Draftsman Templates in a Workspace Connected to Altium Designer

Parent page: Workspace Content Types

Altium Designer, in conjunction with your connected Workspace, caters for the ability to create and manage Draftsman Document Templates and Draftsman Sheet Templates (Draftsman Template Items) in that Workspace. Such Draftsman templates can be created:

• Through Direct Editing.
• By uploading the relevant Draftsman Document/Sheet Template file (*.DwfDot/*.DwsDot) to a revision of a target Item.

Once a Draftsman template has been created (and data saved into a revision of it), it can be reused in future board-level design projects, when creating Draftsman documents (*.PCBDwf).

Folder Type

When creating the folder in which to store Draftsman templates, you can specify the folder's type. This has no bearing on the content of the folder – saving a Draftsman Document Template or Draftsman Sheet Template will always result in a corresponding Draftsman Template Item. It simply provides a visual 'clue' as to what is stored in a folder and can be beneficial when browsing a Workspace for particular content. To nominate a folder's use as a container for Draftsman templates, set its Folder Type as Draftsman Templates, when defining the folder properties in the Edit Folder dialog.

Specifying the folder type – its intended use – gives a visual indication of the content of that folder when browsing the Workspace.

Content Types

When creating a target Draftsman Template Item in which to store your Draftsman document/sheet template, ensure that its Content Type is set accordingly (in the Create New Item dialog):

• For a Draftsman Document Template Item, set its Content Type to Draftsman Document Template.
• For a Draftsman Sheet Template Item, set its Content Type to Draftsman Sheet Template.

If you are creating these Items in a Draftsman Templates type folder, these content types will be available from the right-click context menu when creating the Items.

Creating a Draftsman document template within a Draftsman Templates folder – the correct Content Type is available on the context menu.

Creating a Draftsman sheet template within a Draftsman Templates folder – the correct Content Type is available on the context menu.

Saving a Draftsman Template

Related page: Creating and Editing Content Directly through a Workspace

So far, we've discussed the support for a Draftsman document/sheet template in the Workspace, in terms of related folder and content types. Saving an actual defined template into a revision of a Draftsman Document/Sheet Template Item can be performed in a streamlined way.

A Draftsman document/sheet template can be edited and saved into the initial revision of a newly-created Draftsman Document/Sheet Template Item, courtesy of the Workspace's support for direct editing. Direct editing frees you from the shackles of separate version-controlled source data. You can simply edit a supported content type using a temporary editor loaded with the latest source direct from the Workspace itself. And once editing is complete, the entity is saved (or re-saved) into a subsequent planned revision of its parent Item, and the temporary editor closed. There are no files on your hard drive, no questioning whether you are working with the correct or latest source, and no having to maintain separate version control software. The Workspace handles it all, with great integrity, and in a manner that greatly expedites changes to your data.

When you create a Draftsman Document/Sheet Template Item, you have the option to edit and save a document/sheet template into the initial revision of that Item, after creation. To do so, enable the option Open for editing after creation, at the bottom of the Create New Item dialog (which is enabled by default). The Item will be created and the temporary Draftsman Editor will open, presenting a .DwfDot or .DwsDot document (as applicable) as the active document in the main design window. This document will be named according to the Item-Revision, in the format:

• <Item><Revision>.DwfDot (e.g. DFD-0004-1.DwfDot) – for a Draftsman Document Template.
• <Item><Revision>.DwsDot (e.g. DFS-0007-1.DwsDot) – for a Draftsman Sheet Template.

Example of editing the initial revision of a Draftsman document template, directly from the Workspace – the temporary Draftsman Editor provides the document with which to define your document template.

Example of editing the initial revision of a Draftsman sheet template, directly from the Workspace – the temporary Draftsman Editor provides the document with which to define your sheet template.

Use the document to define the template as required. For more information, see Streamlining Board Design Documentation with Draftsman.

There are three relevant controls when direct editing, readily available from the Quick Access Bar (at the top-left of the main application window), or from the Drawing Document Standard toolbar:

• – Save Active Document. Use this button to locally save any changes made to the document. This allows you to save current changes, should you wish to come back at a later stage to make further changes before ultimately saving to the Workspace.

