Design Props don't populate 2-D Drawing Fields with Configs

[DDoerschuk]

Sorry, not the clearest subject line I've ever written. Length-limited.

Using AD Expert 2011 with M-Filex 6.0.2325.14. I've got a custom drawing template that has worked well for several months. It uses Design Properties to fill in some of the Fields in the template. When creating 2-D drawings from a part that has four configurations. the Design Properties are not filled in. I believe they were correct initially, but after numerous revisions to the drawings and the Design Properties, none of the Fields connected to Design Properties are being filled in. As far as I can tell, this is happening only with drawings made from a part with multiple configurations.

Does anyone have similar experiences or a work-around? If not, I'll open a support ticket and advise how it turns out.

Thank you,
Dave

 

[DavidJ]

You have to specify one design configuration as the one from which Design Properties will be taken for the 2D drawing. Use the 'Manage Design Properties' button. Does that help?

 

[albie0803]

With m-files 7 I can have different metadata for each configuration. I was able to assign different drawing numbers to the 3 configurations in the file and create 3 separate drawing pages with the correct numbers on them.

 

[DDoerschuk]

You have to specify one design configuration as the one from which Design Properties will be taken for the 2D drawing. Use the 'Manage Design Properties' button. Does that help?

DavidJ, thank you so much! You pinpointed the problem exactly. Each one of the .AD_DRW files contained references to only a single configuration, and I am quite certain the Design Properties were being populated into the Fields correctly at first. Both the Part and the associated Drawing files have been (depressingly) frequently edited over the past several months; something along the way (accidentally adding a view from a different configuration, then deleting it?) must have broken the connection because the "Manage Design Properties Fields" editor showed "None" as the chosen design for all these drawings. Now fixed.

Thank you again for the excellent assistance!

With m-files 7 I can have different metadata for each configuration. I was able to assign different drawing numbers to the 3 configurations in the file and create 3 separate drawing pages with the correct numbers on them.

Albie0803, this is good news! Apparently, our support at Alibre is mirrored over at Motive Systems, so as long as a seat of AD with M-Files is in support, new versions of M-Files can be downloaded from the Motive Systems website. I had not realized this was so; thanks very much for giving me a clue!

Best,
Dave

 

[Ralf]

>>>Updating this thread<<<

In the past days...with a delay of 11 months:
Alibre -> DOWNLOADS -> There was a silent :roll: upgrade from M-Files/Alibre Vault V6 to M-Files V7

In a few days, M-Files V8 will be released.
Do we (must) wait again for 11 months, to get this version/the current M-Files version in the Alibre DOWNLOD area?

 

[DDoerschuk]

With m-files 7 I can have different metadata for each configuration. I was able to assign different drawing numbers to the 3 configurations in the file and create 3 separate drawing pages with the correct numbers on them.

Albie0803, I've got m-files 7 installed now, but I can't replicate what you've done with multiple configurations associated with multiple drawing numbers. Are you using the property named "Number", or the property named "Document number"? I assume that you're opening the Part file's properties in the M-File Explorer and somehow attaching separate numbers to each of the configurations in the Part file, but I don't see how to do that. I don't even see anything in the Part file's properties that lists the configurations within a Part.

Sorry to be clueless...would you shed some light here?

Thanks!
Dave

 

[DDoerschuk]

Alibre Support told me how this works this morning, and I thought I'd put the answer into this thread for anyone else who'd like to do this.

In a Part file, each configuration gets a full set of Design Parameters. Initially, these parameters are populated by copies of values from whichever configuration you copied from to make the new configuration. If you lock all the configurations (or at least, lock the check-box for Parameter Values: Right-click on the particular configuration, select <edit>, select the check-box) and then assign a new document number ([Files], <properties>, <General>, <picture of Vault Data Card>) the number you assign will be associated only with that one configuration (all the others are locked). In the 2D Drawing Editor, when you select views from a particular configuration, then the Design Parameters that will populate the 2D drawing are the unique set that was created back when you created that configuration.

When you look at the properties of the part file in the Vault Explorer, the value listed for a particular parameter is the value specified by whichever configuration was active when the file was last saved.

I hope this is useful information.
David