As mentioned before, Flatter Files is regularly updated with feature additions that improve the product. Unfortunately we haven’t had a post to share updates in way too long. Primarily this is because we have been hard at work on some longer term projects that we can’t wait to share but aren’t quite complete. Recently though, a few relatively small new additions have been added. This post will highlight these new additions. As always, these types of improvements are implemented and prioritized based on customer feedback. Thus, when using Flatter Files if you have any feedback regarding the capabilities please do not hesitate to let us know at [email protected]. Below is a quick summary of the recent updates.
Property Links
Flatter Files now supports multi property name links. For example, if you have two custom properties in a file called NAME1 and NAME2 but would like to link a single Flatter Files property to both then simply create a user defined property with a value of “NAME1 NAME2.” If you would instead like the value to be NAME1 but if it doesn’t exist then the value should be NAME2 then create a user defined property with a value of “NAME1 OR NAME2.” The first property is the primary and will always be checked first but if the value doesn’t exist then the second properties value will be used.
eDrawings Export
Flatter Files is used by many companies to make it super easy to open SolidWorks files in eDrawings on their mobile devices. And often times the only reason the SolidWorks native files are included in the upload is for the eDrawings access. Unfortunately, large SolidWorks models can be extremely slow to interact with in eDrawings. Thus, the Flatter Files Uploader application can now create eDrawings files for each SolidWorks model and upload the eDrawings file as the native file such that it can be easily accessed on your mobile device. This will slow down the automatic upload process since the eDrawings files can sometimes take significant time to generate but the payoff is an improved user experience for your viewers. For more details on how to enable eDrawings export please see the documentation.
File Revision Upload Type
Flatter Files is always striving to support whatever method companies use to create content. Our mission is to significantly improve your distribution of your drawings to your viewers and thus it is important to work with all types of content creation systems. One system that many companies use today is the creation of revisions by simply changing the filename to include the revision number. For example, if you have three revisions named NAME, NAME-rev1, and NAME-rev2 then all three are the same drawing and the drawing has three revisions. The initial revision and two modifications. To add a new revision for this scenario, you would simply add the file NAME-rev3. There are many variations to this type of naming structure but the general idea remains the same.
Flatter Files now supports this type of content creation management and can be configured to upload the different named files as revisions instead of as separate drawings. Generally speaking the naming convention must follow the NAME then either a dash ( - ) or an underscore ( _ ), then either “rev” or “r” and then the revision number. The source file can include a revision number of 0 if desired. Letter case of the “rev” or “r” does not matter.
The setting to enable the ability for the Uploader to detect revisions based on a naming structure is shown enabled in the image below.
