Electrical Design Software | Elecdes Design Suite by Scada Systems Ltd

How to Customise Catalog Formats

General

When a catalog file is created, EDS first checks for a catalog template file to define the field structure of the new catalog file.

The catalog template files are provided so that you can modify the field structure of the catalog's. If a catalog template does not exist then the default fields / columns will be used to create that catalog database.

Catalog template file location and naming

All of the template files are stored in the <EDS>\RTEMPLATE sub-directory of your EDS installation. You can create your own template files in the <EDS>\USER_SYMB sub directory of your EDS installation. This will ensure they are not replaced the templates from future updates of the Elecdes software.

The template files are named "template_", followed by the name of the database file to be generated from that template.

For example, the device catalog template is named "template_CATD.dbf". This would be used when creating a new device catalog database for a manufacturer, i.e. manufacturer code 50 would create the file CATD50.dbf from that template.

Catalog template contents

The template files are database files in dBase 3 format. They contain a single blank record. The important information stored in the template is the fields / columns in the database header.

The blank record allows the file to be opened and edited in Database Editor.

Catalog File Customization

Edit the field / column structure of a catalog template file to:

  • Add or remove fields from the catalog.

  • Change the width of existing fields in the catalog.

  • Rearrange the fields in the catalog.


Generally, data is placed into the report files by matching the report fields with the catalog fields for any part in the Elecdes drawings. Therefore any values from the fields in catalog database will also be shown in the reports if they are added to the report templates as well.