Project: HELiOS PDM for AutoCAD

The HELiOS Workspace

On the right hand side of the AutoCAD screen you can find the dockable HELiOS Workspace window.

Click the button in the Settings function group of the HELiOS Ribbon tab to hide and show the Workspace.

In this window all documents of the current session will be listed.

The drawing that is currently active in the CAD workspace will be marked with a green dot in the Loaded column of the HELiOS Workspace window.

The pen symbol in the first column of the result list shows whether a document is currently being edited.

A checkmark in the Loaded column indicates whether the corresponding document has currently been loaded in AutoCAD.

In the Changed, local column the symbol indicates that a document has been changed locally and saved since its last synchronization with HELiOS.

(If the exact status of a HELiOS document cannot be determined (e.g. due to an error), a question mark will be shown here.

Next to it, attributes of the document are displayed.

Clicking opens the HELiOS result list configuration, allowing you to add or remove attributes of the result list. In the pull-down menu next to the symbol you can load saved result list configurations as you would do in the HELiOS Desktop.

With a click on the symbol you can configure a filter for the result list.

In the following dialogue window, the checkbox Show only opened documents (indirectly loaded documents will not be shown) is activated. Confirm with Use to execute the filter. Only the currently open documents are then listed in the work area.

If the checkbox Show only documents of current application is active, only documents that are open in the current application (HELiOS Desktop or Office) are displayed.

This can be useful if you want to open a DXF file from Inventor in AutoCAD or if you want to insert an Excel file with parameters for assemblies in your model drawings as a 3rd party reference. In such cases you can also work with the HELiOS workspace.

If the filter is deactivated, all documents opened in the system are displayed, i.e. also those of other coupled applications. See also further notes at the bottom of the page.

Confirm with Use to execute the filter. Only the currently open documents are then listed in the workspace. Click on the symbol to deactivate the filter again.

Click the Edit symbol to set documents that are currently not being edited to the edited mode, so that they will be temporarily locked for other users.

Click to apply the changes to a document (applies changes and closes document), or to discard the changes (changes will not be applied).

Click to remove a marked document from the CAD session; a prerequisite for this is that it is no longer open locally.

Multiple selections are also possible.

Right-clicking on a result list row in the dockable window will open a context menu containing the full range of HELiOS functions for documents, allowing you to open the documents in AutoCAD (via the Load function). Double-clicking on a row opens the corresponding HELiOS document detail mask.

Please note:

• You can open documents by moving them from the window of the HELiOS Workspace into an empty area of the opened CAD application with Drag & Drop. This can also be done for multiple selections.
• You can also insert parts into an active drawing by moving them from the Workspace into the active drawing via Drag & Drop.
• In the HELiOS Workspace the type of the application in which a document has been opened will be filtered, i.e. the document will be shown in the workspace result list of the said application (even if different versions of the software exist on the system) and in the HELiOS Desktop, but not in the workspace of a different application that has been installed and interfaced with HELiOS on the same system.

• Irrespective of all filter options you can apply, the following rules apply for the display behaviour :

  All documents that have been opened/loaded in the active application will be displayed, as well as all non-loaded documents that have been saved to the application with which the documents were originally created.

  This means: As soon as a document is opened in an interfaced application, the corresponding Workspace will memorize this until the document will be removed from the Workspace again. The corresponding document will therefore be constantly displayed in the Workspace, also after closing and restarting the application.

  When opening a particular document in two different applications (e.g. a DWG file in AutoCAD and Inventor), the HELiOS Workspace memorizes both applications and displays the file in the Workspaces of both applications.

  Also, the following rule applies: For an CAD assembly that references an Excel document, both the CAD documents and the Excel file will be displayed in the Workspace after opening the assembly in the CAD application. If the Excel file has previously been saved in the Office application (setting the document attribute "Related application" (HEL_APPLICATION) accordingly), this file will be additionally visible in the Workspace of Excel, even if it has not been explicitly loaded in this application by the user. If the corresponding note is missing, e.g. because the file has been taken over in an older HELiOS version, the application that has been defined as the default program in your Windows system will be used for opening.

  An exception to this rule is the Workspace of the HELiOS Desktop that always displays all documents.

The HELIOS Menu

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