Administering Standards and Generative View Styles

  This task documents the administration of both standards  (Interactive Drafting workbench) and generative view styles (Generative Drafting workbench), as the procedure is basically the same whether you are administering standards or generative view styles. When applicable, differences will be notified. The examples provided in this task specifically deal with the administration of standard files.

For more information on customizing and administering generative view styles, refer to the Administration Tasks chapter in the Generative Drafting User's Guide.

 

Location of standard or generative view style files

The location of standard files or generative view style files is defined by two environment variables which can be set during installation or modified afterwards:

Variable name

Description
CATCollectionStandard Path and name of the directory (or directories) which contains:
  • the drafting sub-directories (which themselves contain the customized drafting standards). It is in these drafting sub-directories that you should add the drafting standards customized for a company, project or user. 
  • the generativeparameters sub-directories (which themselves contain the customized generative view styles). It is in these generativeparameters sub-directories that you should add the generative view styles customized for a company, project or user. 
CATDefaultCollectionStandard Path and name of the directory (or directories) which contains:
  • the drafting sub-directories (which themselves contain the predefined drafting standards delivered by Dassault Systemes). 
  • the generativeparameters sub-directories (which themselves contain the predefined generative view styles delivered by Dassault Systemes).

The default location for this directory (set during the installation process) is the installation directory install_root\resources\standard.

Setting the location of standard files
Refer to the Administration Tasks chapter in the Generative Drafting User's Guide for specific information on how to set the location of generative view style files.

There are two possibilities:
  • If you want to place all customized drafting standards in a custom directory, named mydirectory for example, you need to proceed as follows:
 

  1. Create a directory named as you like (mydirectory, for example).

  2. Create a sub-directory under this directory, which needs to be named drafting.

  3. Place the XML files containing your customized drafting standards in mydirectory\drafting. 

  • If you have not yet customized your XML standard files, then proceed as follows:

  1. Create a directory named as you like (mydirectory, for example).

  2. Create a sub-directory under this directory, which needs to be named drafting.

  3. Set the CATCollectionStandard variable to mydirectory. After you have customized the XML standard files, the standard editor will then save them in mydirectory\drafting.
  • If the CATDefaultCollectionStandard and the CATCollectionStandard variables both contain an identically-named standard, it is always the standard found in  CATCollectionStandard  which will be used. 
  • If two directories referenced by the CATCollectionStandard and/or CATDefaultCollectionStandard variables contain identically-named standard files, it is always the standard in the directory listed first which will be used.

 

Customizing and defining standards or generative view styles

To edit and save standard files or generative view style files in Tools > Standards, you must be running the V5 session in administrator mode (-admin). 

The recommended method for customizing standard files or generative view style files is the following:

  1. You need to work in administrator mode. To do this, proceed as follows: 

    1. Set up the CATReferenceSettingPath variable.

    2. Start a V5 session using the -admin option. 

    For more information, refer to the Managing Environments chapter in the Infrastructure Installation Guide.

  2. Set up the CATCollectionStandard environment variable as explained above.

    If none of the conditions are respected, a warning message will appear to let you know that you will neither be able to modify nor save the XML files.

  3. Modify the Drafting standards or the generative view styles as appropriate.

  4. Use the Save As or the OK button to store your modifications.

  5. To exit, use the Cancel button.

Once the standard files or the generative view style files have been customized and saved, they can be used in a V5 session in normal mode.

 

Availability of standard switch and update

Note: The information provided below does not apply to generative view styles.

Using the settings available in  Tools > Options > Mechanical Design > Drafting > Administration, administrators can forbid or allow users to: 

  • switch a drawing to another standard (via File > Page Setup),
  • update the standard used by a drawing (via File > Page Setup). 

Moreover, administrators can lock these settings so that other users running a session with the same environment inherit those settings and cannot change them. This feature is described in the Locking Settings section, in the Infrastructure Installation User's Guide.