Supercharge Your DriveWorks Rules Filter

In any reasonable size DriveWorks project it doesn’t take long before you have a lot of rules to work with.  Finding that specific component you need to build a rule for, or finding a specific rule you need to edit, can be tricky and potentially time consuming.

Enter the DriveWorks Rules Filter! (highlighted below)

We all know how good the DriveWorks Rules Filter is.  You simply type something into it and the list of rules is filtered to only show items that match what you typed in.

For example, you want to write rules for the file names of your models, so you type “file” (without the quotes) in the filter box and, voila, only the file name rules are listed.

maybe you want to see all the rules related to the ‘Tie Rod End Cap’ model.  Start typing that in and watch the rules list shrink and become easier to work with.

Or type dim to see only the dimension rules.

Or feat to see only the rules for capture features.

Or delete to see only rules that currently result in a value of Delete.

Or pressure to see only rules that have the word pressure in them.

I could go on … and on … and on … but I’m sure you get the picture.

Great stuff, eh?  Oh, yeah.  But wait, I know you want more.  And there is more.  Time to supercharge the rules filter!

 

First, there are Column-Specific Filters

The filters mentioned above were applied across all columns in the rules list.  You might have noticed in the ‘tie rod end’ filter some rules were shown that didn’t have ‘tie rod end’ in either the Name or Component columns.  Those words, however, do appear in the Value column.  And, yes, I know there are some rules listed that don’t have ‘tie rod end’ in any columns – they have some of the words, eg, just ‘end cap’, or are rules for properties of the related drawings.

To avoid this “all column filtering” you can apply your filter to a specific column.  You do this by typing in ColumnName:Criteria

For example, if you only want to see rules for model names that contain ‘tie rod end’, you would enter:

name:tie rod end

And you’d get:

Component:tie rod end

And you’d get:

This can be applied to any column.  If the column name contains spaces, enclose it in double quotes, ie, “column name”:criteria.

 

Second, you can use Multiple Column-Specific Filters

You can fine tune the filtering even more by using multiple column-specific filters.  To do this you simply repeat the column-specific filters with a space in between each one, ie:

ColumnName:Criteria  ColumnName:Criteria  ColumnName:Criteria ….. etc

For example, to see only the dimension rules for the tie rod end component you would enter:

Component:tie rod end type:dim

And you’d get:

So, you can see it’s actually very easy to work with lots of rules in DriveWorks by using the rules filter.

 

There’s a whole lot more functionality available as well, including saving your filters and logic arguments like AND, NOT and OR operators.  Details can be found in the DriveWorks online Help documents at:

http://docs.driveworkspro.com/Topic/HowToUseFilters

I know I could have simply copied the Help page here, but why reinvent the wheel?  And besides, as a DriveWorks user you should get into the habit of using these online Help documents.  They’re a great resource and are updated on a daily basis so they’re always relevant.

Happy filtering!! 🙂

 

About the Author:
Bill Murch
Technical Support Engineer
CSWP, CSWE, CDWP
Based in Sydney, Australia