symbol creation

[MikeM]

I am having issues with the creation of symbols. It seems that quite often it takes me several symbol naming variations in order to get a newly created symbol to actually save within the folder specified. This has been going on for some time (ver. 7 I believe), and I took it as a one of the quirks within Irricad however it is getting progressively worse. I have a rather large catalog of symbols (a little over 3,000) and keeping them with a basic description or symbol name is not preferred. Though I know version 10.5 will alleviate some of that as I can at least get a decent look at what I am bringing into the design.

I have tried a few different approaches with moderate success. One is to create a simple symbol name with no spaces, and no character symbols (",-#@) i.e. "10M045SCRN8IN8OUTWBFV" and once it is successfully created go into windows explorer and rename the newly created symbol to my liking. i.e. "MOV-34G (100# GAUGE ASSEMBLY ON ¾ - 4" PIPE)". However quite often it brings up the wrong symbol.

I never have the replace original check-box marked I am wondering if perhaps I may have the same file name already in place somewhere within the sea of detail file names spread across hundreds of folders.

Sometime placing the symbol in a more simplistic location helps it seems as a typical symbol file hierarchy I utilize is something like shown below.

C:\Program Files\AEI Software\IRRICAD Pro 9\symbols\drawing\ASSEMBLIES\OTHER HYDRAULICS\FVA - (FLUSH VALVE ASSEMBLIES)\FVA-1253 (1-14 FLUSH & DRAIN VALVE ASSEMBLY)

Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing this and if there might be a better solution than what I have found.

Thanks!

[Dan Crosby]

Hi Mike,

The name of a symbol is limited to 32 characters, but the length of the file name is controlled by Windows. So I can create a symbol called "Hexagons" in Irricad, then go to the .VCS file and rename it "Hexagons But Now With a File Name That Is Longer Than 32 Characters.vcs". However it will still show up as "Hexagons" in the Irricad symbol list. (i.e., the name of the symbol shown in Irricad is not the filename, but is stored in the file).

So there is a potential source of confusion when you change the file name from the default (which is the symbol name), because you could then have, for example, "ABCD.vcs" and "EFGH.vcs" both containing a symbol called "Flush Valve" - and symbol names must be unique! This could be the cause of you picking one symbol (by file name), but then seeing another.

The only thing I can suggest to help at present is what I think you've been doing anyway - try and keep the symbol names unique and less than 32 characters, and use the file system to shift some of the "naming" to the folder hierarchy. e.g., instead of having symbols:

• Flush Valve Assembly One.vcs
• Flush Valve Assembly Two.vcs
• Flush Valve Assembly Three.vcs
• Flush Valve Assembly Four.vcs
• Flush Valve Assembly Five.vcs

have a folder "Flush Valve Assemblies" containing:

• FVA 001.vcs
• FVA 002.vcs
• FVA 003.vcs
• FVA 004.vcs
• FVA 005.vcs

Regards,

Dan

[MikeM]

Dan,

Thank you for the clarification and I appreciate the quick response!