By Chris Smith
Sometimes we may find that we are reusing certain iLogic rules in our designs, but not often enough to warrant adding to the templates. In this example I will guide you through the process of creating external rules that can be called into your design files as they are needed, without having to open parent files to copy the rule body.
For this example, let us consider having 2 rules in some of our files that each fill out certain iProperties depending on the design/criteria. Each rule will also create a user parameter based on the design conditions.
Rule 1 is going to populate the iProperties to suit customer A, as well as creating a material list specified and approved by the customer.
Rule 2 will also populate certain iProperties with details for customer B and will also add 2 custom parameters.
With our 2 rule already created, it is as simple as copying the body of the rule. Creating a new external rule and pasting the rule body into the new external rule.
When creating a rule, the software will ask for a save location, this should be somewhere the whole team can get access. In my example I will be adding the rules to Vault for any user to download and run.
Once the new global rule has been saved, it will display in the external rules list.
You can open the rule from the iLogic browser to make any changes, just like a standard rule.
I will repeat the process for the CustomerB rule.
I copy the body of the customer B Rule…
Then I create a new Global Rule. Notice that even though I am in Part2, the Global rule created in Part1 is still available for selection.
Once the new global rule has been created, I can paste the body of the rule from the CustomerB rule and save the global rule in the same folder as the first rule.
Now when we create a new part (Part3) we see that there are no Rules and no parameters.
However, looking in the global rule tab we can get access to our shared rules that we created.
This can be a useful tool because adding rules to the Template file will increase the file size of all your part files regardless of whether the rule is used. By adding the rules to the Global rule list, it allows all users access to the commonly used rules as they need them, instead of being included in the file regardless of requirement.
Hopefully you will find this tip useful when you are creating your common rules in iLogic.
My name is Chris Smith and thank you for taking the time to read my post. I’ll see you in the next one.