Swap Update Block for Multiple DWG's

[Anonymous]

Hello All,

I ran into an issue where I needed to make a change to a block and that block is in multiple w-blocked DWG's so I need to update all DWG's that contain this block. Our idea was to add all of the DWG's to a project and then run the swap update block command, the problem is that all of these DWG's are organized into folders and sub-folders and I can't find a way to add a folder into a project, it makes me go into each sub-folder and select the DWG's that way which will take a lot of time if that is the procedure everytime we change a block.

So the question is, is there a way to select one folder and have ACADE add all DWG's in that folder to the project?

or is there a better way to accomplish what I am trying to do?

Thanks for the help,

Joe

[jseefdrumr]

I'm not sure if there is a way to do this by folders, but it's not too hard to do by drawing. I did something similar a couple of weeks ago.

I started a new (throwaway) project, went to 'add drawings', navigated to the folder where I had put them, and picked all 15 at once with a window. All were added to my project and I was able to update the block they held using the project-wide update/swap tool.

All drawings maintained their paths, nothing was moved. When I was done, I simply deleted the .wdp file for that project.

It may be a little burdensome, especially if you have a bazillion drawings to do, but it's probably faster than opening each individual project and updating that way.

There is a "Super Project Manager" tool available at Doug McAlexander's website, but I'm not sure it will do what you want.

Hope this helps,

Jim

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply Jim, that is along the lines of what I am trying to do but the problem is that my DWG's are not all in the same folder. I have a folder tree to keep the 100's of DWG's organized so I need to be able to select the top level folder and add all DWG's contained in that folder and all sub-folders. Not sure if this is possible.

Thanks,

Joe

[jseefdrumr]

I don't think it is. Hopefully one of the 'superusers' will chime in here with a better solution.

Meanwhile, it's not necessary for all of the dwg's to be in the same folder for the above method to work; you can add the folders one at a time. It's cumbersome, but you could start a dummy project, go to 'add drawings', navigate to one of your subfolders, and add all of the drawings in it. (You can use a window to select all drawings in that subfolder.) Then repeat that process for every subfolder that has drawings that need to be modified. In theory, you can actually update all of your drawings in one fell swoop, but actually adding them to the dummy project will take some time. Still, it's probably faster than opening each individual project.

It's the only workaround I can think of.

Good luck,

Jim

[dougmcalexander]

Perhaps this might work for you.  I sell an add-in called the System-wide Update Block Tool.  You select a block to update and then select the base folder where your projects are located.  You will see a dialog that lists all project definition files (.wdp) in this path.  You can then select any or all of the projects and the update utility will update the block across all projects.  It uses the .wdp file to know where all of the drawings are located. You could just choose one project to process if you wish.

You can watch a demo video of this add-in at: www.ecadconsultant.com

It is one of the videos near the top of the Tips/Tricks page of the web site.

[Anonymous]

That looks like a useful tool, but the problem in this specific case is that I do not have all of the drawings in a project. Adding them to a project would be too time consuming conisdering how many folders there are and even if I did add them all to a project I would have to add all new drawings to that project and keep it up to date.

[dougmcalexander]

Are you using plain AutoCAD?  AutoCAD Electrical requires that drawings be part of a project. That's why there is a project scratch database to collect and manage how all of the drawing elements relate.

[Anonymous]

I am using Autocad Electrical. What I am trying to do is update all the blocks in my saved w-blocked circuits. I use w-blocked circuits quite a bit because it saves quite a few steps and allows me to organize better than the catalog does. But now I have some blocks that I would like to update but it seems counter-productive to add every w-blocked circuit to a dumby project.

So I have a "w-blocked circuits" folder, and inside of there are multiple folders and inside of those folders are multiple folders. What I need is a way to select the "w-blocked circuits" folder and add every DWG inside of that tree to a project. Maybe there is a better solution but I haven't found it, been looking at both Electrical and plain Autocad commands that could help and I've got nothing.

[Anonymous]

I finally figured it out, just needed to talk it through.

I opened up the folder in windows explorer and then did a search for ".dwg". I created a dumby folder and then copied all of those dwg's to the dumby folder and then was able to add all of those drawings to my dumby project through ACADE.

Edit*

But now I realized I don't have a way of putting the changed drawings back into their propper place on the server.

Edit2*

I was right there, just a little off.

So I made a new dumby project. Went to add drawings, then went to "tools" and clicked on "find". Searched the folder for a balnk drawing name with file extension .dwg and it found all the drawings. I selected them all and hit OK, then ADD and it added all of those drawings to the project.

[mkleintjens]

Hi, I know this is an old article but question to Doug; how do I know in which projects I have the block I would like to replace? 

[dougmcalexander]

My Block replacement add-in searches the projects and returns a list of the projects that contain the block. You can then choose to update all or only the ones you select. 

[dougmcalexander]

My Block replacement add-in searches the projects and returns a list of the projects that contain the block. You can then choose to update all or only the ones you select.