Vectoring Existing Projects to Reference AutoCAD Electrical 2008 Libraries

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  Vectoring Existing Projects to Reference AutoCAD Electrical 2008 Libraries
  May 30, 2007, 02:17 AM Nate Holt

  A nice thing about AutoCAD Electrical projects is also something that can be a hassle when it's time to upgrade to the next release. AutoCAD Electrical stores the default symbol library path right in the project file. On the plus side, this means that you can flip between different projects and each on can auto-vector to the assigned symbol library for that project or customer. The down-side is that, at upgrade time, the new default symbol library probably installs into a folder with a slightly different name (i.e. ...\...2008\... instead of ...\...2007\...).
  
  So, is there an easier way to flip legacy AutoCAD Electrical project files to point at a new or different symbol library path?
  
  This question came up on the AutoCAD Electrical Discussion Group recently. Autodesk's Mike Spitzer put together a little utility that may do the job. It has several functions but a key one addressing the above is this: It allows you to point at a folder full of your legacy project ".wdp" files and do a search / replace on the default library path.
  
  
  
  Mike's posting is reproduced here:
  
  While riding in the minivan going to visit relatives over the Memorial Day
  weekend, I found some free time to look into this. Attached is a lisp file
  that should do what you want. After you appload the lisp file, the lisp
  routine that you run is called change_projects and has four parameters The
  first two parameters are used if you want a wholesale change of the
  schematic and panel paths. The third and fourth parameters are used if you
  want to just find and replace sections of a path for example change "2006"
  to "2007". When you run this function you will be presented with a Browse
  for Folder dialog. You select the folder and it will look for all .wdp
  files in that folder and all subfolders and apply the same change to all.
  Here are some examples and what it should/might do in each:
  
  Current schematic path entry - "c:/program files/autodesk/acade
  2007/Libs/jic125/;c:/program files/autodesk/acade
  2007/Libs/pneu_iso125/;c:/program
  files/autodesk/acade
  2007/Libs/hyd_iso125/;c:/program files/autodesk/acade 2007/Libs/pid/"
  Current panel path entry - "c:/program files/autodesk/acade
  2007/Libs/panel/"
  
  (change_projects "c:/symbols/schematic/" "c:/symbols/panel/" nil nil)
  New schematic path entry - "c:/symbols/schematic/"
  New panel path entry - "c:/symbols/panel/"
  
  (change_projects nil nil "2007" "2008")
  New schematic path entry - "c:/program files/autodesk/acade
  2008/Libs/jic125/;c:/program files/autodesk/acade 2008/Libs/pneu_iso125/;c:/program files/autodesk/acade
  2008/Libs/hyd_iso125/;c:/program files/autodesk/acade 2008/Libs/pid/"
  New panel path entry - "c:/program files/autodesk/acade 2008/Libs/panel/"
  
  If you decide to try this out, please BACKUP before attempting to use it to
  make sure it does what you expect it to. It has not had much testing. If
  it does work then the thanks go to my wife for driving and my kids for
  sleeping and letting me work on this on the drive:).
  
  Regards,
  
  Mike
  
  
  
  Download Mike's utility here. So, there it is. Give it a try. Remember to back up your project ".wdp" files first before attempting to run this find/replace tool.

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