120 — The Project Browser

A ConstructiVision project is a folder: the panel drawings, the site drawing and the project file (.cvp) that ties them together. On a busy office computer those folders end up in many places. The Projects button lists every project ConstructiVision can find, with the drawings in each, so you can get to a panel without hunting through Windows folders.

It also tells you when a project folder is a copy of another one. That matters, because a copied panel is not covered by the original’s licence.

Where it is

  • Toolbar: the ConstructiVision toolbar, sixth button — Projects, after New Drawing and just before Tracker. The icon is a small stack of windows. The tooltip reads: “Every ConstructiVision project on this computer, with its panels: pick one and open it.”

  • Menu: ConstructiVision → Projects…

  • Typed command: CV-PROJECT-BROWSER

Open a drawing from the project first. ConstructiVision finds a project by its project file, looking in the folders around the drawing you have open. With a panel open from inside the Riverside Distribution Center folder, the browser found that project. With a lone panel open from a folder that holds no project file, it found none (see What you see).

Try it on Riverside Distribution Center

This is the project you create in Tutorial 1 and build through the lesson chain. This lesson used a copy of the project folder as it stood after the linked-panels lesson.

  1. Open TP08-12.dwg from the Riverside Distribution Center project folder.

  2. Click Projects. ConstructiVision reads the folders and reports the count on the command line. When this lesson was checked:

    [CV-PB] 1 project(s) found in 13 folder(s), 0 ms (CV-3014).

    The folder count and time depend on your computer.

  3. The ConstructiVision – Projects window opens. The top line reads 1 project(s) on this computer. The left list has three columns — Project, Panels and Note — and shows one row:

    Project

    Panels

    Note

    Riverside Distribution Center

    5

  4. Click the Riverside Distribution Center row. The right-hand list, Panels in the selected project, fills with the drawings in that folder:

    1.dwg
Drawing1.dwg
TP08-012.dwg
TP08-12.dwg
TP08-20.dwg

    and the Folder: line under the lists shows where the project lives on disk.

  5. To work on one of them, pick it in Panels in the selected project and click Open panel — the tooltip’s “pick one and open it”.

  6. Click Close when you are done.

What you see

The window. Two lists side by side — projects on the left, the selected project’s drawings on the right — a Folder: line, and four buttons: Open panel, Add a folder…, Rescan and Close. A long folder path is shortened in the middle with ... so it fits inside the window: the start of the path and the project folder’s own name stay readable, as in C:\Users\...\Riverside Distribution Center\.

Drawings, not data files. The Riverside Distribution Center folder used for this lesson also held four .cvpanel files. The browser counted and listed only the five drawings.

No project found. With a copy of Arlington Airport A’s AAA039.dwg open from a folder that has no project file, the window opened with an empty list and this top line:

0 project(s) on this computer. Use Add a folder... to show where yours are.

A copied project folder. After the whole Riverside Distribution Center folder was copied in Windows, the browser listed both, and marked the copy in the Note column:

Project

Panels

Note

Riverside Distribution Center

6

Riverside Distribution Center

6

COPY of Riverside Distribution Center

The top line read 2 project(s) on this computer. A long note is shortened in the middle too — on a later build the same note showed as COPY of...tribution Center, keeping its start and end.

Why the COPY mark matters. A copy of a licensed panel carries no licence of its own. When this lesson was checked, a copied panel drawing (TP08-12 - Copy.dwg) showed Copy - 0 tokens, OK refused beside Main Panel’s OK at a zero token balance, and pressing OK printed:

[CV-IDN] this drawing is a copy of .../Riverside Distribution Center/TP08-12.dwg (the project registers that licence to it) -- the copied licence was removed; this panel is licensed on its own.
[CV-IDN] panel license denied -- insufficient_tokens
[CV-IDN] Main Panel OK refused by the licence gate -- nothing was drawn or saved

(The path is shortened here; the command line prints it in full.) With tokens in your balance, the copy is licensed as a panel of its own — see Your account in AutoCAD.

What this lesson does not cover

  • Add a folder… — for projects kept somewhere ConstructiVision does not look on its own.

  • Rescan — re-reads the folders.

  • How far each project has got, and what to do next — that is the Tracker.

  • Renaming a project or moving its folder — see Change Project Folder Location.

Watch the lesson

A companion video for this lesson is planned alongside the written curriculum.