Inventor "Content Center" Question

Dear all,

I'm a first time poster on the site, but I hope that you all might be able to help me with a seemingly basic Inventor question:

Using Autodesk Inventor’s internal “Content Center”, our team is trying to modify some commonly used pre-existing parts (i.e. washers, nuts, bolts, etc.) by changing the part number and part description. (Specifically, we need to change the part number and description fields into a company-approved format for output on the completed assembly drawings.)

Rather than opening each individual part file by file to modify the particular properties we need, my question is how to modify the background Excel data spreadsheets directly. Doing this, we would be able to make the appropriate changes, safe the new files to a section-wide intranet library, and then direct our design engineers to use those particular parts.

Right now, we have engineers using a litany of differently named bolts which end up being the same thing, but clutter up the final AutoCAD output drawings and are in an output format which must be changed manually line by line.

Hopefully this screenshot can help provide some clarity on what we are trying to edit:

I moved your thread to the Inventor section of the forum, perhaps you will get some responses.

SLW210,

Thanks for the bump to the correct part of the site! Sorry for my error...

You have a few steps before you can modify anything.

1. Create a New Content Center Library (the Autodesk ones are read only and are not editable)

2. Copy over the parts and Categories to the new Library (this may take a while depending on how much you want to modify

a. If you copy everything over to a new library then detach the original ADSK libraries

3. Now that you have a populated writable CC library, you can use the Content Center Editor to actually start making some changes to the file naming using either the editor or Excel.

Further to Mark's post, Once you've updated the libraries with your own details, you can use the content centre refresh function to see these updates in your assemblies (you need to do it for each assembly when you have it open). I think there may be some occassions where it won't work, i.e. if you change the member or filename properties, it may not recognise it. I can't recall the specifics at the moment, but have a play around, and if you muck it up, delete the libraries from your read/write library and copy them back in from the ADSK library.

Enjoy

P.S. I'd recommend also mapping one of your columns to the occurance.displayname property, That is so you can control the display of the part in your Assembly Browser.

Mark and Hickoz_bro,

Thanks for the replies! You have both answered my first main question, which was whether we could modify the Excel directories directly inside Inventor. Our systems have write protection enabled, so I wasn't sure if that was the reason I couldn't modify the files - now I know that Inventor protects them as well.

It also seems like developing a content library is the way to go. I still have a lot to learn, but I'll give a try and see what happens.

It's funny to me that getting a response from you guys is far faster than Autodesk. They do build a great product and I'm certain that there are a littany of users all vying for their customer support and service, but as of this morning I am still waiting for a response back from them... Makes me appreciate this forum all the more!

Thanks to all who have responded, and if there's any more advice still out there, please feel free to keep posting.

Believe it or not, my response time is slower than our support center. Autodesk Subscription support is okay, but it doesn't come close to a good relationship with a VAR (not just a reseller, there is a difference).

Just for grins, what is the easiest way to create a new content library?

I'm new to this game, and have been poking around the software for a while without success this morning...

Read this document my colleague wrote.

I will leave this document up on my dropbox for a minimum of 7 days. After that it may not be there.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4015397/White%20Paper%20-%20Inventor%202010%20%20-%20Content%20Center%20User%20Guide.pdf

Mark,

Thanks so much for the tutorial - I've downloaded it, so you can drop it off your site whenever you need to.

Following your advice, I've grabbed a random part (an ANSI B18.2.3.1M - M16 x 160 - 24 bolt) and am trying to edit it. When I click on the F-sub-x button I do see the bolt parameters used in Inventor to create it, but I don't see anywhere where I can easily edit the object name and description (on the other hand, you can just simply type in whatever dimensions you want for the bolt properties on this screen).

Although I've attached my photos in reverse order, they are intended to show the process by which I ("randomly") selected the bolt and then tried to edit it.

The only solution I could think of to edit the bolt name is to change the folder/ file names themselves, but I'm not sure if Inventor would simply output those new names in the finaly assembly drawing or cause a system error and not be able to call the part at all... Assuming that works (which I have yet to try), it still does not answer the question about editing the file description.

That is not where you Edit the Content Center.

You need to use the Content Center Editor in the Inventor interface to do this work. What you are looking at is not the cookbook, but the already created recipes. You need to adjust the cookbook before you start making more content.

Tools Tab --> Content Center Panel

AGMore - Creating the library needs to be done on the ADMS (means you need to be using Vault), and it's dead easy. Filling it with your own content takes more time. A lot of people copy and modify existing content, but it's infinitely better to atleast know how to create you own from scratch.

Marks - That link didn't work for me. Keen to see what you've got. I couldn't find any decent info regarding creating new content when I was doing it last year, so I've been meaning to write up a white paper to put on my website showing how to create iParts, and Content Centre parts that make use of the Autodrop functionality...

Creating a library does not need to be done on ADMS if you are using Desktop Content (available 2010+)

I killed the link but I will put it back up there for another couple days. Should be valid 5 minutes after this post for at least a week.

Mark,

When I followed yor suggested path it brought me back to the screen which I displayed in my first post... Maybe I'm doing this wrong (that's more than likely the case), but I am using Inventor 2009 if that makes any difference.

Did you make a new Content Center Library? Did you detach the ADSK libraries so you don't inadvertently pick on that to modify and not the copy? I am grasping at straws here a little bit since I haven't used 2009 for almost three years and it changed to be a whole lot easier in the newer versions.

Mark - Good point, I didn't consider desktop content.

AGMore - Take another look at the screen you're seeing when you follow Mark's steps... The 'Edit Content Centre' dialogue box (Top attached image) looks almost identical to the 'Place Content Centre' dialogue box (Lower attached image), except that (initially) all the items will appear faded . If you've followed Mark's white paper correctly, you should be able to right click on any of the objects and select 'Copy to > MyLibrary' (or what ever you called your library).

Note also, that in the 'Content Centre Editor' there's a drop down box (circled in red on lower image) that will show the current library that you're editing, or it will show 'Merged View', which is a combination of all libraries. Correct me if I'm wrong Mark, but I believe edits to your Read/Write libraries will take priority to the default libraries.

Hope this helps.

Hickoz_bro,

Okay, I think I finally understand some of this! As you've already pointed out, 2009 and 2011/12 look somewhat different, so finding the appropriate "content center editor" block in 2009 is my current struggle…

You are correct in saying that 2011 is friendlier to navigate; I actually have both 2009 and 2011 on my computer, but our network has not yet been configured for 2011 system wide, so when I follow your dialogue to get to the "content center editor" (vs. "place from the content center") I can't log in correctly.

I also think that I have finally managed to follow your white paper's instructions and can now add a library (page eight). I’ll have to determine where the team would like me to add the library since I now have more write privileges, but that battle seems to be over.

Thanks once more for everyone’s advice – although it’s taking me a while, I am eventually learning this stuff!

I am having trouble getting access to modify the content center files. From the "Projects" dialog box, I click "Configure Content Center Libraries", then I know in this screen, there should be a button that says "Create Library..." But it isn't showing up.

All I have is "Library Transfer Guide..." & "Update Tool..."

I was thinking this may be some kind of content center administrator privileges thing, but I have all the administrative rights that I can possibly have.

PLEASE HELP!