- [Narrator] Every time I open
the SOLIDWORKS Electrical software,
this Projects Manager window should automatically pop up.
If it doesn't pop up or if you need to find it
in some other way, however,
just close out of this
I can also find it under the file tab
and my first button here is the Projects Manager.
And that's just going to open up that same window.
So what the Projects Manager does, as the name suggests,
it manages all of our existing
SOLIDWORKS Electrical projects.
So here I can see a list of all of my recent projects
that I've been working on.
I can also hit the tab here to show all projects
I've been working on.
In this case maybe it's a completely new database
or new install for me
so maybe I don't have any existing projects.
Here I see one I can just click on this of course
I could double click to open this project
or I'm going to just start fresh here
so maybe I'll just delete this existing project.
So, from here I can of course create
a brand new project if I'd like.
I can also archive or unarchive projects.
Now this is a very important concept to us
in SOLIDWORKS Electrical
and might be slightly new idea as well.
So, within SOLIDWORKS Electrical,
there's really no file open or file save
so it's a little bit different than what we're used to.
So SOLIDWORKS Electrical is automatically connected
to an SQL database
so this means everything we do, everything we work on,
is automatically saved out and updated to that database.
So this is actually very nice and useful
because previously if you were working on
some electrical design or project
and say, for example, your computer crashed
or you had a power outage
or anything like that,
you'd of course lose all of that work that you've been doing
up until your last save point.
So this is very useful and powerful to us
because now if we had some power outage or machine
shut-down or crash or whatever it might be,
we're not going to lose any work
because everything is automatically saved
and updated to that database.
So that being said,
if we're all working on the same database,
I'll never have to open or save out a project
because everyone can see and work on
those same projects together.
But let's say we needed to send out a project to somebody
who's not connected to this database,
maybe it's an external customer or client
or whatever it might be
so for them I might have to actually zip something up
and send it off to them by email or whatever it might be.
So this is where archive and unarchive come into play.
So these are essentially our open and save options
when we need to push our projects
to say external customers,
and this is also going to be how we're going to be opening
all of the exercise files for this course.
So, my archive is essentially my zip up and save out
and my unarchive is essentially my file open or my unzip.
So let's say we want to unzip
or open up an existing project,
I can just click on unarchive
and I'm going to browse to our very first exercise file
and go to Exercises, Chapter 1,
and right here,
and say open.
And now I'm trying to open up
or unarchive some existing project
that maybe some external client sent to me.
So the first thing it's going to do
it's going to ask me to rename this project
and put in whatever information or properties I'd like.
Maybe I'll just call this Unarchiving My First Project.
(Keyboard typing)
Something like this.
Then once I start to unarchive or unzip my project
I'll get this merge library elements window popping up
and it's going to ask me do I want to update my libraries,
yes or no essentially,
so I have do not update
and that won't update any of the existing files
or symbols that are coming in with this project
or update data will add any new information to my database.
So let's try update data here,
and again I jumped into this Unarchiving Projects wizard
and I can start by hitting the next button,
and so what it's telling me here
is that I have this new project that I'm trying to open
or unzip into my database and it's going
to add a whole bunch of information to my database.
So for example, this project has 74 symbols,
seven footprints, three title blocks, and so on.
Again I can just click next to see
each of these different components
and I can click on each and every one of these if I'd like
and take a look at my existing database object
as well as the new object that's coming in
with this new project.
So you do have to be careful here,
you want to make sure that things match up correctly
or essentially that you're not overwriting
any of your existing database with any bad information.
So say maybe you don't trust who sent you this project
and they're just sending you a whole bunch
of broken symbols,
you don't want to add that to your database
or overwrite any of your existing work.
So you do have to be careful in unarchiving projects.
So here it just shows all of these 74 symbols
that are coming in with this new project.
My seven 2D footprint symbols and so on.
If I know I'm happy with all this information
I can just jump straight to finish.
And it's going to add all of that new information
to my database so I can now open up
and view this new project.
Finally, the very last step,
it's going to ask me would I like to open this project now,
and I can say no and just leave it for later,
or I can click yes,
and of course that will open up this project for me.