Working With Behaviors

Introducing the Behavior Concept

A behavior is a set of tasks performed on a technological object. It can be a V5 command, a CAA command, an external application, a VBA Command, or a behavior defined in BKT. It enables expert users to capture sequences of tasks that are manually performed in V5, and enables end-users to use the knowledge contained in the behaviors to perform tasks and procedures related to the technological object.

A behavior is made up of the following components:

A name and an optional comment
Name displayed in the end-user workbench. The comment associated with this name can help the end-user understand the behavior function.

A set of variables 
Inputs: Data entered by the user
Outputs: Result produced by the behavior
Internals: Defined for internal use as storage of intermediate results

A set of properties
Icons ...

Defining a New Main Behavior

To define a new behavior, the expert user:


Introducing the Basic Behaviors

Structure Behaviors (Logical and Sequential Combinations)

 

 Enable you to define two different combinations of behaviors:
  • Ordered (sequential combination)
  • Not ordered (logical combination)
  • Loop
  • Generate Component
Infrastructure Behaviors

 

 Implementation Behaviors: Enable you to reuse existing code samples.

Bind Behaviors: Enable you to access resources not yet available at the definition stage.
Event-based Behaviors Enable you to define what element reacts and how it reacts when something happens.
Design Behaviors Enable you to reuse CATIA V5 functions.

Reuse:

  • Paste as specification, as external reference
  • Template reuse (Power Copy and User-Defined Feature)
  • Generative Script

Document: 

  • Load, New From
  • Query in catalog

Insert Components: Enables you to create a component, or to insert an existing one taking the multioccurrence into account.

Knowledge Relations Enable you to define rules, checks and formulas that need to be validated during the process or add logical control to the model.

Introducing the Behaviors Interface

Note that it is now possible for the user to add attributes of List type to behaviors. For more information, see About the Add Attribute dialog box...

The Behaviors interface is made up of 2 or 3 tabs depending on the behaviors:

  • The Definition tab
  • The Properties tab
  • The Attributes tab

The Definition tab contains the information that needs to be specified for the behavior to execute correctly. For more information about this tab (specific to every behavior), see the documentation related to the various behaviors.

The Properties tab

This tab contains the information required for the behavior execution.

Behavior States

The scrolling list enables the expert user to define who can see the behavior.

  • All Users: The behavior can be seen by all users.
  • Expert&Administrator: Only the expert and the administrator can see the behavior.
  • Expert: Only the expert user can see the behavior.

 

Activate: If not checked, the behavior will not be part of the execution process.

AutoDelete:  If checked, the expert user does not want to keep track of the behavior execution and the behavior is removed after it is executed.  

Focus: If checked, no other behavior asking for the focus will be started till the current behavior is executed.

Update

Driven: The behavior is updated when one of its input is modified. The update will be triggered by a user, or by another behavior (Propagate for example).

Auto: This mode is an extension of the Driven mode. The update will occur automatically if the behavior is eligible for update.

Single: The behavior is run once no matter its input is changed or not.

Icon Definition

This field enables the expert user to modify the icon identifying the Behavior in the behaviors tree and in the user workbench. A set of icons is available from Icons.... If you click this button, the Icon Browser opens showing all icons loaded in your CATIA session.

To associate an icon with a technological object, define a name: I_nametype. For example for the technological object Interior, the icon name is: I_Interior. To save the created icons in the appropriate directory, see Setting up the working Environment.  

The Attributes tab

 

Enables you to add a local attribute (variable). For more information, see About the Add Attribute dialog box...
Enables you to modify one of the local attributes (variables). 
Enables you to delete the local attributes (variables) created by the expert user.
Filter

Local attributes are those defined by the expert user. The other attributes are defined by default.

 

List of Attributes

The parameters displayed in this field are the ones displayed in the behaviors tree.

The BState parameter, when available, indicates the status of  the behavior's child.

  • Done
  • Suspended
  • Canceled 

For a logical or a sequential combination, the name of the behavior that was last run is displayed in this field.

Note that:

Typing Behaviors Attributes  

Pointers, and Lists can be typed to specialize the pointed items. If the value stored in the Pointer and the List does not match the selected type, an error message is displayed when operating or editing the behavior. Note that Pointer, and List attributes can be typed: Those created by the user as well as those belonging to the behaviors.

To type a Pointer, or a List attribute:

  1. Click in the Attribute Creation window to access the types browser.

  2. Select the Package and the type.

  3. Click OK to validate.

For more information about the packages and types of this browser, see the Reference section of the Knowledge Expert User's Guide.

Creating Behaviors
Linking Behaviors
Combining Behaviors
Working with Behaviors Patterns
Reference Information