Make it possible to quickly open the Main Assembly

[S_Edgenear]

When trying to open the main assembly of a project, sometimes it's difficult to track down the needed main assembly in the midst of a forest of assembly files. Especially when the assembly files were created by others and they use a differente naming convention.

This feature is already implemented in Solidworks, I think.

To avoid spending to much time browsing and opening assembly files, only to find out it's not actually the main assembly, Creo could save in each assembly a flag to indicate if it's a top level assembly or not.

The procedure would be as this: when creating an assembly, set the flag as a top level assembly by default. Whenever an existing assembly is assembled into another assembly, automatically flag the assembled asembly as "Not Top Level Assembly".

When browsing for assemblies, include a "check box" in the User Interface to filter down only "Top Level Assemblies".

The only caveat I see with this suggestion is that the Assemblies when inserted into other assemblies would have to have the flag changed, ie, weitten again to disk. I think it's not problematic when not using Windchill, but could imply a check out if using Windchill. So, it could / should be implemented only if not using a PDM system.

[BenLoosli]

"When trying to open the main assembly of a project, sometimes it's difficult to track down the needed main assembly in the midst of a forest of assembly files. Especially when the assembly files were created by others and they use a different naming convention."

You hit the problem on the head with your own second statement I quoted from your original post.

A common naming convention is imperative to organizing assembly files and their components. If not using Windchill, then you also need an organized folder structure and creating a search_path file that locates files in their proper folders.

When using a PLM, you still need a common naming convention that all users MUST adhere to.

[S_Edgenear]

You seem to forget than in not all industries we have the power to impose a naming convention to our clients or suppliers.

In our case in the mold industry as a mold design company that works for several mold companies that produce the molds, we have to adhere mostly to the several different naming conventions of the mold companies that requests our services. We cannot impose them our own naming convention. Also, when we import sub-systems to include in the mold, as is the case of hot-runners, since there are several different brands that produce hot-runners, when they export the assembly as a step file, the files are exported according to their naming convention, not according to ours. And they typically include dozens and dozzens of subassemblies.

There are ways or workarounds to try to identify all the top-level assemblies, but it's a bit tedious and time consuming, when we want to delete unused subassemblies in a project inside a folder, after they were included at some time in the developing process of the project. We can do a "Save a Backup" to another folder to try to "purge" or delete unwanted files and sub-assemblies, but sometimes this methology fails, since the backup will not include anything that is not opened in memory.

Once again to reply to BenLoosli, the naming convention is the least usable or reliable method if we cannot create or control all the assemblies that are included in a project.

[Rami_Noah]

you should know that this capability is already exist while working with PDMLink.

you refer to this capability while working in file system?

[S_Edgenear]

Hello Rami_Noah,

Yes, I do mean when working with the file system. We do not have PDMLink or Windchill.

[iDZignit]

You might be able to create this type of functionality by using folders in the OS.  "Curious, I will try this..."

( I AM IN NO WAY ) condoning this type behavior or method...!!! 

Windchill does this for me.