Enhancement Request: Display of Configurations Used in Assemblies and Drawings

Devon,

This could be a macro could it not? In the API help there is an example that will traverse drawing views. But here is the kicker. It seems drawings remember the past that created the views and not always the current paths and names.

Yes, I guess a Macro could be written, but it would be a complex one. I feel this functionality should be a part of SW Explorer/PDMWorks.

Here is my question; if you have an Assembly or Part with many configurations, without Opening the Drawings and checking each Drawing View, how can you verify which configuration is used in each View?

Also, in an Assembly, this information should be easily available; which configuration of a Part is used in the Assembly? I know an Design Table can be used for this, but not from within SW Explorer/PDMWorks.

Devon

Devon,

If you use config-specific custom properties, you can have a different "Description" or "PartNo" property for each config. This can be displayed as note in each view (or in one view on each sheet).

Would that give you what you need?

Regards, John H

Hello John-

Yes, that is a good suggestion for new Drawings. It's the hundreds of old existing drawings that I'm concerned about.

Devon

John-

Your suggestion just helped me think of this;

I can modify the existing drawing sheet format to include the annotation linked to the configuration specific information. However, because these hundreds of drawings have many different non-standard views, and many sheets, this still won't give me what I need, on a global basis, such as "reloading" the sheet format with the new notes. Some assembly drawings use different configurations for different views on the same sheet.

Devon

Wonder if the api can actually pull this level of detail without opening the file. I remember not too long ago when you couldn't get the configuration properties without opening the file.

Configuration support has been lacking lately. It's one of Solidworks strongest features yet isn't getting the attention it deserves. So powerful yet so many holes left in it.

Dev> John-

Devon,

Most of what you need is in the examples in API help and perhaps on the SW website.

I actually have this as an internal standard. Then when I bring in a part from the library and I desplay the "description" field in the BOM, they are always automatically filled in and correct. Otherwise, many of the parts that are down loaded etc. can have all kinds of strange descriptions.

It would be really nice if a pseudo standard could be developed around library parts. There are about three other ideas that would be very helpful... but that is another topic.

Ed