I have created some custom "user data" properties in a book. I would like to push these properties to older projects. I tried copy/paste new book to old project and tried using a project macro to add to old project. Both ways failed in passing the custom user data fields to the new books in the old project.
Does anyone have any other ideas? My alternative I can think of is to manually create these custom fields in each old project.
Thanks,
Zac
OK, I think i figured it out. If you go to Project tab / Configurations arrow / User data, you will get a user data configuration manager. I was able to archive my new book configuration, then unarchive the book config in an older project, replacing the old configuration. Now the user data fields of the book in the old project are the same as the new.
One thing that was weird is at first I duplicated the configuration (so that i could rename it). After i duplicated it, it changed the configuration type to the component symbol instead of the book symbol (see pic below). I then pushed the duplicated config to the server, opened an old project and pulled the config from the server. Again it stayed as a component symbol instead of a book. This resulted in the book user data fields not changing at all. I thought since there was 2 book configurations it didn't know which one to use, so I deleted the original so the config I pulled from the server was the only one left. The book user data fields appeared to go back to factory default. This is telling me its reading no configuration and the config I pulled isn't doing anything. My guess is that its considering it a component user data config file. I wonder if they change the file type because it can't handle more than 1 book configuration in a project?
Either way the end result is to just archive/unarchive the config file, or push the book config to the server which will overwrite the original config if that matters to you.
Zac, I am speculating a bit on this, I have my user data all built into my template so I haven't actually tested this: But, I believe if you open that project that has the preferred User Data settings, go to Project>Configuration (dropdown) and select UserData. You will probably see a "green" data configuration on the right that will have the custom user data modifications you made but held ONLY inside that project. You can pass these to the Application level for use then in all your other projects by pressing "Add to Application". Be aware that if this config has the same name as an existing application level configuration, it will OVERWRITE the old one and you won't get it back! So if you are concerned about keeping the original set of User Data in tact, change the name of your green configuration so it doesn't overwrite the original in red on the left.
Now in a project moving forward, you should be able to add that user data set to the project by choosing the configuration (red) and clicking "add to project".
Evan,
Everything you said is correct from what I discovered playing around. One thing to note is that I am unable to rename the "green" data config. When I go to the properties of that config, the name is grayed out and I can't change it. That's why I have to use the archive/unarchive method if I don't want to overwrite the application version of the config.
Your answer is much cleaner and easy to follow picture, I'm going to mark your answer as the correct one.
Thanks, that's very interesting, maybe there is a "rule" that you can only have one collection of Book user data, the fact that it switched it to component type is very strange so I'll make note of that! Like I said, I hadn't actually tried it but glad the mechanism eventually worked out for you, cheers!
Zac, I am speculating a bit on this, I have my user data all built into my template so I haven't actually tested this: But, I believe if you open that project that has the preferred User Data settings, go to Project>Configuration (dropdown) and select UserData. You will probably see a "green" data configuration on the right that will have the custom user data modifications you made but held ONLY inside that project. You can pass these to the Application level for use then in all your other projects by pressing "Add to Application". Be aware that if this config has the same name as an existing application level configuration, it will OVERWRITE the old one and you won't get it back! So if you are concerned about keeping the original set of User Data in tact, change the name of your green configuration so it doesn't overwrite the original in red on the left.
Now in a project moving forward, you should be able to add that user data set to the project by choosing the configuration (red) and clicking "add to project".