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Design Library description not showing in 2015

Question asked by Brent Belongea on Jun 24, 2015
Latest reply on Feb 1, 2017 by James Lupinek

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How come when I put my cursor over the part or assembly in the design library, it does not show the descpription anymore in 2015?

The attached images are showing a decription underneath the image on a file that has not been saved to the current version (2015) of SW. I noticed that this goes away once the part is save in 2015.

This is a very nice feature, because if you don't know the nomenclature of the part, it is hard to grab the correct one right away without having to spend time to look it up.

When we save the part or assembly in the Design Library, we will fill out the description in the custom properties.

I've looked all over to see if this is an option setting somewhere, but was unable to find it. I don't think this is a Windows issue because this just started happening once we upgraded to 2015 from 2014.

James Lupinek Feb 1, 2017 6:53 PM

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Problem went away with the Solidworks 2017 SP1.0

We found no solutions during 2016 and this was causing headaches for all of our engineers. It is an absolutely unacceptable glitch and cost countless time and money.

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Description-2.JPG15.7 KB
Description-1.JPG18.7 KB

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Mark McVeigh Jun 24, 2015 11:09 AM
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Hi Brent

I Believe the description should be shown as a tool tip for all items parts in the design library though believe this issue is related to SPR 835559 (Design library part thumb nail does not show description when hovered in task pane).

Kind Regards

Mark
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- Brent Belongea @ Mark McVeigh on Jun 24, 2015 11:12 AM
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  Mark,
  
  I think it's really strange that any file this hasn't been saved in 2015 yet will still show the description.
  
  Thanks for letting me know...now see if will get fixed?
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Mark McVeigh Jun 24, 2015 12:20 PM
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Hi Brent,

I have completed some testing on this one and believe what you have described is related to the file format for 2015 being changed, with a 2015 part it no longer has the custom tab, you can test this by rmb in the design library on a 2015 part , properties, custom tab is not visible) Testing in 2014 the parts custom properties tab is still available showing the stored property which has been assigned while hovering over. The below Solution from the Knowledge base does not directly relate to the issue mentioned but supports what I have suggested.

S-068545
In Windows® Explorer, when I right-click on a SOLIDWORKS® 2015 file and select 'Properties', where is the ‘Custom’ tab?

In SOLIDWORKS® 2015 and onward, the ‘Custom’ tab is no longer available in Windows® Explorer file properties. This is because SOLIDWORKS software now uses the same schema for custom properties as Microsoft® Word and Microsoft Excel. To test, you can check file properties of a *.docx or *.xlsx file and note that these file types also do not have a have ‘Custom’ tab in Windows Explorer.

Kind regards
Mark
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James Lupinek Aug 6, 2015 4:00 PM
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We are having the same issue at our company. We use multiple design libraries and any parts converted to the 2015 format no longer show tooltip descriptions. This is a big deal for us. It adds quite a bit of time searching for the correct parts based on part number instead of the more intuitive descriptions.

When can we expect a fix for this? Or is this intended/documented?

Thanks,

James
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James Lupinek Aug 11, 2015 2:40 PM
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So tooltip descriptions for design library components are just gone forever?

This is a HUGE inconvenience for our engineering staff. I'm getting complaints daily on the issue and would like to know if it will be addressed. So far this is the only thread I can find on the issue and it is not promising.

Thanks,

James
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Richard Earley Aug 11, 2015 3:37 PM
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Brent,

Is this happening for all files or just Design Library files?

A Windows update has stopped this happening for alot of computers recently - its all to do with a .dll file being unregistered in Windows

To Solve

The driver file is ‘sldpropertyhandler.dll’ which is found in C:\Program Files\SolidWorks Corp\SolidWorks (or wherever their SW is)
1. 1. Ensure that you have full Admin Rights and have User Account Controls completely off (it will fail otherwise)
1. 2. Use Command Prompt to change directory to correct location. The command is ‘cd c:\program files\SolidWorks Corp\SolidWorks’
1. 3. Register the driver file using ‘regsvr32 sldpropertyhandler.dll’
1. 4. If this does not work then download the file from this link http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=23510
1. 5. Re-run steps 2 & 3
Hope that this helps!

Richard
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- James Lupinek @ Richard Earley on Aug 11, 2015 4:17 PM
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  Good Afternoon Richard,
  
  I completed your suggested fix and received the confirmation window that I successfully registered the DLL. Unfortunately this did not solve the issue for us.
  
  Thank you for the suggestion.
  
  Anyone else have any fixes for the issue? There has been no official response on the subject from Solidworks that I can find.
  
  Thanks again,
  
  James
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- Brent Belongea @ Richard Earley on Aug 19, 2015 4:05 PM
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  Just Design Library parts.
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Thomas Sibra Feb 4, 2016 8:42 AM
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Hi,

I have the same problem like Brent and James, Is that a solution was found to this problem?
I use Solidworks 2015 SP5.0.

Thanks
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Matt Martin Apr 6, 2016 8:32 AM
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I also have this problem. this issue is nearly impossible to search for, by the way.

Since SW has not addressed this, and it doesn't look promising that they will, my only suggestion is to use windows explorer, there is a small info bar at the bottom that you can see the descriptions you used to see in pre-SW2015 Design Library,see image below (if it doesn't delete my picture when i post).

I suspect that SW did not update the code in the Design Library to look for the Description field in a different location - wherever the windows schema stores that information. My guess is the code to populate the pop up bubble in design library was explicitly looking for "description@custom" properties, where now you can find the description in the "details" tab.
The "description" fields found in "details" and "custom" tabs are linked, as shown in the picture above - I edited the description found in the "custom" tab (that SW2015 deletes) to make sure it was the same as the desc in windows explorer.

While trying to find a workaround I noticed that - for a pre-SW2015 file - the custom tab will disappear from properties (via windows explorer) while you have the part open in SW. I don't know what use that information is.
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Jack Irwin Nov 18, 2016 2:13 PM
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I am having the same issue. Has anyone figured out a definitive fix to this?

Thanks
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- James Lupinek @ Jack Irwin on Feb 1, 2017 6:53 PM
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  Problem went away with the Solidworks 2017 SP1.0
  
  We found no solutions during 2016 and this was causing headaches for all of our engineers. It is an absolutely unacceptable glitch and cost countless time and money.
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Design Library description not showing in 2015

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