Document manager - Manage all drawings and other documents

Tekla Structures
2018i
Tekla Structures

Document manager - Manage all drawings and other documents

With the new Document manager you can manage your drawings and now also other types of documents efficiently. You can reorganize, freeze, show and hide columns, edit some of the list data directly, and organize documents and drawings in custom categories, which was not possible earlier in the old Drawing list. If you have a related application installed, you can view other files, such as NC files. Document manager has a powerful search tool, and you can use wildcards and the most common search operators. You can save your searches in custom categories.

In Tekla Structures 2018i, Document manager is available by default, and it replaces the old Drawing list completely. All commands and buttons that would have launched Drawing list will now launch Document manager.

Open Document manager

Open Document manager in one of the following ways:

  • On the Drawings & reports tab on the ribbon, click the Drawing list button.

  • Press Ctrl+O if a drawing is open, or press Ctrl+L if you are in the model.

What's available in the new Document manager

As well as providing all the functionality of the old Drawing list , the following additional capabilities are available:

  • Renewed user interface.

  • Include file documents of any desired types, such as NC files, PDFs, DWGs, from specific locations into the list for searching, sorting and other actions. If you have a related software installed, you can also open other file documents by double-clicking the document, by selecting the document from the list and clicking the Open button at the bottom, or by right-clicking the document and selecting Open.

    You can define the supported file documents in the configuration file DocumentManagerFileDocumentSettings.txt in model, project, firm or system folders. By default this file is located in the ..\ProgramData\TeklaStructures\<version>\environments\<environment>\system folder, and you can copy it from there to the model, project, firm or system folder for modifications.

    For more information about defining the included file documents, see " Configure file documents to include in Document manager ".

    For more information about the folder search order, see Folder search order.

  • Reorder columns by dragging. The column order, visibility, frozen columns, and sorting order are saved in the current model folder in DocumentManagerDataGridSettings_<user>.xml. Document manager also reads files named DocumentManagerDataGridSettings.xml from the model, project, firm, and system folders. The first file found is loaded. For more information about the folder search order, see Folder search order.

  • New columns Issued , Output date (attribute PLOT_DATE), Extension , File size , Document type and File path.

  • Compact icon-based column headers for Up to date , Freeze , Lock , Ready for issuing , Issue , and Master drawing status.

  • There are no longer separate buttons available for issuing, locking, freezing or marking ready for issuing.

    You can now turn locking, freezing or marking ready for issuing on/off by selecting the drawing from the list and directly clicking the appropriate column next to the drawing. First ensure that the edit list switchis active. You can also right-click drawings and select the commands from the pop-up menu.

    To issue a drawing, select a drawing, right-click and select Issue > Issue .

  • Select parts in the model based on the drawings that you have selected in the list by clickingSelect objects in the model for selected drawings. This switch replaces the old Select objects button.

  • Select drawings in the list based on the objects that you have selected in the model by clickingSelect and show only drawings containing parts currently selected in the model. This switch replaces the old By parts button.

  • The switches Select objects in the model for selected drawings and Select and show only drawings containing parts currently selected in the model now work with GA drawings as well. The parts need to be inside the view boundaries of the GA drawing. Filters are also taken into account.

  • Selecting pours in the model based on a GA drawing also works now.

  • A new switchInvert document visibility for inverting what is shown in the list. This switch hides the currently visible documents in the list and lists all other documents. When this switch is active, it is yellow. The old Drawing list had a button Invert for this purpose.

    Any documents you have excluded from Document manager using the Exclude command will be ignored by Invert document visibility and will never be shown.

  • Only list the documents that you have selected from the list by activating the switchShow selected documents only. When the switch is active, it is yellow. This switch replaces the button Selected in the old Drawing list.

  • Only list the documents that have changed since you last activated theShow changes from the checkpoint set when the button is activated switch. If there are changed documents, and you click the switch to deactivate it, a confirmation message will be displayed. If this switch is active, and you run numbering, any drawings who's status then changes (if parts were modified, for example) will be automatically shown in the list.

  • Edit some of the data cells directly in the list, such as Name , Title 1 - Title 3 , Freeze , Lock , Ready for issuing , or a cell that comes from drawing UDAs, such as date cells. To edit, click. When direct editing is active, the switch is yellow.

  • Like Drawing list , Document manager also has a pop-up menu, or a context menu, which you can open by selecting columns or documents from the list and right-clicking. This menu contains some new commands:

    • Command Hide column to hide columns and Show column / Show all columns to show hidden columns.

    • Command Freeze at this column to freeze one or more columns to the left of the selected column.

    • Command Time display > No time , Hours and minutes , or Hours, minutes and seconds to select whether to display time in addition to date for drawing creation, modification, issued and output dates.

    • Command Copy rows to Clipboard to copy list contents to Windows Clipboard.

