Mike Allen Posted July 9, 2003 Share Posted July 9, 2003 What determines the read-only state of catalogs? I notice that my coworkers and I all have different catalogs shown as read-only. The default catalogs all have read-only attributes, but none of our user catalogs do. So why do each of us have different user catalogs showing as read-only? Also, I notice that at least one of the catalogs that was read-only yesterday isn't today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Lohman Posted July 9, 2003 Share Posted July 9, 2003 Read only means it has the read only attribute; OR it's opened by someone/something else. All of the default catalogs have read-only attributes by default. If you create a new catalog; it is not read-only by default; but if you're sharing catalogs and someone loads it before you do; whoever loads the catalog first will remain the only individual with the permission to write to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Allen Posted July 10, 2003 Author Share Posted July 10, 2003 OK, that's good to know. I notice that the color doesn't show up on the catalog tabs until you actually access the catalog, which is why we don't all show the same catalogs as read-only. Thanks for clearing that up! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
csteien Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 From Chris: "If you create a new catalog; it is not read-only by default; but if you're sharing catalogs and someone loads it before you do; whoever loads the catalog first will remain the only individual with the permission to write to it. " I'm guessing this is something new with the patch? Previously all of us in the engineering area could have a particular catalog open and add or withdraw items at will as long as we saved it right away. If someone else attempted to access this catalog before it was saved with the new part, you would get an error. It's my understanding that as of this patch the first person to open IronCad in the morning will be the only one to add to this catalog all day unless this person closes their IronCad? Who would be the next person to be able to drop an object into a catalog? Would the software be able to track who the second person was to open up IronCad? If so it would be great to see who this was and be able to track who has what open. We have people in different plants around the city using the same catalogs. Imagine trying to open a catalog and not being able to use it or find out who might have it open and left for the day. No way to track the user. The same idea would be great for regular IronCad scenes and drawings. If someone has an assembly open and I attempt to open a part that is linked to that assembly I either have to find the person who has the file open, or save a copy of this same part off to another spot risking duplication and other users not knowing which part is the current part. Needless to say we do not use the copy option and are forced to get on the phone and/or start walking around to the different users in order to get them to close up the file. Lots of time wasted. If there was some way to see who the user is, that would be totally AWESOME!! I just want make sure I'm understanding this. Thanks! I'll add this to the enhancement portion of the forum as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Lohman Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 The "new" way in PU1 is really just a little intelligence on top of the standard Microsoft way of functioning. In Microsoft Windows; when you load a writable file; a lock is placed on that file so that no one else can write to it. This is standard OS functionality that we can not work around. This has always been the case with any file in the OS, including catalogs. So what is new in PU1 is that we added the ability to color code your catalogs according to whether or not they are writable. (tools/options/color). To workaround this OS limitation we would have to somehow rebuild catalogs so that they were not files that were loaded and thus locked by the OS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Allen Posted July 11, 2003 Author Share Posted July 11, 2003 I have noticed that we no longer have the problem of accidental catalog edits! Dragging a part into a catalog (whether or not you have write-access) or even editing a catalog part no longer locks everyone else out. The down side is that if you need to save a part to a catalog, you have to be the first one to access that catalog. I can see that I'm going to have to plan ahead when I need to add parts (I actually came in today and clicked all of the tabs and got write-access to most of our catalogs, even though I wasn't the first one in to work.) Don't believe the colors that the tabs show when you start IronCAD. You have to actually click a tab before the program evaluates whether or not the catalog is read-only (unless the catalog file actually has the read-only attribute set.) I think that this is quite an improvement. The missing piece for me was knowing what triggered the read-only status for user catalogs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sjspeece Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Will Windows allow you to get the name of the user who has write permissions? This is the problem we have with scenes, drawings or catalogs. IronCAD informs you that another user has the file open but I have to walk around the office, or in some cases call someone in a different plant to find out who this person is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Lohman Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Steve you need a PDM system for that. Windows merely tracks the fact that the file is open; not who opened it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Allen Posted July 11, 2003 Author Share Posted July 11, 2003 I haven't been seeing those messages about another user having the catalog file open since we installed PU1. I had a user drag a part into a catalog that he had write-permission for, but told him not to save the catalog. Then I went to another machine and had no trouble accessing the catalog, I just couldn't see the new part (since the catalog wasn't saved.) Then I had him right-click a part in the catalog and select "Edit catalog item" and while he was editing, I still had no problem accessing the catalog on another machine. So aside from having to be the first one to click the catalog tab in order to make modifications to that catalog, everyone here has been pretty happy with the new catalog behavior. I just had everyone turn on the tab colors so there would be no surprises. If we absolutely have to share a part right this second, we can put it in a scene where everyone can find it. Worst case - I have to wait until people start shutting down for the day to get write-access to the most used catalogs. But read-access seems to be constant for all users with all catalogs now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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