To Work With Data Shortcuts

Tutorial Exercise: Creating Data Shortcuts

To create data shortcuts

Create data shortcuts from the active drawing.

Data shortcuts are stored in the _Shortcuts folder for the active project and used to create data references to the source objects in other drawings.

Each data shortcut is stored in a separate XML file.

Note: The system will not allow you to create multiple shortcuts for a given object or to create a data shortcut to a reference object from another drawing.

1. In Toolspace, on the Prospector tab, right-click Data ShortcutsCreate Data Shortcuts.
2. In the Create Data Shortcuts dialog box, click any objects to be referenced in other drawings, and then click OK.

To associate a data shortcut project with the current drawing

Make a data shortcut project the default for the current drawing.

Note: This procedure explicitly creates an association. If the current drawing is not associated with a project, and a data reference is inserted, an association is created implicitly.

1. Open the drawing for which you want to set the default data shortcuts project.
2. In Toolspace, on the Prospector tab, right-click Data Shortcuts and click Associate Project to Current Drawing.
3. In the Associate Project to Current Drawing dialog box, select the project to associate in the Select Project drop-down.
   Note: To remove the associated project, set the Select Project drop-down to None.
4. Click OK. The project becomes the default data shortcut project for the drawing, and appears under the drawing’s Data Shortcuts node in the Prospector.

To associate a data shortcut project with multiple drawings

Associate a data shortcuts project with all the drawings in a folder.

1. In Toolspace, on the Prospector tab, right-click Data Shortcuts and click Associate Project to Multiple Drawings.
2. In the Associate Project to Multiple Drawings dialog box, select the project to associate in the Select Project drop-down.
   Note: To remove the associated project, set the Select Project drop-down to None.
3. Click OK. In the Browse for Folder dialog box, navigate to the folder on the filesystem that contains the drawings to associate with the project.
4. Click OK. The project is associated with all drawings contained in the folder, and appears in each drawing’s Data Shortcuts tree in the Prospector.

To reference a data shortcut

Import a reference object into the active drawing.

A project object can be referenced into the active drawing, which is called the consumer drawing.

Before referencing a project object, the current drawing must be saved.

Only one copy of a reference object can be imported into a consumer drawing. If a reference copy exists, the referencing menu option is not available.

Objects can be referenced only from the active project, which is listed in Toolspace, on the Prospector tab.

Tutorial Exercise: Referencing Data Shortcuts

1. In Toolspace, on the Prospector tab, expand the Data Shortcuts collection to find the object you want to reference.
2. Right-click the object. Click Create Reference. A copy of the object is inserted into the active drawing.

To remove a data shortcut

Remove a data shortcut to make it unavailable for future data references.

You can remove a data shortcut from the Data Shortcuts collection in Toolspace, on the Prospector tab. Doing this does not remove any data references to the source object that exist in drawings, but it prevents anyone from creating more references to the object.

1. In Toolspace, on the Prospector tab, expand the Data Shortcuts collection to find the shortcut you want to remove.
2. Right-click the object and click Remove.

To control access to the data shortcuts node

Control access to the use of data shortcuts.

You can remove the Data Shortcuts node from the Prospector tab of Toolspace. This can be useful if you want to prevent the use of data shortcuts.

Use the ShortCutNode command to either hide (disable) or show (enable) the Data Shortcuts node.

1. On the command line, enter shortcutnode.
2. Set the value to 0 to disable the Data Shortcuts node, or 1 to enable the node.

To validate data shortcuts

Data shortcuts can become invalid if changes occur to the names or locations of drawings or reference objects.

When a data shortcut reference is broken, the icon is displayed next to the invalid data reference in Toolspace, on the Prospector tab.

Validation reloads the data references if the drawing paths have not changed. Otherwise, you must repair broken references.

• In Toolspace, on the Prospector tab, right-click Data ShortcutsValidate Data Shortcuts.

  The system checks data shortcut references. If any references are broken, the Event Viewer opens and displays details that you can use to fix the problem.