<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation:  Drawing Manager > Features and functions > Drawing frame and mask > Mask file details > Overriding default field settings

There are a number of standard fields in the Drawing Manager, which are not always defined in the mask file. Examples of such default fields are File Name, Description, Date and Time.

 

 

Common for these standard fields and their presentation is that defaults for them are defined in a central database file - SYSMSK.DBF - located in \ELSA\SYSTEM, or equivalent. Those central settings are common for all projects which use mask files where separate definitions of these standard fields are not present.

 

For various reasons, there may be a need to redefine the behaviour of any of these standard fields. For example, it might be beneficial want to include the file name in the title field. Another reason to change one of the standard fields, would be to allow longer file names than the default of 8 characters.

 

One possibility could then be to change the content of SYSMSK.DBF, but there are serious disadvantages with doing so. In terms of updating the software, it is not optimal, and it would make it impossible to have different settings in different projects.

 

Another in most cases much better solution is to take advantage of an opportunity that exists to override SYSMSK.DBF from the mask file. Thus, if the mask file begins with a definition of fields from SYSMSK.DBF, the settings from the mask file will apply before the ones from SYSMSK.DBF, therefore overriding them.

 

Please note that such SYSMSK.DBF fields must precede all other fields in the mask file.

 

An example of the contents of SYSMSK.DBF for the discussed fields is shown below. The example is a simplified variant of what it looks like as standard in cadett ELSA R41.0.1.0 for the English language. As you can see, the content of SYSMSK.DBF is a direct equivalent to the mask file.