Ability to save .f2d files (drawings) to disk from a project?

[chris.monachanZWSCF]

I've got an addin which allows me to backup a project folder to disk. It navigates the current folder and then uses the export manager to save to disk anything that is a .f3d file as an archive. It also uses the handy new function download() on DataFile which allows me to save other files (.svg, .txt, etc)

The only thing I can't find a way to save out is drawing files. (.f2d). Drawing documents do have their own ExportManager but that only seems to let me saving a drawing out as a PDF (the documentation is wrong here btw, it talks about STEP files). I can't even save the drawings out as the same options in the UI (dwg, dxf, etc)

Can anyone see any way to get .f2d files saved on disk for archival? I don't see why the DataFile->download() function only lets you download non Fusion files, it's obvious internally they're just stored as .f3d and .f2d files anyway. 

[BrianEkins]

There are two file types that are not possible to save locally and both for the same reason. The file types are for drawings and designs with external references. The problem with these two file types is they are not standalone files but rely on references to other files and resolving these references depends on the files being on Fusion Team. If you use the web interface and download a design for either one of these you'll see that you get an f3z file. This is a zip file that contains the file you wanted, plus all of the files it references. To use this f3z file you have to upload it to Fusion Team so it has all of the required files and can reconstitute the file references to make the file you want usable.

[chris.monachanZWSCF]

Hi Brian, thanks for the comprehensive reply.

I am still a little confused though, as using the ExportManager it does let me save out f3d files for designs which have other assemblies referenced in them. When I then uploaded them into another area of Fusion Team it resolves the external reference. I've not tried, but I assume if I deleted the referenced file then uploaded the .f3d file I'd get an error that it couldn't resolve the reference. It's a shame this can't be done with the f2d files as I'd assume they just hold a reference by ID to the original design, in the same way a design that references another design does.

Or another helpful solution would be to expose the f3z functionality through the API.

Effectively I'm trying to get a backup of everything, in an automated way, (just latest version) that we have stored in Fusion Team, to meet our backup requirements.