Folder Manager

The Folder Manager is used for the structuring of design projects. Individual articles and groups of articles can be assigned to custom folders using this tool. The structure created in the Folder Manager will be transfered into the Article List in that identical form.

Here is an example to show how the Folder Manager can be used. The point is to give a structure to the design shown in the screenshot below.

Clicking on the Folder Manager button on the Configurator tab in the Configurator group will open it. Then you will see all the articles from your design listed there as entries. Two vertical columns are used, as in general file managers, to enable you to organize your articles and folders with maximum efficiency.

Besides individual articles and folders, groups of articles (hierarchical articles, configurations) are shown in the Folder Manager. To make it easier for the user to distinguish them, different icons and fonts are used to represent each type, as the screenshot below will make clear.

To move from one side of the Folder Manager to the other, use either a mouse click or the Tab key. So that you are always sure which side of the Folder Manager you are currently working on, the active side will be highlighted in the breadcrumb trail area. The active page is the one on the right in the screenshot below.

The “breadcrumb trail” is to show which level of the folder structure you are currently in (the red frames in the next screenshot have been inserted make this clear).

The uppermost level of the Folder Manager is called Drawing. You can create your own structure, starting with this directory. Clicking on the arrows to the right of the folder names in the breadcrumb trail opens a short menu which is a list of the relevant sub-folders. You can select an entry straight from this menu and will then find you have gone to the relevant directory. The example in the screenshot below shows the sub-folders for 1st Floor. The folder in which you are currently working will be shown in bold (here, it is Office Smith & Miller).

Double-clicking will open both folders and groups of articles (by these are meant hierarchical articles and configurations). The screenshot below shows a configuration opened as an example. On the left-hand side, the closed configuration is shown and on the right-hand side, the configuration when opened is shown, as an aid to understanding.

It is possible to make use of the functions of the Folder Manager by means of buttons, by a right mouse click, the use of the context menu, and sometimes by keyboard shortcuts.

To create a folder, click on the button with the “plus” sign or press F7 or go into the context menu (right click, menu item New). To continue using the example given above, first a folder is created with the name 1st Floor, then this is opened with a double click and then the directories for Office Smith & Miller, Red Lounge and Secretariat are created.

A folder which has been selected can be deleted by clicking on the button with the x-symbol, by pressing the Delete key on the keyboard or by going into the context menu (right click, Delete menu item).

It is, of course, possible to delete several folders at once. To do this, follow the usual Windows procedure, marking them by a left click while the Ctrl key is held down. This is how the directories Office Smith & Miller and Secretariat have been marked in the following screenshot.

Deleting a folder which contains articles moves the relevant articles to the next higher level of your folder structure. It is only possible to delete articles themselves within the drawing – not in the Folder Manager.

When folders have been created, the articles from your drawing can be assigned to those folders. There are two alternative ways of doing this. Both are described in the two subsections below. It is also possible to assign articles to a predetermined directory as a default. The way to do this is described later, below.

1.Open the folder into which you wish to place the article from the drawing by double clicking on it (in this case, Office Smith & Miller).

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2.Select all articles in a drawing that need to be placed in the folder.

3.Then click on the symbol that represents the Move selected articles to active folder function (see red frame in next screenshot).

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All articles selected in the drawing will now be stored in the relevant folder (in this case, Office Smith & Miller) – see next screenshot.

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The procedure here described will work for moving all articles into their appropriate sub-directories. If steps 1 to 3 are used in the same manner for Red Lounge and Secretariat, the result will be as follows (see next screenshot).

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Thus, in the uppermost directory (Drawing), there will only be a single folder (1st Floor) and this in turn will contain the sub-directories to which the various articles have been assigned.

It is also possible to move articles into any folder by means of drag and drop.

1.First double click when the cursor is on the folder to which the articles are to be sent, on either the right or the left side of the Folder Manager.

2.Select all articles in the drawing that need to be placed in the folder.

