Should I upgrade to 2006?

The time is getting close to upgrading (or in this case downgrading) to
2006. Here is the issue. I am trying to get my people to use custom
properties. The SW interface isn't particularly friendly, but in 2004
it follows MSoft convention and allows cutting and pasting. The 2006
Custom property interface doesn't allow cutting and pasting. SW has,
since day one had the ability to paste into custom props and why they
didn't keep this in 2006 (actually 2005 started it) I can't fathom. Did
200,000 users specifically ask that SW drop this functionality? I you
did, please tell me why.

 

Annoying, isn't it. If this is a show stopper to you, then I guess don't
upgrade. A workaround is use Design Tables for your Custom Properties.

Best Regards,
Devon T. Sowell
www.3-ddesignsolutions.com

 

I'm confused - I cut & paste Config Specific Properties all the time. What
is it exactly that you can't do?

WT

 

I can cut and past using <ctrl X> & <ctrl V>

Dennis

 

I must be missing something because I tried to paste into config
specific custom props from excel and it wouldn't go.

 

Hello Wayne-

I have difficulty Copying and Pasting more than one line at a time. I
believe this is what TOP is referring to. Is Copying and Pasting more than
one line at a time possible?

Thanks,
Devon T. Sowell
www.3-ddesignsolutions.com

 

Right, this too is a problem.

Devon

 

Yes and no, here is what I do. Say you have an Excel sheet, or whatever
with the following text in three cells.

Description1 Text Thing1
Description2 Text Thing2
Description3 Text Thing3
Description4 Text Thing4
Description5 Text Thing5
Description6 Text Thing6


1. Highlight all and copy those as a block with Ctrl-C.
2. Now go to the SW properties box and select the first row by clicking on
the header so it highlights the whole row.
3. Hit Ctrl-V.
4. Click in the Value/Text Expression box so it puts the cursor there and
unhighlights the whole row. The text in that box will be highlighted, but
that's ok.
5. Hit the Enter key.
6. Hit your down arrow key to jump down a row.
7. Continue 5 & 6 until all the rows are in. A bit kludgy, but not too bad.

You can also copy and paste custom properties from another SW part with the
same method.

WT

 

Awesome. Great tip, thanks.

Devon

 

There are so many free apps for custom properties, and even if there
weren't you could write one in an hour that would do what you need it to
do. This shouldn't be the only thing holding you back from 2006.

 

This I am aware of. There are still times when I want to work manually.
SW after all revamped the whole custom property interface in 2005. And
in so doing lost some very basic MicroSoft functionality. Now some
people say they can cut and paste and yet I couldn't do this from
excel. So it will have to wait till Monday for me to check this twist
out.

As for custom prop apps I use swCP for it's programmability. But there
are certain custom properties that swCP doesn't handle and these I may
want to do a cut and paste on.

 

TOP,
Aside from the specific issue of cut/paste into properties, I would say 2006
is a BIG improvement over 2004 - I've recently done the upgrade myself.

Some highlights for me are :-
- a measure tool that is just about useable, as opposed to completely crap
- better control over which model dimensions are inserted into which
drawing view.
- better control over which sketch relations are automatically inferred.
- improved BOM capabilities

John H

 

This goes back to what I've been saying all along. There are two
different versions of SolidWorks maintained by two different sets of
coders. There just have been too many regressions when new versions
come out for this not to be the case.

In any event a macro to do what you want would be almost trivial to
write. If you aren't macro savvy I would write it for you.

Lemme know here as e-mail is no longer functional and I like it that
way!
===========================================================================
Chris

 

That's pretty cool Wayne, but I still have to try it on my machine.

What I found is that your method does indeed work. I would never have
guessed that Custom Props could be spiked. However, when I try to replace
just a single value by CTRL-V on one cell it causes the cell to blank until
I scroll down one. That is pretty quirky.

 

Try this. Paste something into the SW cell just like you would think would
work and then hit your left arrow. I think what happens is that the pasting
operation keeps the cursor at the left side of the property cell, but puts
the pasted in info to the left of it. Therefore you see nothing until you
scroll to the left.

I've never turned that in, but maybe I should. Hmmm.

WT