Topic: How do you hand out your updated CTBs

[Krushert]

We have made changes to the our CTB file.  My CAD manager and the cad " now go out and implement my evil philosophies" person (thats me) are having a debate on how to best name our new ctb file because we need our old ctb file for legacy drawings.  He says that the updated CTB should have CompanyName_02-28-2007.CTB.  and the old CTB would be just CompanyName.CTB. 

For some reason this naming convention is making me itch and i can't figure out why.  I know Pagesetups would be affected, keeping things in logical order for new hires and existing employees that "cant understand normal thinking"  come first to my mind.  Supposedly more changes could come.

I am looking for opinions how have you guys may have done this in the past.  I know some of you deal with large group of users and sometimes satellite facilities.  There has to be a way that has the fewest headaches.

[dan19936]

Unless you plan on routinely updating your CTB, how about just CompanyName_2007.CTB ?

[JohnK]

How bout: ``[company name]-[department]-[version of acad].ctb''

[pmvliet]

my first question would be "have changes made to the CTB have bad affects towards legacy drawings"?
as in, how drastic are the changes?

With that being said, you are opening a real bad can of worms as it's going to get tricky to keep track of what drawings are suppose to use what CTB file.

What is the old or legacy CTB file name now? If it's company.ctb, then I'd lean towards leaving it that way.
Then for the new CTB, I'd name is company-2007.ctb If you think you are going to change it more then once a year, then add the month. I would use the philosophy that any drawing created after 2007, would use the 2007 CTB file.

I'm not sure if it's possible to add a variable to your drawing that specifies the CTB file to be used and automatically sets in when plotting. That would be really slick and alleviate plotting issues...

Pieter

[Arizona]

I would ask, what benefit is he looking to gain by renaming this file?
Is this merely a tracking mechanism and or for documentation of "history"
If that is the case you can have a "revision" page, or maintain it in a docment management system, etc...
Looking at it from a purely financial standpoint... Can it be justified?
the number of drawings to be changed + the time it takes to make that change = $$$
Can whatever benefits (he is thinking of) be achieved via another avenue?

[Krushert]

my first question would be "have changes made to the CTB have bad affects towards legacy drawings"?
as in, how drastic are the changes?

IHHO minor.  In his opinion; a larger degree because of how he wants things to read with line weights.  (He main job is an Artist.)

With that being said, you are opening a real bad can of worms as it's going to get tricky to keep track of what drawings are suppose to use what CTB file.

My feeling exactly, there is going to be transition drawings before everyone can say "okay I can use the new CTB".

What is the old or legacy CTB file name now? If it's company.ctb, then I'd lean towards leaving it that way.
Then for the new CTB, I'd name is company-2007.ctb If you think you are going to change it more then once a year, then add the month. I would use the philosophy that any drawing created after 2007, would use the 2007 CTB file.

Yeah we are thinking along these lines but I am trying to open a small can of worms instead of #5 can like mention above.

I'm not sure if it's possible to add a variable to your drawing that specifies the CTB file to be used and automatically sets in when plotting. That would be really slick and alleviate plotting issues...

Pieter

  UMM I don't know.

[Krushert]

I would ask, what benefit is he looking to gain by renaming this file?
Is this merely a tracking mechanism and or for documentation of "history"

Yes purely for use on drawings this date (+/-) forward.

If that is the case you can have a "revision" page, or maintain it in a docment management system, etc...

Huh what is the new new fangled tool you are talking about?  Dam city folk always getting us to try to use new things like tele-phones.   If I wanted to talk to some one, I will just drive over and talked to the person. 

Looking at it from a purely financial standpoint... Can it be justified?
the number of drawings to be changed + the time it takes to make that change = $$$
Can whatever benefits (he is thinking of) be achieved via another avenue?

  We are not looking to go back and change any drawings.  Not yet any anyway. 

[Arizona]

I would ask, what benefit is he looking to gain by renaming this file?
Is this merely a tracking mechanism and or for documentation of "history"

Yes purely for use on drawings this date (+/-) forward.

That is easily stated... but in reality

If that is the case you can have a "revision" page, or maintain it in a docment management system, etc...

Huh what is the new new fangled tool you are talking about?  Dam city folk always getting us to try to use new things like tele-phones.   If I wanted to talk to some one, I will just drive over and talked to the person. 

A document management system allows you to keep a history of file changes without changing the name of the file. It also allows you to set the permissions as to who can read/write to these files, etc... We maintain 200,000+ drawing files across a territory from Florida to North Carolina. Without a DMS we would never be able to track and maintain the history of changes. When things blowup this becomes very important to be able to know what has occurred.
In addition, we maintain and distribute support files across the network to any/all these locations.

Looking at it from a purely financial standpoint... Can it be justified?
the number of drawings to be changed + the time it takes to make that change = $$$
Can whatever benefits (he is thinking of) be achieved via another avenue?

  We are not looking to go back and change any drawings.  Not yet any anyway. 

Again, is this realistic? If you are updating this file for improvement purposes, would you not want those improvements to show up on all your drawings? Or are you simply going to maintain multiple CTB files (the new ones going forward and the legacy ones as well)?

Changing a file name just to "document the file" can be handled in other ways that would have less impact to the bottom line.... JMO...

[ronjonp]

I generally label all the older stuff z_* so it ends up at the end of the list.
I've always avoided long drawn out file names if possible.