Improve Wire Annotation utility related to Internal/External assignments

[dougmcalexander]

Normally you insert a terminal strip with the Terminal Strip Editor and you can designate which wires are Internal and External.  The wire number annotation inserts as designated and all is good in the world.  Later however, someone makes an edit to the schematic that they know will affect the wire numbers of the terminal strip.  Rather than rebuild the strip via the Terminal Strip Editor, they take what they might consider to be a more expedient approach by using the Wire Annotation utility on the Panel menu tab.  However, if one uses this utility to annotate a terminal strip, the Internal and External assignments change and wires could move from one side to the other.  Please enhance the Wire Annotation utility to refresh the terminal strip wire number annotations but retain the Internal and External designations, unless they were intentionally changed by the operator, via the Schematic tab>Edit Components panel>Terminal: Mark Internal or External Connections.

[Icemanau]

The problem here is that ACADE uses two totally different systems to store the Internal/External data of terminals.

The schematic system saves this information on the actual terminals, while the TSE system saves that information as XDATA on the first component on the wire that is connected to the terminal.

This leads to many conflicts between the two systems.

The Wire Annotation command would seem to use the Terminal data rather than the XDATA that the TSE sets up.

Personally, I believe the problem came about because two different programming teams did NOT communicate their intentions to each other.

They need to sit down, go over both sets of programming and change one system or the other so that there is no conflict. The better method would be to use the system that stores the data on the terminals rather than as XDATA on a totally unrelated component.

Until the conflict is removed, there will always be some sort of problem between the two systems and we as users will have to jump through several dozen hoops to get things done rather than only one or two.

Regards Brad

[ccad2509]

Icemanau

well put across two systems confilicting with each other

my minority view is go back to a method that worked well but got wasted by bently

promis e  was all based around the database when you paged up/down the page hesitated for a split second probably a fraction longer than what acade does at the moment in that period the database refreshed all the data points on the drawing it was consistent and a lot of issues with acade would go away if they changed the implemetation  to work that way

but its probably an idea to far ahead at the moment as they are committed to going down this same path

[miles.nicholson]

to be fair most customer who used promise didnt use the terminal editor as in their words it was extremely buggy so hopefully we dont go down the same route

[ccad2509]

Sorry Miles where did you get that nugget of information?

I had promis e 5.2 and the base product worked pretty good I never had any issues with the terminal reports to the point that

I paid for the extra terminal module as the base product produced an access report for terminal blocks and the added module wrote the data back into Dwg files

Now be careful here because you’re getting very close to the ACADE Nuremberg defence

Which must be issued out somewhere as it’s a common response when talking to distributor’s tech support people?

Which is?

XX years ago product X didn’t do this but Acade does this

Which is a blatantly slewed statement if your trying to compare like for like then use the Acade version for the year you’re trying to justify your statement?

Back when promis e was at 5.2 Acade was at 2004/5 version do you want to go down the like for like comparison then because of the top of my I head I can think of a few things promis e did then which Acade still can’t do and there not small items

That said you’re trying to cloud the issue

What I’m getting at is if Acade implemented the same method of data manipulation quite a few problems will go away

Even the stock response of rebuilding/deleting the scratch database which seems to clear a multitude of problems

Maybe you should be asking why deleting the scratch database clears so many issues so is there something fundamentally broken with how Acade creates and interacts with the scratch database because that’s what I believe

Just a user

Not a consultant

[miles.nicholson]

Apologies ccad2509. I wasnt either trying to cloud the issue nor upset anyone. This is however an AutoCAD Electrical ideastation and not a PromisE ideastation. My comment was purely based on feedback from promise users and not of my own experience of the product as I clearly stated in the post. We dont want a product that falls foul of the same issues. I also appreciate that no software is EVER 100% bug free and nor can any developer ever guarantee this. 

[dougmcalexander]

Sorry about my previous post. Mr forum admin, please move my 3-pole fuse comments to my post related to Electrical Audit and 3-pole fuses. I'm posting from my phone and replied to the wrong post.

[ccad2509]

Hello miles ill accept you apology

Just look at my original comment I was stating maybe it would be better to rework the way Acade works with its database and you can see my thoughts in the second reply

There’s something wrong very wrong with the scratch database but everybody is either totally ignoring the issue or too scared to rock the boat

if you troll though this forum a common solution to a user problem is to delete the scratch database with so many problems solved by this it makes you think there s something very wrong here

I accept that software cannot be 100% bug free but when you have issues that have existed for over 10 years in a product any reasonable person would deem that unacceptable and again now it again makes you think about what’s happening

1) Not enough resources to cover the issues

2) Autodesk knows and doesn’t care

3) Autodesk knows but can’t solve the problem

Take your pick

[t_chaws]

Hi Doug, 

Thank you for your idea. We have added your suggestion to our review bucket. 
We encourage you to post more such ideas and dont forget to give kudos to other ideas that you support.

Best Regards, 

AutoCAD Electrical Product Team