Reference > Ribbon Tabs and Dialogs > Dialogs > Drawing Dialogs > Advanced Tools Dialogs > Equipment Library

Database > Equipment Library

Drawing > Advanced Tools > Equipment Library

Commandline: le

Several Others

Explanation

This is where we determine the look of the block we are about to add to the drawing.

There are four tabs in this view that allow you to customize the appearance of the block you are about to create.

1.	Stock Shapes

2.	Mappable Terminals

3.	User Defined Shapes

4.	Mechanical Forms

Understanding the Settings Mechanism

Settings store the appearance and display mode of the Equipment Library. These settings determine the look of the created block. You can tell which settings were used to create the block by looking at the Equipoment Library status bar:

WireCAD stores the settings used to create blocks in three different locations:

1.	Device settings. If you create a block in a drawing we store the settings used to make the block with the device definition in the Equpment Library. These settings have priority.

2.	Project settings. If you like the display of a block you can click the:

Doing so will set the current display settings as the Project default. All devices that do not currently have stored settings will then use the Project defaults.

3.	Default settings. When no other settings are found we use the defaults.

Several controls are common to all tabs. We will go into those first.

Common Controls Options

Item

Description

Body Color

Sets the color of Functional I/O and Concept block bodies.

Creation Mode

Set by the UI.

Descriptor Locations

Shows the Descriptor Locations Map

dlg_eq_lib_descriptor_locations

Here you can reposition the various block

descriptors.

Image Display Mode

•	None - no image or cad block is inserted in the created block.

•	Image - insert the image that is pointed to in the Image File Path of the Details tab for this device.

•	DWGIcone - insert the DWG Icon in the DWG Icon File Path of the Details tab for this device.

snip_eq_lib_big_preview_image

Image inserted and scaled at MiddleCenter

Image Position

Image Scale Factor

Merge and Center

eq_lib_merge_center

This function will only merge identical port names

Shape Mode

Read Only

Shape Path

Stock Shape Number

Set by the Stock Shapes tab selection

Text Height

The height of all generated text.

Vertical Padding

eq_lib_dimsr

Vertical Pin Spacing

Pin Width

Body Width

Body Pen Width

The thickness of the line that represents the block body.

Vertically Center Pins

eq_lib_center

Nudge Positions

Use to nudge the various text around.

Tears and Bulge Factors

Tears are visual elements that represent to the reader of the document that the device does not display all of its available I/O. Tears use bulges. The greater the bulge factor the more dramatic the tear.

eq_lib_bottom_tear_15r

Bottom edge torn bulge factor .15 or 15/100

eq_lib_bottom_tear_50

Bottom edge torn bulge factor .5 or 50/100

Set Current Display Properties as Project Default

Reset Project Default

Clears any settings

Reset Device Settings

Stock Shapes Options

Here you choose from 18 stock shapes. We will not enumerate them here. Try clicking on them to see what they do.

Mappable Terminals Options

Here you can map the selected I/O on to terminals. Terminals are one or two port inline devices. If you select more that one record in the I/O tables we will continue to add terminals to accomodate the selection. If you select a terminal that has only an input port then any selected output records will be ignored.

Item	Description
Example showing multiple I/O selected and mapped on to a terminal that represents a full normal jack

User Defined Shapes Options

Any CAD file can be used as a User Defined Shape. It jsut needs to be placed in the Shape Files folder:

%BLOCKS%\Shapes Files

The Display Properties with then scale and stretch the object while applying port data.

Item	Description
User Defined Shape with four ports applied.

Mechanical Forms Options

Mechinal Forms are hardcoded objects that get their dimensional data from the device definition and use it to render objects

Item	Description
Rack Enclosure	Select a form. Only available when Front Panel (from Dims) is selected.
Rack Tray
Cube
Half Rack Left
Half Rack Right