Managing Document Save

 

The Save Management command lets you save all your modified documents under a new name and a new location.

  Before you start, note that:
  • This command is relevant for loaded documents only. For unloaded documents, select File > Send To.
  • This command cannot be recorded via Tools > Macro.
  • When you resize the Save Management dialog box, the new size is stored in preference files (which are identified by the suffix *.CATPreferences, and are created in the same location as settings, referenced by the CATUserSettingPath variable). This means that the customized size is kept throughout your sessions.
  1. Select File > Save Management.

    If the Apply Save to editor scope only option is selected, only the documents of the current editor will be listed in the Save Management dialog box and thus, will be impacted by the save. In this scenario, the option is cleared and all the documents that are open are listed, whatever the current editor.

    Five columns are displayed:

    • The State column indicates the original state of each currently used document. For instance, if a document has been modified since last load, the corresponding state (i.e. "Modified") is displayed in the State column. The different states you can assign to a document are:

      • New: identifies a newly created document. You have to select a file name in order to save it.

      • Open: identifies a non-modified document open in your session.

      • Modified: identifies a document modified in your session.

      • Modified by synchronization: identifies a document modified at opening in order to be synchronized with a modified pointed document.

      • Read Only: identifies a modified and read-only document. Specify a new name if you want to save the document.

    • The Name column displays the name of each document about to be saved.

    • The Location column indicates all documents that are currently used along with their paths.

    • The Action column enables you to check the actions you are performing on your documents (save, modification, etc.). Bear in mind that the State column keeps on displaying the document original state and do not reflect the actions you performed.
      The different actions that can be displayed are:

      • Open Read Only: identifies a non-modified, read-only document open in your session.

      • Save: identifies a document that will be saved.

      • Save Auto: identifies a dependent document that will be saved.

    • The Access column indicates the access rights for each document.

    Modifications made to a CATPart do not propagate to its CATProduct and have no impact on the state of the CATProduct. Therefore, a "dirty" CATPart is identified as "Modified" whereas the CATProduct it is linked to is identified as "Open".
    For more information, refer to "About Modified Status when Editing a CATProduct" in the Version 5 - Product Structure User's Guide.

    The Enable independent saves check box lets you save documents independently regardless of any existing links between files, i.e. dependent documents will not be automatically saved when the document they are linked to is saved.

  2. Select the files to be saved.

    At this point, you can add a suffix and/or a prefix to the name of the documents you are going to save. To do so, enter the character string to be added to each file name in the Pattern Name box.
    The character * is used as a wildcard to replace the file name and you can set the following pattern values:

    • yyy* (where yyy is the character string) means that the names of the selected files will be prefixed with yyy, e.g. yyyMyPart.CATPart.

    • *xxx (where xxx is the character string) means that the names of the selected files will be suffixed with xxx, e.g. MyPartxxx.CATPart.

    • yyy*xxx means that the names of the selected files will be prefixed and suffixed respectively with yyy and xxx, e.g. yyyMyPartxxx.CATPart.

    The last pattern used is stored in preference files (which are identified by the suffix *.CATPreferences, and are created in the same location as settings, referenced by the CATUserSettingPath variable).

    You can add a prefix or a suffix to one document only or to multiple documents. To select multiple documents, you can use one of the following methods:

    • Heterogeneous selection by pressing Ctrl

    • Continuous selection by pressing Shift+Ctrl

    • Computed selection by right-clicking a document in the list then select one of these two contextual commands:

      • Select All Pointed to select all the impacted pointed documents. In that case, all documents links are taken into account, especially contextual ones, which means that the resulting graph can be larger than the object's product tree.

      • Product Tree to select the entire depending product tree. In that case, neither contextual links (for design in context) nor relational links (from part to part) are taken into account but only structure links (for the product structure's composition).
        However, note that if the document you select when using this command is not a CATProduct, then the selection is not extended. Note that shape representations other than CATParts (cgr, model, CATShapes, etc.) are also included in the resulting selection.

