Opening Objects

This task shows you how to open objects for editing purposes.

1. Either in the Product tree itself or in the search result window (see Using the Search Workbench document under VPM Navigator Basic Tasks) or else in an impact analysis window (see Using the Impact Graph Workbench topic found in the VPM Relational Design section of VPM Navigator Basic Tasks), right-click the object you want to open and, in the contextual menu, select the Open... command. Alternatively, you can select the object in the Product tree then select the Open command in the VPM Navigator toolbar.

   The following dialog box appears.
   
   
    

   By default, the VPM session option is not available with Open Modes dialog box. You can make this option available using Options dialog box. Select Tools > Options … In the Options tree, click ENOVIA V5 VPM, and then click ENOVIA V5 VPM Options tab. Under VPM Session, select the VPM Session available check box. After activating VPM Session option the Open Modes dialog appears as follows:

2. Select the open mode (see Open Modes below).

   1. If you choose to open the selected object(s) in context, three options will be available to you:

      1. In Context option alone (without selecting the With visible Children or With Children at all levels options) refers to the Open in Context mode which allows you to open the selected parts up to its Product Root Class (PRC) in its context.  It means that the relevant assembly constrains are loaded too.

      2. With visible Children option selected, the selected parts are opened with their visible children (according to assembly relations) in the VPMNav navigator window.

      3. With Children at all levels and Apply Filter cleared, the selected node(s) in Product structure on VPMNav window, and all its children existing in database is opened In Context in CATIA window.

      4. With Children at all levels and Apply Filter selected, the applied filter of the current VPM Navigator window is applied to the PRC and the selected parts are opened with filtered children.
         
         Notes:

         • Apply Filter option is available only for With Children at all level option.

         • Apply Filter option is unavailable when you open an object from VPM Search and Impact graph.

         The result is identical as the result obtained by a user making the following steps:

         1. With the set of selected item(s), execute Expand All.

         2. Re-select the initial set of selected item(s), execute Select Under (Part Instances).

         3. Selecting the Open command.

   2. If you choose to open the selected object(s) out of context, the Insert in VPM Session button is selected by default. However, if you prefer to open each selected object in a different design window, click the Document Window button.

      Selection of the Insert in VPM Session and Document Window buttons is memorized so that when you next display the Open Modes dialog box, whichever of these buttons you last selected will reappear selected. However, this is not true of either the New or Target buttons.

   3. In the search result window for Filter Capture, select the object. Right-click the object and select Execute and Open. The Open panel is displayed as shown below.
      
      
      
      Only the option With Children at all levels is enabled.
      If the user selects this option, then the equivalent of a Select Under is done and all children at levels are retrieved on all Part Instances retrieved previously.
       

3. If you want to acquire the object from the ENOVIA database when opening it, click the Automatic Lock of all opened Parts and Documents box at the bottom of the dialog box. For more information about this, see Locking and Unlocking in the VPM Configured Product Design section of VPM Navigator Basic Tasks.

   Document revisions and their corresponding Part versions can be locked using the Automatic Lock of all opened Parts and Documents box. However, references of assemblies in Structure Exposed mode and Part instances cannot be locked using this option. As long as a Part or document remains open in unlocked status in one CATIA window you cannot use the Automatic Lock of all opened Parts and Documents box when you open the same Part or document in the same or another CATIA window. You must first close the CATIA window where it is in unlocked status.

4. Click OK.
   The objects are opened and if you selected the Automatic Lock of all opened Parts and Documents box, the lock status of the loaded data is automatically refreshed if present in a VPM Navigator window.

• You cannot select more than one PRC at a time from the search result window. Should you attempt to do this, the Open command will be grayed out in the contextual menu.

• If you also have the license for the product VPM Work Package Exchange, the Open Modes dialog box will also include, at the bottom, the SRM extraction (open components as Product box. For more information about this, see "Extracting ENOVIA V5 Data Using VPM Navigator" in the VPM Work Package Exchange User Guide.

Open Modes

• In Context (Product)

• Out of Context

In Context (Product)

The tree of the selected object is opened and displayed within the appropriate context i.e. with all its parents as far as the PRC.
For example, if you select a CATPart instantiated on a PRC, the CATPart opens with the PRC and the associated instance. You can see the geometry, all the parent instances and the PRC.
 

Out of Context

The tree of the selected object appears out of context.
For example, if you select a CATPart instantiated on a PRC, the CATPart opens without the PRC and the associated instance. You just see the geometry but you do not see the position of the instance.

The Out of Context mode allows you to:

• open objects in a new or existing VPM Session (by means of the Insert in VPM Session button):
  For more information about this workbench, see VPM Session: Working with Reference Data from VPM Navigator under the VPM Relational Design section of Basic Tasks in VPM Navigator.

• open each selected object as a document in a separate design window (by means of the Document Window button).

If several Part references or Part instances are opened, they are each opened in a different window.

The table below indicates which objects can be opened in and out of context.

1 = from a Product tree but not from a query window or impact graph
2 = Part References are not displayed in the Product tree, only as the result of a query.
3 = Before opening a technological package in a CATIA Design window, its context should first be opened.

