As I mentioned in my posting on the discussion thread : http://communities.ptc.com/message/181114#181114, I still cannot understand why PTC chose to provide such a short list of Windchill system attributes to the 3rd party CAD applications via the Workgroup Manager. The U-WGM clearly has the ability to add and populate SolidWorks File Properties with some Windchill system attributes immediately upon a Save to Workspace - so why can’t we choose to add any of the other ‘standard system attributes’ via some configuration files or Preferences, rather than having to resort to customisation ?
As a minimum we should be able to add these Windchill attributes to 3rd party CAD files as Parameters (aka File Properties):
PTC_WM_CREATED_BY
PTC_WM_CREATED_ON
PTC_WM_MODIFIED_BY
PTC_WM_MODIFIED_ON
PTC_WM_MODIFIED - ideally with a related display preference for the Boolean to select :
Yes/No, True/False, "+"/<blank>, <text1>/<text2>
It is clear that the WGM has the ability to add File Properties, and then populate or update the values of those Properties on a SolidWorks file in session (and presumably this can be done by a command in the Windows operating system, rather than in the CAD application's API ?) - so any changes will already be captured when the file is next saved to the Workspace, and no further Save-As or Update actions are required. However, if there is a performance hit for providing and updating more Attributes, then surely PTC should let their customers' system administrators decide how many to switch on or off, rather than confining them to a short list selected by PTC. It is very limiting and frustrating to be able to see infomation in the U-WGM but not pass it into the CAD file or application.
I understand that PTC don't want to have to change or update any of the 3rd party CAD file content during a check-in (as this may require access to 3rd party APIs, and could undermine the performance benefit of having the last saved file already stored in the server-side cache...), so they (PTC) say that the last one on the list above presents a problem. However, that problem could surely be overcome by using an operating system command to update one or two of the File Properties during check-in without opening and re-saving the file(s) (eg. perhaps using DSOFile.dll from MicroSoft ?). The latest correct information would then be 'in' the file ready for the next time it is downloaded and opened by any user, or indeed by the cadworker when it is given a copy of the file(s) to publish the viewables (with or without File/Content Sync enabled - TBC ?). Since the use of viewables that are generated automatically after check-in has replaced the use of preview images embedded in the file from the last save, the viewables would show PTC_WM_MODIFIED correctly as 'No', 'False', <blank>, etc, for any checked-in file.
See also ; http://communities.ptc.com/message/204854
for a brief discussion on the current (unsupported) Method being used in a customised download delegate
