Utility to display paths to parts and assemblies

[jhatfield]

Utility to display paths to parts and assemblies

The use of absolute paths to parts and/or assemblies in the drawing work space has caused me problems several times when I've needed to move or rename parts or assemblies. I've looked at a drawing file with a hex editor and found the paths and they are absolute, not relative as I might have hoped.

Does anyone have a utility which will display the paths to and the names of parts or assemblies contained in a drawing? Ideally, this should be a feature contained within AD but so far I have not found it other than to start a save to a different name (Save As) and check the full, and in my case very lengthy, paths to parts or assemblies.

It would also be nice if the utility would facilitate renaming a part or assembly.

Thanks

 

[Gaspar]

The utility IS part of Alibre, and has many other features.

It's called the REPOSITORY, but it doesn't come with the basic package.

What it does for you is to bundle all your files into a folder as binaries and create a data base file that handles a virtual folder tree (like the Win Explorer) and the relation among files. You get an AD explorer to visualize the data. You can move and rename files as much as you want without loosing links. You can also handle previous versions of files, ask which files are linked to a drawing or assembly, preview thumbnails and some other cool stuff.

Bad thing is that it, ofcourse, steals away system resources, but it surely pays off :wink:

If you want to see how it works, just send me a PM and we can schedule a screen sharing session (not through AD, we have a service to share our screeen to other users, piece of cake ) so I can more or less tour you around.

PS: I agree that paths within the WIN file system should be relative...

 

[jhatfield]

I know about the Repository. Matter of fact when I went through my evaluation I used the repository, however, no one told me it didn't come with the basic package, so I bought the basic package and was *very* disappointed to find out I didn't get the repository and at that time did not want to invest the additional money to buy the package with the repository in it (can't remember which one or how much). I just remember my buying the package and being able to get a return on my investment was very ifey, so far so good, but the jury is still out so I'll have to maked do for now.

I still think there is a place for a utility which will read the data files and output the paths and part names, as an absolute minimum. I may write it myself if one doesn't exist. Just thought someone might already have done it and I could save some time.

I'm also wondering if the API will allow access to the paths to dependent files and their names.

Thanks for the response.

 

[rbrian]

Repository

Hi John - what version did you begin your trial on? - I started with V6 - so it came with the Repository (Only) - no Windows file format (added in V7) - so - it sounds like your tried it in V7 - or V8?? Robert

 

[jhatfield]

rbrian - I evaluated and bought Version 7.

 

[Mibe]

Re:

I know about the Repository. Matter of fact when I went through my evaluation I used the repository, however, no one told me it didn't come with the basic package, so I bought the basic package and was *very* disappointed to find out I didn't get the repository and at that time did not want to invest the additional money to buy the package with the repository in it (can't remember which one or how much). I just remember my buying the package and being able to get a return on my investment was very ifey, so far so good, but the jury is still out so I'll have to maked do for now.

I still think there is a place for a utility which will read the data files and output the paths and part names, as an absolute minimum. I may write it myself if one doesn't exist. Just thought someone might already have done it and I could save some time.

I'm also wondering if the API will allow access to the paths to dependent files and their names.

Thanks for the response.

Not sure if this will help you in your quest, but it's rather easy to read the paths and filenames in Notepad, since the STEP-file is a text-file in a way.

This would also make it quite easy to develop a cool program to read out some data from these files...