Delete Custom Properties - Multiple Files

[ct27gt]

Hi All,
I am new to the forums and new to Solid Edge (< 2 weeks). I previously used Solidworks for 4 yrs. I could not find a good answer to this question anywhere. I apologize in advance if there is a simple way to do this, but I have not found it in hours searching.

Is there a simple way to delete custom properties from multiple files? Files that are not referencing each other specifically.

I was able to add custom properties through Property Manager to multiple unrelated files, but it will only let me show/hide them. I cannot find a way to delete these properties without going into every file individually. I am sure I must be missing something simple.

I have also tried using the "analyze data" and "modify data" programs to no avail.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[KENAT]

Do you need to 'delete' the custom properties or will setting them to be blank suffice?

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[ct27gt]

I was hoping to delete them, otherwise the list becomes cluttered with unused properties.

I would like our users to be able to go to the custom properties tab and fill out all the required information in one step. Extra unused variables will become confusing. Documentation practices here aren't very good and I am trying to create a standard template.

For example, I am trying to integrate new custom properties into all the legacy files and delete the ones that are not needed.

 

[ct27gt]

Additionally, our system is unmanaged. Hopefully that will change in the future, but I don't see that happening for quite a long time.

 

[bshand]

http://barhamsoftware.com/SE_Tools/index.htm

PropertyRemapper available at the above website can do the job.

 

[ct27gt]

Thank you. I tried that but the UI wasn't very intuitive and I couldn't even find properties within a specific file. Maybe I was doing something wrong, but it seems like it was not working for ST5. It was trying to access a file called propertymap.dat which doesn't even exist in any of the ST5 program folders.

 

[bshand]

@ct27gt - propertymap.dat is in the folder with the PropertyRemapper program. You need to read the instructions contained in that file and set the command parameters per the program at the bottom. Examples are included. The run the program and pick the folder to work on.

 

[bshand]

@ct27gt - for example if you have a property in your files called "prop2delete" which you want deleted you would have the line in propertymap.dat
as:
Custom.Prop2Delete = ""

 

[ct27gt]

WOW, WOW, WOW! Thanks so much, this worked perfectly. This is a very powerful tool. With this I can insert all the new properties, delete unused ones, and set all the new properties equal to the legacy properties. I very much appreciate you pointing me to the location of the propertymap.dat file. After that it was cake. Thanks a ton.

 

[bshand]

Awesome! I agree it's a pretty neat program once you understand it. Glad it worked out.

 

[ct27gt]

Found a slight bug and I am still trying to figure out a workaround. I would use Property Manager to insert all the NEW properties into the legacy files. The nice thing about this is I can set the formats to dates or numbers, where this does not seem possible with the Property Remapper or "Data Preparation" tools.

The larger problem, however, is the Property Remapper deletes the NEW properties if the legacy property listed in the Propertymap.dat file does not exist in the legacy file. It works great when all the legacy properties are in the file, but when it tries to replace legacy properties in some of the older files that actually do not contain any properties, it just deletes the NEW property instead of skipping it.

 

[bshand]

@ct27gt - No doubt this is not a full featured program that allows Boolean ifs, ands, ors, nots, and elses but it does do what you initially inquired about and some more. Keep in mind this is from 2006 from a private individual on a website that seems to have been inactive since 2008.

 

[bshand]

I think I found a way to make it work.

So your .dat file might contain the following:

Custom.New Property = Custom.Old Property
Custom.New Property ~ "some value"
Custom.Old Property = ""

The ~ symbol makes it only work on empty properties so it won't change files with an existing "New Property" property with the new value.
Perhaps that "some value" could just be a period "." if you want an inconspicuous field.

 

[ct27gt]

This worked beautifully. Thank you so much. When the property was not there, it put in the default value. When the property was there, it replaced it with the legacy one, then since it was not empty, it did not change it back to the default. I guess since the NEW property is deleted after the initial replace attempt, the program notices it does not exist and re-inserts it with the default value.

This will work great for inserting NEW properties into all legacy files, replacing the NEW properties with legacy properties, fill in the NEW properties with default values when there are no legacy properties, and delete old properties.

I like it. Powerful and very dangerous. haha. Unfortunately the date fields don't replace correctly when they were originally formatted as text in the legacy files, so those unfortunately will have to remain as text fields in the Border Change Template.

Very much appreciate all the help. Now if I can just find batch border conversion app I can make all of our legacy files match the standard template.

 

[ct27gt]

So I think I have nailed down how to attack these legacy files in an unmanaged environment. Please feel free to chime in if you know of a more efficient way.

1. Separate the RELEASED files from the AVAILABLE files. I have not found a good way to do this. The way I currently accomplish this is go to the Property Manager, expand all, use the "SE Status" and "Folder" properties and sort by SE Status. This allows me to have all the released files and their relative locations at the top.
2. I then use the data management tool to do an "Analyze" on the top level CAD folder. I copy the file names and folder locations of all the RELEASED files to the resulting excel analysis after deleting all others. I then sort in ascending order.
3. I create a Released folder and dump all of the files in there using the management tool "Modify" on the excel generated from the initial "Analyze" process.
4. I then batch convert these files from RELEASED to AVAILABLE.
5. I then add the NEW properties using Property Manager to both the Released folder and the files in the top level CAD folder. The RELEASED files in the top level will not populate because they are read only, but all the AVAILABLE files will. I use the Properties Manager because I have not found any other method that keeps the string type (ex: text, date, number) intact.
6. I now have the NEW properties in the original RELEASED and AVAILABLE files.
7. I now use Property Remapper to make the legacy properties equal to the NEW properties, and delete the legacy properties in both the Released and top level CAD folder. If there were no properties to begin with, the NEW properties are inserted with default values.
8. I then batch convert the files in the Released Folder back to RELEASED. I now have all originally released files with NEW properties and all legacy properties deleted.
9. I now use the original excel file and use "Modify" once more to transfer the files from the Released folder, back to their original locations. This should be as simple as copying and pasting the file path columns, especially since they are in ascending order already.
10. I am not worried about the RELEASED drawing borders because they can just be opened in a viewer program and printed. If a RELEASED file absolutely has to be rolled back, a quick change of the drawing border is all that is need to get rid of the ERROR: NO REFERENCES text.

Feel free to let me know if I am missing something or you have a more efficient way to do this. I realize how dangerous this process is, however, I believe all that would be necessary is to make a backup copy of the top level CAD folder in case anything goes wrong. The logic behind this method is that we often don't use new part/drawing/assembly templates. Our file creation method involves a lot of "Save As" using existing released assemblies. With this method, the new properties and borders can get easily perpetuated. There will be the initial tedious task of changing the borders, but once it is in most of the drawings, we should be good to go. I am afraid to use batch conversion borders (if this is even available?) for fear of not being able to print older drawings in viewer programs because of jumbled text associated with manual text boxes in older drawings overlapping the NEW properties.

 

[bshand]

@ct27gt - Don't really know what your existing conditions are so it would be hard to critique your method. We use Insight to manage our files though. The previous place I worked used Teamcenter. I did work at a place that didn't manage their SE data and they just copied files via revman to a project folder in a released master folder without giving any thought to file status. Can't remember if we zipped them at the end as well. PDFs were made as the document record.
I've also worked in unmanaged SolidWorks environments where the method was much the same.
Why don't you incorporate Insight? It's already available for free.

 

[ct27gt]

Don't know anything about the data management side of Solid Edge. I will look into it. Thank you.

 

[bshand]

Your VAR should be able to help you get started.