3.Move the cursor across any of the marked objects.

4.Use a left click and keep the mouse button down while you move the cursor to the Folder Manager, as shown in the next screenshot.

5.When you release the mouse button all the articles you had marked will have been stored in the folder selected.

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If you want to store articles in a particular folder using drag and drop but do not want to open them yet, this is what to do:

1.Mark all articles in the drawing that you wish to store in a certain directory.

2.Move the cursor across any of the marked objects.

3.Use a left click and keep the mouse button down while you move the cursor to the Folder Manager, holding down the Ctrl key at the same time.

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4.If the mouse button is released when it is on the folder, all the marked articles will have been stored in that directory (in this case, Office Smith & Miller). If you do not press Ctrl first, the articles from the drawing will not be stored in the sub-directory, but in the directory which was open, in this case, 1st Floor.

When you insert articles into a drawing, they will first be placed automatically into the uppermost directory (Drawing) of the Folder Manager. Drawing is, effectively, the default directory for storage. This means, of course that any articles newly inserted should first be assigned to the correct directory within your structure. You can save yourself this step by defining a default storage folder for yourself. This is how:

The Reset Insert Folder entry has the effect of restoring the uppermost directory (Drawing) as default insertion folder.

To move articles or folders in the Folder Manager you must first select them. Then you can choose between using the double arrows button (see shot below), the F6 key or drag and drop to move them into another folder.

It should be noted that the “move” function will not work within a group of articles or a configuration.

To use drag and drop to move articles, click on the articles or folders selected, hold down the mouse button and move the cursor onto the other side of the Folder Manager, then release the mouse button (see next screenshot).

It is also possible to assign articles to a folder directly using drag and drop, without opening it first. As with the procedure described above, the Ctrl key should be held down while the mouse is moved (see next screenshot).

If you release the mouse button when it is exactly over a particular folder (in this case, Office Smith & Miller) the articles selected will have been inserted into that folder. In the example used here, the eleven articles selected on the left-hand side will have been inserted into the Office Smith & Miller directory.

In the Folder Manager, the order of the articles and folders will later be adopted for the list of articles exactly. To change this order, the Folder Manager offers the Move selected items upwards or downwards functions. The arrow buttons (see red frame in the next illustration) enable the position of articles and folders to be changed. One or more entries can be selected before the relevant arrow button is used.

Selecting particular articles in the Folder Manager enables them to be selected in the drawing if the right button is then clicked (see next screenshot).

The function described in the section above means that articles marked in the Folder Manager will appear in the drawing as having been selected. To extend this selection to include further articles, this is what to do:

There is a filter row which can be shown using the context menu (right click, Show Filter Row entry) and which will enable you to filter for Name, Reference Number or Text (see next screenshot).

Having clicked on the filter row, click again to choose between the columns Name, Reference Number or Text. Now enter the string which is to be used for the filter. In the following screenshot, it can be seen that the filter in the Text column has been activated and that the string to be filtered out is “*desk”. The “*” in front of the word “desk” is a wild card, meaning that any articles will be listed which have other strings in the Text column in front of “desk”, for example “Work desk”.

Comparing the left and the right sides of the Folder Manager will help make clear how the filter works. The same folder is shown on both sides, but on the right the “*desk” filter has been applied. The system itself has automatically inserted the asterisk after “desk”.

It is possible to use filters for several columns at the same time. In the example used here, an additional filter could be set for the Name column in which the string “1*” is the filter. The following screenshot shows the outcome of the operation.

To edit or delete the filter entry for a column, double click on it. This will select it (see red frame in next screenshot) and it can now be either altered or deleted by pressing Backspace on the keyboard.

It is possible to deactivate the filter row, again using the context menu (right click) and the Show Filter Row entry. Even if the filter row has been deactivated, the entries you have made for the Name, Reference Number and Text columns will not be lost. They will appear again next time the filter row is called up.

