Thanks for the questions:

-‌ How do you duplicate a drawing?‌‌
It depends on your objective: because SD7.2 is project-based, where a project is comprised of products or, more accurately, Product Instances, you have to consider whether you want to create a duplicate drawing representing the same Product Instances, or a new drawing containing different Product Instances.  Because of this there is no 'Duplicate Drawing' command, instead you do the following.  Either;
a‌) Copy the current drawing, create a new drawing tab and Paste - this creates a new drawing representing the same Product Instances, or,
b‌) Copy and Paste into the current drawing - this creates new Product Instances - then Cut, create a new drawing, and Paste.  This moves the new Product Instances into the new drawing.

-‌ connector types on blocks‌.
T‌his is under consideration.  There is some debate over whether a connector type belongs on the symbol, or the Cable.  Presumably it's only important to show the connector type if the port is connected to a cable - would you agree?  Or should connector types be shown on the symbol whether the port is connected or not? Can you share a graphic example of how you would  expect connector types to be shown?

I‌f you want to represent connector types alphanumerically, e.g. "A", "B", "RJ45", "XLR3" etc, then you can simply use the Start and End labels on cables.‌  

‌‌To add graphical representations of connector types you can edit UDP symbols or just add 'connector' symbols as you need then, using the Symbol Browser. 

-‌ Is there an ability to rearrange the port order or hide ports from a block?
T‌here are several tools and techniques; again, the right approach depends on your objective.
a‌) If you want to make a permanent change to a symbol for periodic re-use, create a User Defined Product and use the Symbol Editor to adjust the symbol.  The Movie "Adding New Products" might be helpful, at https://www1.stardraw.com/stardraw/sd7/movies‌‌
b‌) If you just want to hide unused IO stubs, go to the View menu and choose Hide Stubs.
c‌) Objects in symbols can be edited, moved and deleted (but never added) using the Unlock Cursor.  This is a cursor mode that ignores the group hierarchy in symbols and other compound objects, 'drilling down' to the base object, like Line, Rectangle, Text etc, to allow ad-hoc changes to the symbol in the drawing.  So, with the Unlock Cursor you could, for example, delete stubs and labels and even adjust the symbol outline to optimize spacing for connected ports only.

I‌ hope this is helpful.‌

+x

 

Rob Robinson - 8/7/2017 1:08:16 PM

Thanks for the questions:

-‌ How do you duplicate a drawing?‌‌
It depends on your objective: because SD7.2 is project-based, where a project is comprised of products or, more accurately, Product Instances, you have to consider whether you want to create a duplicate drawing representing the same Product Instances, or a new drawing containing different Product Instances.  Because of this there is no 'Duplicate Drawing' command, instead you do the following.  Either;
a‌) Copy the current drawing, create a new drawing tab and Paste - this creates a new drawing representing the same Product Instances, or,
b‌) Copy and Paste into the current drawing - this creates new Product Instances - then Cut, create a new drawing, and Paste.  This moves the new Product Instances into the new drawing.

-‌ connector types on blocks‌.
T‌his is under consideration.  There is some debate over whether a connector type belongs on the symbol, or the Cable.  Presumably it's only important to show the connector type if the port is connected to a cable - would you agree?  Or should connector types be shown on the symbol whether the port is connected or not? Can you share a graphic example of how you would  expect connector types to be shown?

I‌f you want to represent connector types alphanumerically, e.g. "A", "B", "RJ45", "XLR3" etc, then you can simply use the Start and End labels on cables.‌  

‌‌To add graphical representations of connector types you can edit UDP symbols or just add 'connector' symbols as you need then, using the Symbol Browser. 

-‌ Is there an ability to rearrange the port order or hide ports from a block?
T‌here are several tools and techniques; again, the right approach depends on your objective.
a‌) If you want to make a permanent change to a symbol for periodic re-use, create a User Defined Product and use the Symbol Editor to adjust the symbol.  The Movie "Adding New Products" might be helpful, at https://www1.stardraw.com/stardraw/sd7/movies‌‌
b‌) If you just want to hide unused IO stubs, go to the View menu and choose Hide Stubs.
c‌) Objects in symbols can be edited, moved and deleted (but never added) using the Unlock Cursor.  This is a cursor mode that ignores the group hierarchy in symbols and other compound objects, 'drilling down' to the base object, like Line, Rectangle, Text etc, to allow ad-hoc changes to the symbol in the drawing.  So, with the Unlock Cursor you could, for example, delete stubs and labels and even adjust the symbol outline to optimize spacing for connected ports only.

I‌ hope this is helpful.‌

H‌ey Rob!

T‌hanks ‌for all your help, that's really useful.
I‌n relation to the connector types, I came from using WireCAD and connector types were just a small label above the conenctor and the cable number was located beside it, see attached screen shot. Thoughts?

