That is because the assembly configuration just has multiple "pointers" if you will, back to that common part.

But when you do a SaveAs, it tries to place a copy of every member in the assembly into the new folder. If there are multiple copies of any part, it will not let you do a saveas without giving them all unique parts.

You can do this renaming at the window that pops up when you click SaveAs. If there are any parts listed as "duplicate" in the window, close that window and go back to the previous window. You can click each of the duplicate parts and change their name to -1, -2, or whatever. The problem you'll now have is that if you want to change any of those parts, you'll have to change each one individually, because they are now unique and unconnected parts.

Make sense?

 

[Gaspar]

Hello Mike,

As Dave put it, when you do a "save as", Alibre tries to put every part of the assembly in the same new location (the target folder) and that is what causes the problem (because two parts with the same name can't be put into the same folder).

What I can expand on Dave's explanation is that you may want to change the folder for the duplicate parts instead of renaming. This is done in the exact same way as Dave described. Pick the part from the left part of the window and then decide if you change the name or select a different folder for that part (folder change will only affect the selected part).

If you are using the repository, my recommendation would be to have the whole design within one "master folder". Keep sub-folders for common parts within that folder. Also keep the assembly, subassemblies, drawings etc within that folder (in as many sub-folders as you wish). Never pull a part from or place a related file outside the "master folder". If you do this, instead of doing a "save as", just copy the "master folder" to another location and you will have an exact duplicate of your whole design (I think this should also be true for the Windows File System, but I haven't tried it).

Did this help or just confused you ?

 

[flyboydave]

The problem with the saveas is especially apparent if you try to send someone an exported assembly. When they try to save, they will run into the duplicate filename problem, there is no other option besides renaming the parts with unique names.

But how does putting the duplicate parts into separate folders help? You still have to have unique part names, whether in a separate folder or not. Why would you want folders named #10-32-1, #10-32-2, etc? I do have separate folders for hardware, and one for common parts between different assemblies, but would not want one for duplicate parts in a single assembly. It all depends on the nature of assemblies you are designing. I have about a dozen assemblies I'm working on right now. Among the 12, 1,2, and 3 share a few parts, but most are unique. 4 and 5 share a few, etc. But they all use common hardware, and there are a few parts that they all use. I used to just export a step file to work on at home, but the saveas problem makes that impossible. Now I just export my 1.2gb repository to take back and forth. It just wastes a lot more time creating and importing the snapshots.

Also, if you have a single non-hardware part that is used multiple times, having to put them in a separate folder besides the one where the rest of the parts reside wouldn't help me much either.

The bottom line is that they need to fix the saveas behavior so it works just like save, without any problems with duplicate parts.