Distribution of Customer-Specific Libraries via Flow

Organizations using G4 and Flow share design work across different locations. Designers need an easy way to access G4's customer-specific libraries. These libraries are stored in Flow, from which G4 automatically loads them upon startup. Customer-specific libraries refer to G4's component, drawing, macro, profile, sketch, and symbol libraries.

G4 loads an update into the shared folder upon startup if there is a document in Flow with the classification cad_libraries_zip. The update to the shared folder is only downloaded if vxlibrary.zip is missing or if its date is older than that of the document in Flow. Files in the shared folder and its subfolders will be overwritten by files from Flow.

Creating a Library Zip

You can create a zip file for a Flow document in two different ways:

1. In File Explorer, navigate to the shared folder and select: Send to -> Compressed (zipped) folder, then name the file vxlibrary.zip.

2. In the Command Prompt:

   CODE

   cd \\vxg4\\shared
   zip -r vxlibrary.zip components symbols

You can add the following from G4’s shared folder to the zip: components, features, macros, proflibrary, sketch, and symbols.

Add a new classification to the Flow document with the identifier cad_libraries_zip. Create a new document using Flow's web interface and set its classification to cad_libraries_zip. Attach the previously created vxlibrary.zip as the document's file.

Updating the custom zip in Flow

When saving a drawing form, component, etc., in G4, it will ask whether to add it to the existing library zip in Flow along with the previous files. Alternatively, you can perform the update using Flow's web interface:

• Retrieve the previous vxlibrary.zip using Flow's web interface.

• Extract the contents.

• Add the new file to the extracted folder.

• Compress the folders in the same way as during the creation phase.

• Upload the new vxlibrary.zip using Flow's web interface.