Please help! I am organizing

[Anonymous]

I am very frusterate to the point at which I can not even think clearly.

When I began to use Inventor (R6-R9) I started a Directory called standard
parts in which I put all my standard pvc piping parts. I created many
projects from this. From the begining I truely did not understand the
Project Files and paths etc.

I now want to organize my stuff and created a NEW DIRECTORY and began to put
stuff in Sub folders (ie..Hose Barbs, Tees, Elbows etc). So I have 2
directories with the same INFO just organized.

Here is the problem:

I was going to go and open my 30+ projects and just change path in Project
and select NEW PART (in new directory) and then save assmebly. (BTW is
there an easier way to do this?). Well when I open up V10PRO and open
assembly it wants to revert to the OLD directory. Fine. I deleted old path
and selected new path. However it keeps telling me that the file (in new
directory) is not part of the current project. Do I have to ADD ALL SUB
FOLDERS AS A PATH?

Am I doing this right?
Should I be using VAULT even though I am only on that uses INVENTOR?
Can someone direct me to a GOOD place to learn about PROJECT FILES AND
VAULT?

Any HELP is WELCOMED if to whack me on the side of the head and tell me I am
a dumb A$$.

JEFF
GOBLUE!

[CaptainCAD]

Hello Jeff,

Yeah project files are strange things. You should actually read the Project files document that Autodesk has written it may be boring but it is worth its weight in gold. Think of Project Files as Shortcuts to Shortcuts. I organize my project file by clients and jobs. I do not have my Projjects Folder pointing to the standard locaton for Inventor. I have a folder on my C:drive called C:\InvProjs and under this I have two sub folders, one for R09_Proj and one for R10_Proj. Inventor 9 is set up to point to the first one and Inventor 10 is set up to point to the second one. That way my Inventor R9 and my Inventor R10 never get their projects mixed up. See the Files tap on the Applications Options for Inventor.

When I create a project the top level folder is the Client/Job and under that I have folders for
Assemblies
Parts
Drawings
Presentatons.

One of the things I like is "Frequently Used Subfolders" see the Inventor 10 Samples project file. You could make this point to you legacy parts that you use over and over again.

So the Workspace you would see the Assemblies Parts Drawing Presentations folders, the Fequently Use Subfolders would point to all of your legacy data you could even make this a seperate project and include it in your top leve project so you only have to chage the "Frequenlty Use Subfolders" project just once and all project who include this will be automaticall updated. Trust me project files are about good organisation. Open up these project and look at their internals make a backup copy and play with the project file and see what works best for you.

Vault is a must have must use. I has saved my a$$ on numerous occassions. Read the "Managing your Data" pdf document. A great think about Vault is that you can go bakc to a previous state of the design say you saved your assembly to the vault and a design junction point and continue to work on your design and descide you dont like the design and you want to go back to where you were a few days ago. In Vautl this is easy you simply restore your Vault to that point in time and you dont have to work "do i have the right drawing and part file etc, it just happenbs".

To understand Project Files and Vault you need to do some reading and planning up front but believe me it pays.

I hope that will give you some encouragement.
Kindest regards,
Charles McAuley - Autodesk.

[Anonymous]

You would have had less pain if you would have kept your root directory as "standard parts" and then built you subs in here.

You will need to change your project file or files to point to this NEW DIRECTORY.

IV will search the root directory and its subs.

[Anonymous]

Ok...Can I take my original folder and RENAME SUBS? In other words keep the
root and add/rename subs?

Jeff

wrote in message news:4833395@discussion.autodesk.com...
You would have had less pain if you would have kept your root directory as
"standard parts" and then built you subs in here.

You will need to change your project file or files to point to this NEW
DIRECTORY.

IV will search the root directory and its subs.

[Anonymous]

Thanks. I am going to refer to this and use your thoughts.

Jeff

wrote in message news:4833305@discussion.autodesk.com...
Hello Jeff,

Yeah project files are strange things. You should actually read the Project
files document that Autodesk has written it may be boring but it is worth
its weight in gold. Think of Project Files as Shortcuts to Shortcuts. I
organize my project file by clients and jobs. I do not have my Projjects
Folder pointing to the standard locaton for Inventor. I have a folder on my
C:drive called C:\InvProjs and under this I have two sub folders, one for
R09_Proj and one for R10_Proj. Inventor 9 is set up to point to the first
one and Inventor 10 is set up to point to the second one. That way my
Inventor R9 and my Inventor R10 never get their projects mixed up. See the
Files tap on the Applications Options for Inventor.

When I create a project the top level folder is the Client/Job and under
that I have folders for
Assemblies
Parts
Drawings
Presentatons.

One of the things I like is "Frequently Used Subfolders" see the Inventor 10
Samples project file. You could make this point to you legacy parts that you
use over and over again.

So the Workspace you would see the Assemblies Parts Drawing Presentations
folders, the Fequently Use Subfolders would point to all of your legacy data
you could even make this a seperate project and include it in your top leve
project so you only have to chage the "Frequenlty Use Subfolders" project
just once and all project who include this will be automaticall updated.
Trust me project files are about good organisation. Open up these project
and look at their internals make a backup copy and play with the project
file and see what works best for you.

Vault is a must have must use. I has saved my a$$ on numerous occassions.
Read the "Managing your Data" pdf document. A great think about Vault is
that you can go bakc to a previous state of the design say you saved your
assembly to the vault and a design junction point and continue to work on
your design and descide you dont like the design and you want to go back to
where you were a few days ago. In Vautl this is easy you simply restore your
Vault to that point in time and you dont have to work "do i have the right
drawing and part file etc, it just happenbs".

To understand Project Files and Vault you need to do some reading and
planning up front but believe me it pays.

I hope that will give you some encouragement.
Kindest regards,
Charles McAuley - Autodesk.

[Anonymous]

Jeff wrote
Can I take my original folder and RENAME SUBS? In other words keep the
root and add/rename subs?

Yes
I do exactly that.
I have a file call standard parts and in that file I have 20 or so files for
motors,hydraulic fittings, cylinders, bearings, springs and so on.
And I can add another folder anytime I need to and it doesn't cause any
problem.

Every new project I start has the Standard Parts file included in the
project file.

Lester

[Anonymous]

Yes and when the resolve dialog box comes up just make sure that the option for using that folder for other part resolution is check.

You should make the overall standard directory an existing library in your project. This will make it read only within the projects that refer to it but that sounds like what you want.

I have a collection of project defined for just editing developing my standard content. Examples of these are project for:
iParts
Templates
iFeatures
Standard products

I make these project current when I need to editing any of those type of items. With all regular projects these items are just referred to so them being a library path (read only to the current project) is what I want.

Remember the only exception to the library path read only status is the _iParts type of library path where you are directing where you want your iPart children to land.

[ddupont]

I wanted to get in this discussion about Projects because we use one project for all our work here (See Attached)

I'm not sure if other users use Inventor this way but for us it works OK. All of our designs and filed under different folder like, all of our Part Loaders are stored under the folder Loaders and all loader components and stored in a subfolder under loaders. We have a folder named workups that have project related assembly layouts. This way we can get to every project that we have to work on. This is getting to be a very large folder structure now but I have not seen any linking problems yet. One problem that we are having is that all of us here are in single user mode and we can over write each other if we are not careful. That has only happened a couple of times in 3 years.
Is there any one else out there set up like this?
We are thinking about going to Vault but not sure if it will be any better.
Doug

[ddupont]

I forgot to attach the file.
Sorry
Doug