Reference numbers are a way of giving articles and folders an additional form of identification. One example of their use is in invitations to tender, for which it is necessary to assign articles to particular item positions in the tender document.

To create reference numbers manually, simply click in the relevant Reference Number field for the folder or article, type in a number and confirm with the Enter key.

Clicking on the relevant button (shown on the left-hand side of the next image) in the Folder Manager toolbar enables you to launch a dialog from which reference numbers can be generated automatically (as shown on the right-hand side of the next illustration). It should be noted that the objects (whether folders or articles) which are to be provided with reference numbers must be selected before the dialog is opened.

The table below gives details of the options available in the Reference Number dialog.

Counter	Description
Start Value	This is where to set the number that is to be at the beginning of the enumeration. If the details from the dialog shown above are used, the first article will be given the number 100.
Step	The Step field determines the increments for counting purposes. If the details from the dialog shown above are used, the first article will be given the number 100, the second article the number 110 – and so on.
Digits	This is the value determining the number of digits in the reference numbers.
Mask	The Hash key (#) has the effect of ensuring the enumeration appears automatically as set in the dialog (Start Value, Step, Digits). If the Mask is left empty and Overwrite existing positions is checked under Operation, the previous entries will be deleted. The Reference Number field will then be empty for the articles or folders which had been previously selected. There is another description option available if one uses the asterisk () or wild card. Used alone, it only ensures that the existing reference details are kept. Its usefulness here is when it is given a prefix or suffix. Entering “.new” would then have the effect of adding the string “.new” to the details already created (110.new, 110.new and so on).
Operation	Description
Overwrite existing positions	This entry can be checked as an alternative to Fill only empty positions. It has the effect of overwriting both existing reference numbers and empty fields.
Fill only empty positions	This entry can be checked as an alternative to Overwrite existing positions. Its effect is to write into empty reference number fields only. The details for existing positions will be unchanged.
Process sub item	This option ensures that any objects (whether folders or articles) in directories and sub-directories are also taken into account for naming purposes. If this box is checked, the whole hierarchy of the structure will be processed.
Always restart numbering (further option under Process sub item).	This additional option provides for new numbering in each sub-directory. If you do not use it, all the entries will be numbered cumulatively on the way through all the folders.
Assign to folders	Checking this box means the reference numbers are only given to folders.
Assign to articles	Checking this box means the reference numbers are only given to articles.
Same number for identical articles (further option under Assign to articles)	This additional option will ensure that identical articles always get the same reference number.

The example which follows is intended to clarify the procedure for automatic generation of reference numbers.

Again for the drawing which deals with Office Smith & Miller, Red Lounge and Secretariat, the intention is to provide all folders and articles with reference numbers in the Folder Manager.

The following assumptions apply:

•The folders are to be given two-digit numbers, 01 to 03.

•The articles in the relevant folders are to be given two-digit numbers but starting anew each time.

The three folders are first marked, the dialog for creating reference numbers is opened and the settings as shown in the illustration on the right are selected. Clicking on OK provides folders and articles with two-digit reference numbers.

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The effect is shown in the red frame marked on the next screenshot. Both the articles (on the right-hand side) and the folders (on the left-hand side) have received two-digit reference numbers in all cases. As they relate in all cases to a distinct level in the Folder Manager structure, they are called local reference numbers.

To identify articles or objects uniquely there are “fully qualified” reference numbers (Drawing Reference Numbers). These are visible in the Folder Manager when an object is selected. The screenshot below shows the Drawing Reference Number for the article selected (underlined in red) in the right-hand side of the window.

The fully qualified Reference Number will also be repeated in the Article List (see next illustration).

The structure stored in the Folder Manager will be reproduced in the Article list. The Article list is opened by clicking on the button of that name on the Configurator tab in the Configurator group. The Article list shown in the screenshot below is that for the furnishings of one of the rooms in the example used for this section.