Prevent editing of CAD files with wrong version of CAD tool

[DarrenStorey]

With Windchill we use 4 different CAD systems and concurrently multiple versions of each of system. This brings us some risk, whereby users inadvertently iterate CAD Docs using the wrong version of a CAD tool. For example, a set of data which must be ProE WF4 should never be edited with WF5, because the end recipients of the data use only WF4. Of course once a model is edited in WF5 it can no longer be opened in WF4.

Does anybody else experience this problem? We looking for a way to mark a selection of data (perhaps by folder contents) and force people to use a particular version of the CAD tool, or at least warn them when they are about to use the wrong CAD version.

The CAD tool version previously used is stored in CAD Doc object, however it is not displayed in the UI by default and the information is not in a format that is easily recognizable by users.

RegardsDarren

[RandyJones]

On 03/27/12 04:42, Darren Storey wrote:
>
> With Windchill we use 4 different CAD systems and concurrently multiple
> versions of each of system. This brings us some risk, whereby users
> inadvertently iterate CAD Docs using the wrong version of a CAD tool. For
> example, a set of data which must be ProE WF4 should never be edited with WF5,
> because the end recipients of the data use only WF4. Of course once a model is
> edited in WF5 it can no longer be opened in WF4.
>
> Does anybody else experience this problem? We looking for a way to mark a
> selection of data (perhaps by folder contents) and force people to use a
> particular version of the CAD tool, or at least warn them when they are about
> to use the wrong CAD version.
>
> The CAD tool version previously used is stored in CAD Doc object, however it
> is not displayed in the UI by default and the information is not in a format
> that is easily recognizable by users.
>
> Regards Darren
>

Perhaps something could be done with a jlink listener:

1. jlink listens for opening a model
2. the jlink app then gets the current running Pro/Engineer version and
buildcode (this part is easy)
3. the jlink app then reads the first line of the modelfile and parses the
Pro/Engineer version
* reading the first line of the modelfile and parsing for the Pro/Engineer
version would be fairly straight forward
* figuring out how to find out which file in the OS to read since this is
coming from a workspace would be difficult
* maybe there is some jlink method that returns the version of
Pro/Engineer that last edited the file
4. jlink then compares the current running version of Pro/Engineer with the
version that edited the file and pops up a warning dialog if the current
version of Pro/Engineer is newer


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Randy Jones
Systems Administrator
Great Plains Mfg., Inc.
1525 E North St
PO Box 5060
Salina, KS USA 67401
email: -
Phone: 785-823-3276
Fax: 785-667-2695
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