  • Unlimited number of user-defined attribute (UDA) columns:

    • The number of columns is no longer limited to 20.
    • Which drawing UDAs the system will load is defined in the files DocumentManagerUDAs.txt and DocumentManagerUDAs_<suffix>.txt where <suffix> can be any string. These files can be placed in model, project, firm, system and XS_INP folders. By default, DocumentManagerUDAs.txt is located in the ..\ProgramData\TeklaStructures\<version>\environments\<environment>\inp folder, and you can copy it from there to model, project, firm or system folders for modifications. The contents of each file found are merged together. For more information about the folder search order, see Folder search order.
    • The UDA names are case sensitive.
    • For more information about configuring the displayed UDAs, see Configure drawing UDAs to show in Document manager columns.
  • More powerful search including AND, OR, NOT (!), parenthesis (), quoted phrase " " and multiple column property referencing. For more information, see Document manager.

  • Another way of filtering the list of documents is using the categories:

    • Click one category or several categories using Ctrl and Shift to show the documents in the desired categories.
    • There are predefined categories, and you can save searches in custom categories, which can also be combined.
    • For example, to list up-to-date drawings only, click the Up-to-date drawings category.
    • When you right-click the category list, you can create, edit or delete a category.
    • To exclude/ include documents in an individual category from Document manager , right-click the category and select Exclude / Include. For example, if you just want to see drawings and no other documents, right-click the All files category and select Exclude.
    • All changes in categories are saved in DocumentManagerCategories_<user>.xml in the current model folder. The default categories are defined in DocumentManagerCategories.xml located in the ..\ProgramData\TeklaStructures\<version>\environments\<environment>\system folder.
    • For more information about the categories, see " Set up document categories ".
  • Any errors detected will be written in the Document manager log file \logs\Documentmanager _<user>.log under the model folder. This log file also lists the full paths of all the settings files that have been loaded ( DocumentManagerUDAs*.txt , DocumentManagerFileDocumentSettings.txt , DocumentManagerDataGridSettings*.xml and DocumentManagerCategories*.xml ), which helps you to see which settings files Document manager is finding. The log also tells if a settings file cannot be found.

  • You can open one drawing at a time by double-clicking the drawing, by selecting the drawing from the list and clicking the Open button at the bottom, or by right-clicking the drawing and selecting Open.

  • To open a folder of the selected file document in Windows Explorer, you can now right-click the document and select Open folder.

  • There are new buttons for printing and exporting drawings at the bottom of the Document manager dialog box. The Print and Export commands are also available in the pop-up menu.

  • Quick and easy creation of GA drawings using the new Create GA Drawing button. When you click this button, a dialog box is displayed where you can select the model views from which you want to create GA drawings, and then create the drawings by clicking Create. Previously, this command was only available in the pop-up menu.

  • When you have a drawing open and you have edited it manually, you can now reopen the drawing: While the drawing is open, open the Document manager , and open the same drawing again, which will show the changes.

  • You can delete drawings and file documents by selecting the documents, right-clicking and selecting Delete. When you have selected both drawings and file documents, you are asked in separate messages if you are sure that you want to delete them.

Search for documents

  • Use the search box at the top to look for the desired documents. Only the documents currently shown in the list are searched.

  • You can use wildcards *, ? and [], and operators, such as AND, OR, NOT (!), parentheses (), and quotation marks " ".

  • You can now search for documents within a specific date range or exact date, and define multiple search strings.

  • You do not need to write the operator AND, just use a space between search terms.

  • Search is case insensitive and partial. For example, searching for the string con will match with concrete.

  • To find an exact match, use an equal sign (=). When you use the equal sign, a column property must exactly match what you specify, for example.

  • Use the exclamation mark (!) to exclude from the search, for example, !steel means that the search will not find documents including the string steel.

  • Use parentheses () to create more complex expressions, for example: (steel AND concrete) OR wood.

  • Use double quotes " " to specify a phrase that includes spaces. For example, Mark: "2 - 1" shows drawings containing [B.2 - 1] and [C.2 - 1].

  • You can search for documents based on the internal name of the property (search name). The search name is shown in the property column header tooltips when you move the mouse pointer over the header. The search name is case sensitive.

  • Use a colon in the property name search, for example: CreationDate: > 11/20/2016. This search finds drawings created after the 20th of November 2016.

  • The search syntax <<inv>>(...) allows you to search for documents and create categories that work in the same way regardless of the language in use. For more information about the invariant search, see " Document manager: Invariant search values ".

  • You can search date and time in two different ways depending on the date and time format Tekla Structures is using:

    • dd.mm.yyyy or mm/dd/yyyy for dates, for example, 30.11.2018 or 11/30/2018
    • hh:mm:ss or hh:mm:sspm and hh:mm:ssam for time, for example, 17:34:45 or 05:34:45pm
  • Note that advanced options XS_​IMPERIAL_​DATE and XS_IMPERIAL_TIME determine which date and time format is active. Only the active format is used, which means that a non-imperial date will be ignored if imperial date is the active date format.

  • You can also enter partial dates and date ranges:

    • 2018 : any date and time in the year
    • 6.2018 (or 6/2018 ): any date and time in the month
    • 24.06.2018 (or 06/24/2018 : any time in the specified day
    • "06.06.2018 14" : any time in the range 14:00 to 14:59 on 06.06.2018. Note that you need to use quotes because otherwise the space is seen as the end of one search expression.
  • Save searches in user definable categories which can be multi-selected to combine one or more categories together. To save a search, right-click the categories area, and select New. For more information about the categories, see " Set up document categories ".

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