Manage Data Shortcuts

[Anonymous]

I find myself being the senior (and only) CAD Technician at my company.  Our outside consultant, who regularly messes up our files, came in to give a tutorial on Civil 3d this morning.  When I asked him why I have to Set Working Folder every time I switch projects, he implied that there is a way to have AutoCad do that automatically, but couldn't be coaxed into telling me how or where to find it.  He just said it's in the Options.

Well, it's not in the Options, as far as I can see.  Is there a system variable I am missing?  There has to be  a thousand of them, so I'm probably missing a few.  Having to Set Working Folder every time I change projects is a huge time drain.  Especially when I need to make a minor change in one drawing that only takes a few minutes.

[rl_jackson]

You can associate the drawing or multiple drawings to the project (right-click on data shortcuts)

[Anonymous]

I understand that to be the case, if every drawing I open is in the same place, and uses the same data.  This is not the case, as different projects are in different places around the country.  That is useful only when creating new drawings for whatever project I am working on.  

So here's my real question: Why do I need to change the data path every time I switch projects?  It should be set up already if it was done correctly when the job was created, right?

[Joe-Bouza]

Yo shouldn't have to. Once associated they should maintain the connectio

[tcorey]

You don't have to Set Working Folder ever time you switch projects. Any projects that reside in the same folder can be accessed without using Set Working Folder. If you have a group of projects stored in a different place, then yes, you need to Set Working Folder so that you can access them.

EXCEPT

If you Associate Project to Current Drawing or Associate Project to Multiple Drawings then Civil 3D Current Project will change to the appropriate project any time an associated drawing is opened, even if the projects are in different locations.

I am not super-fond of the way this works. I would rather be able to set a drawing as project-based or not project-based. Any drawing that is project-based would automatically be associated to a project. Period. No choice. Take it or leave it. That would cut way down on the possibility of errors caused by not remembering to switch projects when you open a drawing that has not specifically associated to one.

[Anonymous]

That means to me that they were not done correctly from the start.  I'm not a fan of closing CAD every time I need to open a file, I prefer to open dwgs directly from windows explorer.  Could that be why project data isn't pathed right?  

For example, I just opened a dwg for 0541.  Upon closing that dwg, I don't shut down Acad, but navigate to 0523 in explorer, and open it from there.  The new project shows the old data shortcuts.

If this means I will need to go thru every job folder and associate the project it would be a huge waste of time, but necessary if I need to work on those projects.  If it means I need to change my habit of leaving cad open all the time, and begin reopening for each project.... ugh.

There has to be a simpler solution. 

edit: tcorey may be on to something.  My firm uses a different folder for each project, and I don't see management oking a change to the file structure. A simple project based/non-project based switch during setup would do away with the problem entirely.

[Joe-Bouza]

I'd break that habit of opening through win explorer. particularly if you have more then one version or vertical. acad runs the last profile open when WE is used