Common ICD template with different unique features

Are you one of several people in your company using IRONCAD to create 2D drawings with ICD templates that should be virtually identical? The only thing that differs is perhaps your initials and anything else.

The most common approach so far has been that each user locally has their own set of ICD templates where they have changed e.g. "Drawn by" with their own initials. If you need to change some basic settings for Styles and Layers, change the logo or make some other type of fine tuning, you need to do this again and again for all users in each ICD template.

But - you don't have to make such a change more than once!

Instead, use a unique XML file that handles user-unique values in the ICD template's drawing header, such as initials for "Drawn by", etc.

The files required for this, both ICD templates and XML files, can advantageously be saved in a shared folder on a common file server, Dropbox, One Drive, etc. They can of course also be stored locally.

User Configuration File (unique properties per user to be adjusted via an XML file)

Group Configuration File (common properties that can be adjusted via an XML file)

Download the XML file"User...File" above and edit with any text editor (e.g. the very useful Notepad++) to change or add values that should be unique depending on who creates a new 2D drawing based on your common ICD templates.

Under raden <CustomProperties> ligger "en rad per unik egenskap och värde" som ska läsas in i ICD-mallen när man skapar en ny 2D-ritning.

Add_200D↩AddName gives the name of the property and Value gives the value that the property should contain.

This value will then be written to DocumentProperties when creating a new 2D drawing and the value can easily be read into a text box in that 2D drawing.

In order for your common ICD template to use the new unique property written under Document Properties , you need to change e.g. "Drawn by" to read the value from the particular Document Property specified by the XML file. These "keys" can be added to a text box's properties(Text Properties) and can look like this:

$PRPDrawing:"IC-Created By"

Do not forget to also indicate which of your XML files is the one you want to refer to via Options, Technical Drawing and User Configuration File.

We recommend that each file name also contains the personal name of the person to whom the properties belong. This makes it easier to distinguish which file belongs to which person, e.g. ICD_CustomPropValue-Jonas.config.xml.

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The new ICD templates that use this feature should be placed under this folder:

%appdata%\IronCAD\IRONCAD\26.0\en-us\Template\Drawing\

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This video explains how the feature works.

video link