Doing a "save as" on an assembly with references in 2003...

We used to be able to do a "save as" on assemblies before by using the
"references" button and changing the names of the parts in the dialog
box
to the new names. Any references to other parts would also carry over
to the new
parts with the new names. It seems however that since we upgraded to
2003 that even though we follow the same procedure, including making
sure we have any
parts that are to be renamed open in Solidworks, that all references
are lost.
Has anyone else experienced this??
Being able to do a "save as" on assemblies is a real time saver for
us and losing this functionality really hurts our productivity.

 

Use SolidWorks Explorer...gain back productivity.

 

If you are copying an assy...

Start SW Explorer

Open the assy

Right click the assy name in the feature tree, select "copy"

Check the option "save children"

Name appropriately.

Click "Apply"

Done.

 

What do you mean by "all references are lost"? Do you mean just the name
that is shown in the FeatureManagerTree?

I seem to recall there being an issue early on (SP0?) where some text was
not getting updated correctly/immediately... though the file references were
actually correct. What service pack are you using?

To test: after doing the [File|Save As], select [File|Find References]. Are
the referenced files listed correctly on the dialog?

 

Dean,

Good point, I just ran into the same issue. There is actually an option that
everyone should check out. Under tools, options, external references there
is an option "update part name in feature manager after replace" or
something close to that.

Why would you not want the names to update? I dunno, probably just to
confuse the hell out of someone (like myself!)

Todd

 

I remember running into the issue one day of replacing a part with another
file of a different name and only the first instance of that part would
actually have its name changed - the others would all stay as they were.
However, if you did a RMB on one of them and went to properties, they did,
in fact, point to the proper file. I wrote it off because a reboot of the
machine seemed to fix it. But, I agree, why would you ever not want the
name to update????

WT

 

I think this setting is a legacy of the way SWX worked previously. If
you choose to save all files as part numbers only, in older versions
you would only see part numbers in the feature tree in an assembly
which wasn't very helpful. This could be overridden in the component
properties dialog box so a description could be shown instead, but the
descriptions got overwriten in some circumstances (I can't remember
what they were however). The setting you're describing stopped the
descriptions from being lost. Now we can show the description
property in the tree it's possibly not required any more.
Shane