I was wondering if someone could help me verify if this is the intended forward/backward compatibility between C3D 2014 & 2013.
My project was previously using Data Shortcuts in C3D 2013. I opened the reference (not the source) drawing that uses a bunch of Alignments. During the initial drawing upgrade from 2013 into 2014 I get a message for each Alignment that, "{Alignment Name} was modified in a previous version of the software. Changes in the current were overwritten when the data reference was synchronized.". At this point everything seems fine.
The issue I'm having is that when I re-open that upgraded drawing using 2013 all of those same Alignments become promoted. They are no longer referenced!
Regards,
Todd Nochomson
CAD Manager / Senior Designer
CHEN MOORE AND ASSOCIATES
Data Shortcut behavior has changed for 2014 and the backward compatibility has many caveats. This thread may help explain some of the differences. Also see this BeingCivil post.
Mark Green
Working on Civil 3D in Canada
Hi troma & Jay,
Thanks for taking the time to read and respond to my post. I had read the Being Civil blog post, but it didn't go into detail on this issue. I hadn't seen that discussion group thread, although I researched heavily before posting. It basically confirmed my experience. Unfortunately, it's a less than desired result and is a deal-breaker to be able to use 2014 with 2013 users in a mixed environment. Yes, when I re-open it in 2014 it shows the DRef fine but I can't have my 2013 users DRef's not updating. It kind of defeats the purpose of it being promoted as "round-tripping" if it fundamentally changes it's abilities in the process.
I completely understand the reason why certain features become proxy that exist in 2014 but not in 2013. I also understand the change to the programming of DRef's in order to make them more flexible and more independent of their source in 2014, but the by-product result in 2013 makes the "round-tripping" not an option in a real world working mixed environment.
Well it's nice to see that AutoDesk is taking baby steps toward backward compatibility but at this point that's what they are.
This has been a wish of mine but I also realize (coming from a non- programmer perspective) that there are numerous other things, we as users may not think about such as the constantly changing .Net versions & the move away from Vba etc.
That has to be part of the reason it's taken so long to look into making Cvil 3d backward compatible
This is yet another reason there was a utility that allowed Windows Explorer to list the Software (C3D)version of the file, not just the drawing version. Perhaps a utility that could look in the header of the file and use an associated icon.
Rant over, for now.