Edit iProperties on workstation w/o Inventor: standalone or ?

[dick_upton]

I want to give an intern a job of editing select model iproperties. His workstation does not have Inventor on it. I thought any workstation would have "Edit iProperties" on the context sensitive menu . . . what was I thinking?!

What can we do to allow him to be able RMB > iProperties or activate some standalone program which will allow him to edit a model's iproperties.

I do know about Apprentice, but I don't know that there is anything so straightforward there. Maybe it is what I'm looking for . ..

[iDS!]

Why not just install IV anyway...just don't use it 😉 ...no harm no foul 😉

...or try loading Inventor View...worth a shot?

...and one last thing...maybe try loading Design Assistant or Vault...

...the point is try try try OUTSIDE of the box solutions 😄

[dick_upton]

The thought was to get away from all that overhead of installing the entire IV application.

Hmm can you install DA all by itself? I think that might enable the context sensitive menu item . . .

[jeanchile]

I have the Mastering Autodesk Inventor 2010 book written by Curtis Waguespack (who sometimes visits this board) sitting in my office and is says (in two different locations) that you can edit iProperties on workstations without IV installed.

I have no idea what he was talking about because we have never been able to do it. Perhaps he is roaming about and can provide some input? Curtis, are you out there????

[Dennis_Jeffrey]

Do you have Inventor View installed?  Try Propertied from Inventor View.

[jeanchile]

Attached is the excerpt from Mastering Inventor 2010 about the iProperties in Windows Explorer. If Curtis should happen to stumble across this he should make note of the Inventor View requirement in case he has a hand in future writings. It seems perfectly obvious now that you point it out that IV View is needed at least, but as a beginning user (2 years ago) it was easy to take the verbiage of the book too literally. We just abandoned the idea of having our PM's be able to edit the iProperties when we couldn't figure it out. I guess I'll install View on another workstation and take another look at our process.

Thanks to both of you for mentioning it. It helps me even if it doesn't take care of the OP.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi jeanchile,

First, let me say thanks for purchasing the Mastering Autodesk Inventor 2010 book.

As far as the references to accessing iProperties sans Inventor, I think it’s fair to say that the passage you point out suggests that the Inventor iProperty collection can be edited with just Windows Explorer. This is not the case.  In order for people without Inventor installed on their machine to edit iProperties they must have either an Autodesk product that reads the Inventor iProperty collection (often Vault) or some custom code (often utilizing Inventor Apprentice) to tap into Inventor’s iProperty collection.  These were the methods I had in mind when I wrote of allowing people to view and change iProperties without Inventor.

Thanks for calling my attention to these misleading areas. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble could you point me to the other reference in the book that you mentioned and I’ll be certain to clarify this in future editions (unfortunately it’s probably already too late to do so in the 2012 book).  

I hope this clarifies things for everyone, and I regret any confusion created on my part.

Thanks again,

Curtis

http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com/

Here are a few addtional links to help with the goal of editing iProperties without Inventor.

A third party add-in that allows users to access iProperties:

http://www.ifiltershop.com/inventor-ifilter.html

Brian Elkins talks about accessing the iProperty collection using customization:

http://modthemachine.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/03/iproperties-without-inventor-apprentice.html

Brian Elkins talks about using Windows functionality to directly access the thumbnail without using Inventor or Apprentice:

http://modthemachine.typepad.com/my_weblog/iproperties/

Autodesk University paper from Brian Elkins dealing with iProperties:

http://www.widom-assoc.com/393_MA24-4.pdf

[dave.anderson]

I'll save Curtis here, and confirm what Dennis stated.

I created a system with ONLY Inventor View 2011 installed and as you interpreted from the publications you've seen, you can edit the Inventor iProperties without Inventor installed.

You will not have the same Right-Click option in Windows Explorer as you do with Full Inventor, but it is possible to access & change the iProperties once you open the file in Inventor View.

I hope this helps.

[jeanchile]

---

@dave.anderson wrote:

I'll save Curtis here, and confirm what Dennis stated.

---

I'm not sure what this means as no one was attacking Curtis.

And Curtis, the reference I posted is from page 193 (chapter 5, advanced modeling techniques, setting parameters and iProperties). Thank you for the useful book (and blog). Myself and three of my employees initially trained ourselves to use IV from one week of using your manual. For the cost of a two-day beginning IV course (for four people) from our reseller, we were able to buy 8 books (4 copies of 2 different ones), a new projector, and pay 4 people to spend 1 week in a room together going through the first 8 chapters of your book (reading aloud and going through tutorials). And, we had money left over in the budget to buy lunch a couple of times. We got much more "in-depth" than the two-day course would have been for the same money, we were able to tailor our "course" to fit my company's needs, and had more fun together without disrupting the other people that would have been in the classroom with us. My other employees were jealous and said they wanted to do that next time instead of training from our reseller. It's not a perfect solution but with the right manual (e.g. yours) it works out great. Thank you for spending the time with it.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

---

@dave.anderson wrote:

I'll save Curtis here, and confirm what Dennis stated.

I created a system with ONLY Inventor View 2011 installed and as you interpreted from the publications you've seen, you can edit the Inventor iProperties without Inventor installed.

You will not have the same Right-Click option in Windows Explorer as you do with Full Inventor, but it is possible to access & change the iProperties once you open the file in Inventor View.

I hope this helps.

---

Thanks Dave!

[jeanchile]

Oops, my apologies. I misunderstood the post. I read it from my email and it's a truncated version of the original post. I will remember to read the whole thing before I post next time.

And Curtis, I can't seem to find the other reference made. I thought this "grey box" helpful hint thing showed up twice but I can't seem to locate it now. Perhaps this (page 193) is the only reference.

Thanks for the help.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Thanks for the kind words jeanchile, and I didn't take your earlier posts as any kind of attack at all. I started to reply after thanking Dave and then got pulled away to "put out fires" with some subcontract parts (I'm sure you can relate ).

And kudos to you for taking the initiative to train yourselves in such a well planned and professional manner, I think many companies would benefit from that sort of thing, particularly when the workflows are company specific, etc. I recall seeing one of your frames on here recently, so what ever you're doing it must be working. Great work!

Also thanks for looking for the other reference, I'll have another look when I can as well.

Best of luck to you and your team with all of your Inventor pursuits,

Curtis

http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com/

[Curtis_Waguespack]

To add to this subject, here is the download link to the Inventor View application as well. If I recall correctly this is the version of Inventor View required for installing without Inventor.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?id=10535296&siteID=123112

I hope this helps.

Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,

Curtis

http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com/

[dick_upton]

Thanks Dennis,

We can access iProperties within Inventor View.

The catch is that the user can make the property change only one at a time at his workstation - and only within Inventor View. The installation of Inventor View does not enable the iProperties selection in the context sensitive menu.  Therefore he can only change a desired iproperty one file at a time, instead of multi-selecting and making a change propagate across several files. That's probably ok though for the limited need of this single task.

This satisfies the requirement.

[dick_upton]

Oops I posted before reading page two - wow lots of input on this thread. I guess my observations confirm what Dave Anderson stated - no Right click from windows explorer access to iproperties.

Thanks for the input all!

[Dennis_Jeffrey]

I'd look at iPropWiz from Sean Dotson and Neil Munro for changing multiple properties and multiple files..

[iDS!]

...just confirmed with Sean iPropWiz will not read iProperties without full IV install 😞 ...however I've already suggested the addition of this feature for future releases of iPropWiz...unless ADSK gets the point 😉

[Dennis_Jeffrey]

I did not think so, but it was worth a try. Anyway, with the enhanced productivity, it will still be faster than Inventor alone.