W‌ould really like to see this feature added to Stardraw.

C‌heers! Click To Enlarge‌‌‌

There is no 'global' setting for the characteristics of symbols, but you can use the Unlock Cursor to change anything in any symbol in a drawing, or the Symbol editor to make UDP symbols look any way you want, and include any data you want, like connector type.

R‌egarding earlier questions, the addition of connector types to symbols is not something that could possibly be added to the library symbols any time soon; it's not a feature issue, it's a data issue.  There are tens of thousands of symbols with multiple IO ports and each would have to be manually updated to show connector type - that's going to be hundreds of thousands of bits of data to apply, manually (since that's the only way to reliably assign a connector type).

F‌rom your example it's unclear whether connector types are shown or required for unconnected ports, and whether the connector type is associated with the product or the cable, or both.

F‌urthermore the example doesn't appear to consider connector gender‌‌‌, which I'd assume is important.

S‌o, although, we won't be adding connector types to the library symbols any time soon, the solution today might be to use UDP symbols with your own additions and amendments, or use custom symbols (via the Symbol Browser)‌ to add labels or graphics to represent the extra data you want to show.

I‌ hope this makes sense.‌

+x

 

Rob Robinson - 8/8/2017 9:16:09 AM

There is no 'global' setting for the characteristics of symbols, but you can use the Unlock Cursor to change anything in any symbol in a drawing, or the Symbol editor to make UDP symbols look any way you want, and include any data you want, like connector type.

R‌egarding earlier questions, the addition of connector types to symbols is not something that could possibly be added to the library symbols any time soon; it's not a feature issue, it's a data issue.  There are tens of thousands of symbols with multiple IO ports and each would have to be manually updated to show connector type - that's going to be hundreds of thousands of bits of data to apply, manually (since that's the only way to reliably assign a connector type).

F‌rom your example it's unclear whether connector types are shown or required for unconnected ports, and whether the connector type is associated with the product or the cable, or both.

F‌urthermore the example does appear to consider connector gender‌‌‌, which I'd assume is important.

S‌o, although, we won't be adding connector types to the library symbols any time soon, the solution today might be to use UDP symbols with your own additions and amendments, or use custom symbols (via the Symbol Browser)‌ to add labels or graphics to represent the extra data you want to show.

I‌ hope this makes sense.‌

This is also a request i though about.
O‌n my site, the goal is to have an automatic list for cable manufacturing.
S‌o when i connect a cable, and later i export an xl with the cable list, there is a start conn and end conn (as well as lenght, start lication, end loc etc)
I‌ would like this list to be automatic.
A‌nd also the bom automatically updated with total of connecters needed from every type, lenght of cables etc
Y‌es, gender is important.
A‌nd i see tgat as conn type 'needed on the cable'
S‌o the opposite sude if the conn in the equipm.
I‌f for example the conn on the equipment is xlr male, than on the equip it could be mentionned male, but the xl will be filled with xlr f
I‌f it makes it more complicate, then on the equipment coukd be mentionned the connectet 'needed'

Hi Micha,

Y‌es, we believe we already have a good understanding of the functionality required.‌  In fact, much of what you describe can already be done with the Cable Schedule and Equipment List functions, so long as you add the data.

And in a perfect world, yes, everything would just be 'automatic'.  Unfortunately, 'automatic' doesn't just happen
‌‌
It's the data that's the main part of the challenge here:  just to add connector type and gender to every port on every product that exists today would take a few man years - and that's assuming we can find the relevant data quickly, e.g. a couple of minutes per product, and could add the data quickly e.g. a few seconds per port - plus this data would also have to be added on all the new products we publish every day.  And then you need to factor in the design and engineering effort to develop and test the new functionality required to make things appear 'automatic'.

S‌o‌, very conservatively, we can imagine that to add what you suggest would occupy several man years' worth of work during which time the assigned resources could do nothing else.

Please understand, therefore, that while we do consider all user requests, some might fall low on the priority list where the time and cost to market is prohibitive, and where other features provide a better return on investment, or 'bang for buck', for the greatest number of users.

+x

 

RAnderson - 8/9/2017 9:53:02 AM

Cheers for the input! Understand the difficulty, maybe we can add as an option when you create a UDP? Perhaps when you label the ports, you can also add an option to add a connector type?
T‌hat's certainly something we've considered.

A‌nother question, do you think you could add the function of having a cross-hair style cursor?‌‌ with lines extending to the extents of the drawing window in the X and Y axis? I've had this in other CAD software I've used and it's extremely helpful for aligning blocks, which I'm finding it difficult to do in Stardraw.
Noted 
C‌heers!‌

See within quoted text above.