Assembly and component files directory 1

[thomasleeclark]

Dumb question: When using NX5 without Teamcenter, MUST an assembly file and its component model files all be in the same directory? This seems to be the case, but it's really inconvenient. If component .prt files can reside in a different directory, how do I set this up?
-thomasleeclark

 

[JohnRBaker]

You need to set up 'Search Folders'.

Go to...

File -> Options -> Assembly Load Options...

...and in the 'Part Versions' section of the dialog set the 'Load' type to 'From Search Folders' and then either by entering the path or using the Browse option, select the folders where you would like the system to look when opening an assembly for the components in the assembly. Note that you can have a series of 'paths' which will be 'searched' in top-down order as they appear in the list. Note that when a particular component is found, it will be loaded from the folder it was found in and even if another component of the same name is found in a subsequent folder, the first one found will be the one which is opened.

Anyway, I hope this is clear. Note that this is all covered in the 'Help' files.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[potrero]

John,
Can you comment on why the Search Folders are not recursive? We have a "Toolbox" folder which holds custom Reuse Library parts; separated into folders like "Bearings" or "Fasteners"; there are many such subfolders, and we have to manually specify every single subfolder for NX to find the parts. Why can't we specify the top level "Toolbox" folder, and NX would search within its subfolders as well?
Thanks.

 

[jpetach]

Potrero,

By adding ... to the end of the directory name specified in the list of search directories in the load options all of the subdirectories under that directory are also searched.

E.g. x:\toolbox...

Regards, Joe

 

[thomasleeclark]

Great responses, everybody. Joe's input about adding "..." was the missing piece. John, as always you nailed it, this time within minutes of my post, I think. Thanks to all.
-Tom (thomasleeclark)

 

[potrero]

@jpetach,
That is a great tip! I don't know if that exists in the documentation, but regardless, very nice. Thank you.

 

[cowski]

If you are in the assemblies help file and search on the term "add folder to search" it is on that page (but it is easy to miss).