Customising ACAD electrical 2015 for multiple user access

Customising ACAD electrical 2015 for multiple user access

Edit 2015 1 12

ALL Attribute template files and wire connection files must also be transferred to the network location... (further cluttering the folder). All I wanted was a nice clean location to save custom symbols...

See AE forum discussion.

Edit 2014 12 11

Additionally, I had to move the slide libraries for all the out-of-the-box symbol icons in the Icon Menu. Simplest way was to list the location folder

Location: C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\AutoCAD Electrical {version}\{release}\{country code}\Support

by file type and move all the .dll and .slb files to the custom icon folder in the network drive. (Moving just the .dll files seemed to resolve the issue...)

(Note, the .slb file extension didn't show up in the Windows file browser for until I unchecked the Hide extensions for known file types option in Tools>Folder Options>View). 

2014 12 5

So you want to work on a project from two different locations (i.e. with two different machines) and still have access to the custom symbols you spent so much time building. In order to do this, ACADe must be set up to share the schematic and panel libraries and icon menus. Another good reason to store your custom content in a separate location (network or otherwise) is to prevent the loss of that data if you reinstall (or update?) ACADe - the installer apparently overwrites the libraries at their standard locations!

References: A good overview on how to setup ACAD for multiple users from Autodesk and a slightly more in-detail discussion here.

However, I don't want the entire 500mb standard library taking up space on the network drive, I just want my custom content accessible. So here is what I did:

1) Created a copy of WD.ENV (environment file containing environment settings and the location of library databases, support files, icons etc), {Location: C:\Users\ User login \Documents\Acade 20xx\AeData\} at a shared network location. {In my case in my GoogleDrive}.

2) Renamed the local copies of WD.ENV to dissabled_WD.ENV on both of the machines. {I don't think that these two steps are necessary for sharing custom libraries, but now future modifications to the environment will (should?) be propagated to all the machines sharing the file}.

3) Added the network folder path to the new WD.ENV file to the list of Support Files Search Paths in the ACADe>Options>Files menu.

4) Created three network folders: Custom Panel libraries, Custom symbol libraries and Custom Icon Menus.

5) Created network copies of the actual symbol and panel icon menus ACE_JIC_MENU.DAT and the ACE_PANEL_MENU.DAT files {located at \Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\AutoCAD Electrical {version}\{release}\{country code}\Support\}. Renamed both the files.

6) Moved my custom symbols and custom panel items from their local locations {\User\Public\Documents\Autodesk\Acade 20xx\Libs\} to their appropriate network location created in step 3.

7) Added the network paths to ACADe>Project Properties>Project Settings menu for the Schematic Libraries and Panel Footprint Libraries.

8) In the same menu, pointed the Schematic Icon Menu and Panel Icon Menu File to their new network copies.

Note that Symbol & Panel libraries and Icon menus are associated at the project level - so steps 7&8 have to be done each time a new project is created.

Another afternoon wasted thanks to Autocad.... :)