When objects can be opened in either mode, the Open Modes dialog box appears with the In Context (Product) button already selected as it is the default open mode. Otherwise, the Open Modes dialog box opens with the one available mode, the Out of Context mode, already selected.

• When you open unlocked data there are no warning messages to inform you of this. However, should you subsequently attempt to save such data you are told of this by the information contained in the Save in ENOVIA V5 dialog box (see Saving Objects in the VPM Configured Product Design section of Basic Tasks in VPM Navigator) and if you then nevertheless proceed with a save of unlocked data you will receive a warning message.

• When opening Parts or documents owned and locked by another user you will not receive any warning message.
  If you prefer to be informed of this by a message you must set the variable VPMNavCheckLockAtOpen to 1 . However, be aware that this has an adverse effect on performance.

• You cannot open out of context a Part version that has no document. 

When you use the following commands:

• File>Open...
• Edit>Links...
• Replace Component (only works with file-based data)
• Instantiate From Document
• Catalog Browser

the Browse window appears in addition to the File Selection dialog box provided you have allowed the ENOVIA V5 and any other document environments in your Document settings.

1. Select the Tools>Options... command then the General category in the tree on the left and finally, the Document tab at the top of the dialog box:
   

   The Document Environments area shown above allows you to define the method(s) you will use to access your documents by allowing the ENOVIA V5 and any other environment(s) selected from the list.

2. To allow the ENOVIA V5 document environment, select it in the list then click the Allowed button.
   Optionally, you can click the Current button.

   For detailed information on document environments, see the Document Environments section under Document in the Infrastructure User's Guide. 

3. Click OK to validate the operation and close the dialog box.

4. Select the Edit>Links... command.

5. Select the item to be replaced then click the Replace button.

   The File Selection dialog box and the Browse window (displayed in the background) open simultaneously as shown below:
   
   

6. Click Cancel to close the File Selection dialog box and activate the Browse window:

   

   If you set ENOVIA V5 to current in step 2, you bypass this step and directly access ENOVIA.

   The icons displayed in the Browse window will vary with the document environments you have allowed in step 2. The picture above is just an example. Other methods may be discarded by your Version 5 administrator and may therefore affect the look of the Browse window.

7. Select the desired method by clicking the ENOVIA V5 button.
   This lets you perform a query for document-type objects in the ENOVIA V5 database.

   This document environment is only available with a VPM Navigator license.

8. Once you have accessed the desired document, click OK or Open (depending on the method) to validate the operation.

1. Open a PRC in a CATIA window.

2. Repeat the Steps No. 1, 2, and 3 from Opening Existing Documents in ENOVIA Using the Browse Window.

3. From the Insert menu, select Existing Component….
   The File Selection dialog box and the Browse window (displayed in the background) open simultaneously as shown below:
   
      

4. Click Cancel to close the File Selection dialog box, and then from Browse window click ENOVIA V5 VPM. The Search Conditions dialog box appears.

   

5. Search the object you want and click OK. You can search Document Revision, and Part Version to insert into your PRC.
   The Search Result window displays the searched objects.

   

6. From the Search Result window, select a structure exposed assembly you want. In this example a part version of a structured exposed assembly is selected.
   In the above Search Result window, Sub Assembly (a part version of a structure exposed assembly) is selected to insert in CATIA.

7. Click Open.
   The assembly with all its children with no filter is inserted in the CATIA window. In the following screenshot, Sub Assembly with its children is instantiated in ProductXKL assembly.
   
   

In case of a Part Version selection some checks are done to be sure that the Part Version is eligible. This eligibility depends also on the selection type. The following table summarizes the cases that are supported for inserting Part Version:


 

• Similar to Copy-Paste command, the newly inserted instances appear in Design Mode.
• SRM extract technology is not supported with this function, which means that components inside assemblies cannot be opened as product. To use the SRM extract functionality, you have to perform the following tasks:

This task describes how to view and open the most recently opened Out of Context, Document Window documents.

You must have previously opened documents using the Out of Context, Document Window options. See Open Modes for more information. 

1. In VPM Navigator, click ENOVIA V5 VPM from the menu.
   The contextual menu is displayed along with most recently used documents and PVS's.  

2. The five most recently used documents that were opened with the options Out of Context and Document Window are displayed, (circled above), with the last one opened and closed always being displayed first. 

3. Clicking a displayed document opens it with the Out of Context and Document Window options applied.

This task describes how to react when, on opening documents, you are informed that they cannot be opened immediately as one or more of them is not up-to-date.

The administrator must first have done the required setup (see "Setting Up the Vault Server Cache" in the ENOVIA V5 VPM Enterprise Architecture Installation Guide).

1. You open a document and the following information message is displayed:

   

   This means that the document is not up-to-date in the local vault cache.

2. Click Yes if you are prepared to wait and work on other documents for the time being.
   The open operation is then postponed until the image in the vault cache has been refreshed. Once the refresh is completed, you receive the following message:

   

   You can now open the document and work normally.

   What actually happens is that selecting Yes triggers the refresh of a set of CATIA documents from their persistent (or master) vault to the local vault cache. This refresh is performed asynchronously to enable you to continue to work during the document refresh.

    

3. If you click No, the document is refreshed synchronously in the vault cache and will eventually be opened but you must be patient and wait until this operation has completed.