      In the example below, right-clicking Links.CATProduct and choosing Select All Pointed automatically selects Part1.CATPart which is referenced by Links.CATProduct:

  3. If you decided to add a prefix in step 2, click the Apply Pattern button to propagate the pattern you set in the Pattern Name box to all the selected documents (otherwise, jump to the next step). In our example, *xxx has been entered in the Pattern Name box:

    The validity of the each new document identification is checked. If another document in the session or in the file system has the same computed name, a pop-up message is displayed to indicate which documents cannot be renamed and you are asked whether you want to proceed or not. If you choose to proceed, the pattern value will be assigned only to documents that can be renamed.

    If no problem occurs, all the files are renamed and the new names are displayed in the Name column. To ensure data consistency, all document links are automatically updated in session, which means that applying a prefix or a suffix to a single document may lead to an automatic save of other documents.
    This is illustrated by the picture below: when the suffix xxx is applied to Part2.CATPart, the "Save Auto" action is assigned to Product1.CATProduct to indicate that this linked document will be saved as well:

    When you click the Apply Pattern button, only the file name is modified, features such as part number or root products are not impacted.

    Clicking the Apply Pattern button has no effect on disk ; this only checks and initializes the new names in memory. The files are physically saved on disk with their new names when you click OK.
    You can cancel the pattern application by clicking the Reset button but note that the reset applies to the whole Save Management dialog box and not only to the suffix or prefix propagation.
  4. Click Save As... to open the following dialog box:

  5. Indicate the name of the new created file in the File name box as well as the destination folder. If a suffix xxx has been applied, it is also displayed in the File name box.

  6. Click Save.

    Selecting File > Save As for a .CATProduct document containing other modified components means that these components are assigned the "Save Auto" state and are saved when clicking OK.
    However, some "document-to-document" links are not be taken into account, such as links that are not design prerequisites. For instance, when saving a .CATDrawing document pointing to a modified .CATPart document, the state of the .CATDrawing document remains unchanged.
    As explained above, the Save Management... command automatically saves impacted files as well. If there are still unsaved files left when you click OK, the following message is displayed:
    But do not forget that two different documents open in session cannot have the same persistent location because the system cannot have two documents with the same identification. In this case, a warning is issued and you cannot save conflicting documents.
    This might happen, for instance, when a new document has been assigned the location of another document already loaded in session (with overwrite request) either using explicitly the Save As... button, or using implicitly the Propagate Directory button.
  7. When you have saved a document in a new directory, you can use the Propagate directory button to save the files linked to this document into the same directory:

    Note that new documents with the "Auto Save" status are saved in the directory of the document selected in the list when clicking the Propagate directory, Save or Save As... button.
    If we take the above capture as an example, a new document with the "Auto Save" status would be saved in "E:\users" since "Car.CATProduct" is selected.

    To go back the document original state, select the document then click the Reset button.

  8. Click OK to confirm.

 

More about the Save As mechanism

When you save a file by giving it the name of another existing file (by selecting File > Save As that lets you overwrite an existing file), this does not mean that the new file is identical to the original one. As a matter of fact, a file is identified by its name but also by its UUID (Unique Universal IDentifier) which differs from one file to another (except when a file is a copy of another one, for instance).

To illustrate this, let's suppose a CATProduct containing two CATParts, Part1.CATPart and Part2.CATPart:

  1. Product1 and the two parts it points to are saved using the Save As... button then the Product1 is closed.

  2. A new part is created by selecting File > New.

  3. The new part is saved as "Part2" in the same folder then Part2 is closed .

  4. When re-opening Product1, you are informed that Part2 cannot be found.

The reason is that the new document saved as "Part2" has been given a new UUID when selecting File > New and this new UUID is different from the one assigned to the original Part2. Therefore, the link between Product1 and Part2 is considered as broken, even if a Part2.CATPart document do exist, because the original Part2 does not exist anymore.
If you want to reroute the link to the new Part2.CATPart, you need to select Edit > Links then Replace.