• / – Save to Workspace. Use this button to save the defined template document to the Workspace, storing it within the initial (planned) revision of the target Draftsman Document/Sheet Template Item. The Edit Revision dialog will appear, in which you can change Name, Description, and add release notes as required. The document and editor will close after the save. The template document, *.DwfDot/*.DwsDot, will be stored in the revision of the Item.

  A Save to Server control is also conveniently provided to the right of the Draftsman document/sheet template's entry, within the Projects panel itself.
• / – Discard Local Changes. Use this button if you wish to cancel editing and discard any changes made. The document and editor will close, and nothing will be saved to the target Draftsman Document/Sheet Template Item.

These controls are also available as commands – Save (shortcut: Ctrl+S), Save to Server (shortcut: Ctrl+Alt+S), and Discard Local Changes – from the main File menu and from the right-click menu of the Draftsman template's entry in the Projects panel.

The saved data stored in the Workspace consists of the source template, defined in the Draftsman Document/Sheet Template file (<Item><Revision>.DwfDot/<Item><Revision>.DwsDot).

Uploading a Draftsman-related File

A new revision of a Draftsman Document/Sheet Template Item can be created by uploading a Draftsman document/sheet template file (*.DwfDot/*.DwsDot). This can be performed in a couple of ways - see Uploading Data into a New Revision of an Item for more information. 

Reusing a Draftsman Template

Related page: Controlling Access to Workspace Content

Once a Draftsman document/sheet template has been saved to a Workspace, and its lifecycle state set to a level that the organization views as ready for use at the design level, that template can be reused in future board-level design projects.

When you are connected to your Workspace, use of available Draftsman Document/Sheet Template Items is automatic. If there are saved revisions of Draftsman document/sheet templates, then only those available templates – shared with you – will be presented in the following areas where a document template, or sheet template, can be chosen, when working with a Draftsman Document (*.PCBDwf):

Re-Saving a Draftsman Template

At any stage, you can come back to any revision of a Draftsman document/sheet template in the Workspace, and edit it directly. Right-click on the revision and choose the Edit command from the context menu. Once again, the temporary editor will open, with the template contained in the revision, opened for editing. Make changes as required, then save the document into the next revision of the template.

Accessing the command to launch direct editing of an existing Draftsman document/sheet template revision.

Updating a Draftsman Template

If you need to change the Draftsman document/sheet template stored in a Draftsman Document/Sheet Template Item, and you have the updated Draftsman document/sheet template file, you can upload that file to that Item – the new file will be stored in the next revision of that Item.

Downloading Saved Data

Download the data stored in a revision of a Draftsman document/sheet template by right-clicking on that revision in the Explorer panel and choosing the Operations » Download command from the context menu. The Draftsman document/sheet template file will be downloaded into a sub-folder under the chosen directory, named using the Item Revision ID. The file can be found in the Released folder therein.

Soft Deletion

When connected to a Workspace, flexible functionality is available for removing a Draftsman document/sheet template directly from within Altium Designer:

• From the Explorer panel – right-click on the template's entry in the panel and choose the Delete Item command from the context menu.
• From the Templates tab of the Data Management – Templates page of the Preferences dialog – right-click on the template's entry in the dialog and choose the Delete command from the context menu.

The Delete Items dialog will appear, in which to confirm the deletion. The action is actually a 'soft delete', whereby the template will be moved into the Trash area of the Workspace. The Trash is essentially a recycle bin into which any content within your Workspace can be moved (through a soft delete action). It is isolated from the rest of the Workspace.

Soft deletion of a Draftsman document template and Draftsman sheet template from within the Explorer panel. In each case, the template will be moved to the Workspace's Trash area.

To proceed with the deletion, click the button. The template will be removed and a Deletion Summary dialog will confirm successful deletion. If there was an issue with deletion, this will be flagged to you.

All content deleted in this manner can be found on the Trash page of the Workspace's browser interface. Note that you can only view the content that you have personally soft deleted. Administrators will be able to see the full content of the Trash page – so all content that has been soft deleted.

Things to consider in relation to a soft deleted Draftsman document/sheet template:

• The Draftsman document/sheet template will not be available from your design software, or from within the Web interface.
• Anywhere the Draftsman document/sheet template was being used will reflect that the template has been deleted.
• A Draftsman document/sheet template can be restored, or permanently deleted from the Trash page, provided you have editing rights. Permanent deletion is only possible provided it is not being used by a parent Item.