<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation:  Drawing Manager > Features and functions > Drawing sheet operations > Collect

The only way of issuing the Collect command is currently from the Toolbar, as shown in the figure below.

 

 

The Collect command will scan the current directory for DXF files. If any DXF files that are not currently present in the Drawing Manager are found, they are added.

 

The current directory is either the SOURCE or the TARGET directory. The one that you have focus on, is considered current. If you click either one, focus will be set on it.

 

When DXF files are added to the Drawing Manager in this way, the title fields are also scanned, so that the text information in the Drawing Manager is properly updated. A prerequisite for this to work, is of course that the DXF files that are added, have a drawing frame with a title field that is compatible with the mask that is used for the project. If not, the DXF files will be added anyway, but some or possibly all texts in the title fields, cannot be updated in the Drawing Manager.

 

The Collect command is also able to read-in other file types than DXF. Please refer to the User defined file types topic, where that functionality is described.

 

DXF files, or other types of files, can be added to a project by manual copying them to the SOURCE or TARGET directory, and thereafter using the Collect command to add them to the Drawing Manager. In most cases that is not a recommended way to add drawing sheets, but it is a possibility.

 

DXF files can also be automatically created by cadett ELSA itself, like for instance by the Report Generator or by the External Connection Diagram feature. When that has been done, a Collect is needed, to present the new drawing sheets in the Drawing Manager.

 

In Report definitions for the Report Generator, you can activate an automatic collect, which means that the Report Generator will send the Collect command to the Drawing Manager automatically after a report has been generated.

 

 

When new files are added with the Collect command, that is done as new information displayed in green, in a similar way as when a new drawing sheet is created with the New command. That means, that you will have to click Reorganise afterwards, to save the new information to the table of contents database (*Z.DBF). When that is done, the green colour is removed, and the newly added files are presented in the same way as the ones present from before.

 

Please note that for DXF files to be handled in the Drawing Manager with all functionality available, its is not only necessary that the title field is compatible, but the file names must also comply with the file name composition that is defined in the project parameters of the current project. If the file names do not, the DXF file can in fact be collected anyway, provided that the file name is not "too crazy", but the functionality will be limited. Renumbering and many other features will for example not work, and error messages will turn up in the message window.

 

A file name that is too long, or that contains illegal characters, like spaces, is indeed too crazy to collect. In that case, you must first rename the file, for example using the Windows File Explorer, before collecting it. If you in fact can collect the file, you can rename it using the Drawing Manager after you have collected it. Either you do that manually, or using the Change document codes for drawing sheets… command.