Naming and Versioning

Wow, the past few weeks have passed by quicker than usual! In my last posting, I mentioned that I had just watched the Space Shuttle Discovery launch. It is old news now, but thankfully the mission was successful and the crew and orbiter returned safely. The MARS Reconnaissance Orbiter was also launched this month, and is supposed to examine the Red Planet in the greatest detail yet. Researchers say that all information previously coming back was through a cocktail straw - "soon" scientists will have a fire hose! Drinking from a fire hose … that is how I sometimes feel when trying to keep up with the breadth and pace of our product line. I imagine that is how you feel too. Hopefully these blogs are helpful in communicating key concepts and techniques in digestible chunks.

At this point in time, I am rationing consciousness - so my posting may be a bit edgy and brief. Public school starts early here in Florida, officially ending our summer in early August. Our neighborhood was caught up in a High School rezoning battle, which has been quite an unpleasant and challenging situation. After all the energy spent trying to work the system and resolve this, I am exhausted. We were successful in getting Danielle into the desired school as she begins 9th grade. (I just kept reminding myself that we had to get her into the "right" school, since someday I can remind her of this when she is picking my retirement home…) Anyway, I can think of many names that I would like to use for the school board members, but let me pursue a more constructive use of naming...

What's in a Name?
In Pro/INTRALINK 3.x, the object name directly corresponds to the Pro/ENGINEER filename with extension. This was referred to as the Product Item, and had to be unique across the entire Commonspace. As the design evolved, different versions of the master item would be created (hence the term PIV = Product Item Version). There are many similarities, but Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 approaches naming and versioning a little differently - and offers some nice enhancements.

For more information about this topic, please refer to the following:

• Using Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire with Windchill (p. 4-45)
• Windchill Business Administrator's Guide (p. 3-44)

Note that you can ignore the references to WTParts or enterprise parts which are used by PDMLink.

When a new object is created in Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 2.0, you may have noticed an extra field on the dialog box. The following figure shows this dialog along with a definition for the Name and Common Name fields. The concept of a CAD Document Number is new compared to 3.x.

Figure 1 - Pro/ENGINEER New Object Dialog

Once uploaded or checked in to the server, these values will appear in the metadata area of the details page and columns of the item table. The actual Pro/ENGINEER data file is stored as primary content to the CAD document object. A new concept is the ability to store secondary content (images, STEP file, etc.) as attachments.

Figure 2 - Object Details Page

Figure 3 - Commonspace Folder Contents

Each company may take a different approach to naming conventions. Combined with Pro/INTRALINK 8.0, Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire supports four policies to determine how newly created items (CAD Documents) are named and numbered. No matter which policy is used, system constraints require that the CAD document Number and content File Name must both be unique across the system.

1. Auto Numbering
2. Name-driven
3. Parameter-driven
4. Custom

Auto Numbering

• The CAD document Number is provided by the CAD Doc number generator. OOTB this is just a simple Oracle counter that starts at one, and increments by one.
• The default value for the CAD document Name is copied from the Common Name, or Pro/ENGINEER object name if Common Name is null. The file extension (.prt, .asm, etc.) can be optionally dropped by setting a property.
• The Number field is typically not editable, but the Name field is.
• This is the default OOTB naming and numbering policy.

Name-driven

• The CAD document Number and Name are both copied from the Pro/ENGINEER model name. The file extension can be optionally dropped by setting a property.
• The CAD document Name and Number fields are editable by the user.

Parameter-driven

• The CAD document Number is copied from the value of the Pro/E designated parameter specified by the .ini key PROENumberingParameter.
• The value for the CAD document Name is copied from the Pro/E designated parameter specified in the .ini key PROENamingParameter.

Custom

• Use the Object Initialization Rules administrator

The .ini file referred to above is cadxhtmlui.ini, which is stored in the <IL8_loadpoint>\codebase\com\ptc\windchill\cadx\cfg\default.

As mentioned above, some useful properties to set in this file control the dropping of filename extensions during upload:

UploadDropNameFileExtension=true
UploadDropNumberFileExtension=true

Renaming
The CAD Document Name, File Name, and Number (if auto-numbering is disabled) can be renamed from the Workspace, but only for new (uploaded, but never checked-in) objects. Select the desired objects using All or individual check boxes, or the new Shift multi-select. Next, use the pull-down menu File > Rename. The tool allows you to specify configuration and dependency criteria to build the object list. Values can be entered into individual cells, or perform a mass rename using Set New Name and wildcard specifications.

Figure 4 - Rename from Workspace

Existing objects that have been checked-in can only be selected for rename individually in the Commonspace. Choose Rename from See Actions, then a form similar to the one shown in the figure above will appear to allow the application of rules and completion of the rename.

If the objects are downloaded or checked-out, you may have to perform a File > Synchronize Workspace.

Versioning
The goal of this section is simply to compare the terminology between Pro/INTRALINK 3.x and 8.0. Please take a look at James Gehan's recent posting "Revisioning Enhancements in Pro/INTRALINK and Windchill PDMLink 8.0" for a different angle.

Figure 5 - Versioning Comparison

That's all for now folks!

Do you have any feedback about this article? What would you like to learn more about? I would really appreciate a quick message to 'tmcnaney' at 'ptc.com'. You can also share your ideas with the community in the Site Suggestions & Ideas forum.

Tom McNaney, Jr.
MCAD Principal Specialist PTC