I am looking for guidance, perhaps a video link, etc. on how to go about setting up a custom detail library in LFX that will put our own standard details at our finger tips. Key requirements are that these details need to be saved on the server location so they can be accessed by everyone in our office and so that they can still be revised periodically as codes, methods, and technologies change. Also it needs to be done so that the details become "blocks" (as opposed to linked objects or xrefs) when they are dropped into a specific drawing so that they can be individually tailored for a specific project when needed. We want to ensure that edits to these details after they have been placed into a sheet set of a project will not affect any other instances of this detail in another project. I believe this is likely simple however our LFX CAD tech here has not been able to set it up this way. So far he has been using LFX Details to place details and they seem to be linked in some way so that they are updated whenever the project is updated. This can lead to details unintentionally changing in several projects that share the same detail. In most cases this is not desirable and in fact could be very bad, Thanks for advice and direction.
There are a couple of points to mention in this regard.
First and most importantly, your office has 10 users. At that point, it is going to be too difficult to police those standard details. So we would recommend always creating a folder for the project, and copying all of the needed standard details there. This will give them all a unique number, and a quick Detail Report can be used as a cross-check to confirm that all details have been copied to the project's folder.
Secondly, there is still always going to be a solid rationale for using standard details, so your issue is still quite valid. And we recommend addressing it from multiple angles:
1. From a training aspect, making sure that designers understand that standard details can and will be utilized by many projects, and if a edit goes beyond the "correcting a type-o" sort of change, it should result in saving the detail as a new detail number. If for instance, even an error was found with a standard detail, and the edited version is to become the new standard, we recommend still saving it as a new number; further, you could delete the original detail to prevent it from being chosen for future projects. In that case, all current projects will retain the block that was already placed.
2. You are welcome to set custom permissions to the Standard detail folder, so that only a small number of key personnel have full Write privileges. This is highly recommended to prevent any accidental edits to standard details, and enforce a workflow where only those key project managers are entrusted with creating standard details.
3. We have a pending new feature which will greatly assist in this -- if a detail sheet is marked as Read-Only, it will not automatically update any details upon opening the file. Currently, the only way to override this is to open the dwg without being connected to Land F/X, which is admittedly a little cumbersome. This new feature will allow setting a drawing to read-only when it becomes fixed for bidding to prevent the details from changing.
--J
First and most importantly, your office has 10 users. At that point, it is going to be too difficult to police those standard details. So we would recommend always creating a folder for the project, and copying all of the needed standard details there. This will give them all a unique number, and a quick Detail Report can be used as a cross-check to confirm that all details have been copied to the project's folder.
Secondly, there is still always going to be a solid rationale for using standard details, so your issue is still quite valid. And we recommend addressing it from multiple angles:
1. From a training aspect, making sure that designers understand that standard details can and will be utilized by many projects, and if a edit goes beyond the "correcting a type-o" sort of change, it should result in saving the detail as a new detail number. If for instance, even an error was found with a standard detail, and the edited version is to become the new standard, we recommend still saving it as a new number; further, you could delete the original detail to prevent it from being chosen for future projects. In that case, all current projects will retain the block that was already placed.
2. You are welcome to set custom permissions to the Standard detail folder, so that only a small number of key personnel have full Write privileges. This is highly recommended to prevent any accidental edits to standard details, and enforce a workflow where only those key project managers are entrusted with creating standard details.
3. We have a pending new feature which will greatly assist in this -- if a detail sheet is marked as Read-Only, it will not automatically update any details upon opening the file. Currently, the only way to override this is to open the dwg without being connected to Land F/X, which is admittedly a little cumbersome. This new feature will allow setting a drawing to read-only when it becomes fixed for bidding to prevent the details from changing.
--J
thanks for the post. I have been trying to solve a similar problem in our office.
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