Earlier this month I wrote about Component Selection Tools in Assemblies and I left out a couple of new selection tools in 2008. Today We will cover those missing selection tools; Show Hidden Components, Advanced Select & Select Sub Assembly. These selection tools will come in handy later this week when we cover Quick View / Selective Open.

Advanced Select

The Advanced Select tool may seem like too much but I encourage you to play with it and get the hang of it. With the Advanced Select tool you can create detailed selection sets that make selecting components in very large assemblies easier. It uses search criteria that you define to select components in an assembly, you can then save search criteria for later use. The following example uses a simple assembly to illustrate the usage of the tool it is is more suited for large assemblies with many different components.

To perform an Advanced Select in an assembly, select the option in the Selection Tools in either the Standard Toolbar or Shortcut Bar.

The Advanced Component Selection window will open. In the Define Search Criteria tab you will create your selection set using predefine categories, Boolean operators and values.

Category1

In the Category1 field you will select one of the following:

• Part mass - SW Special - You can enter the numeric value of the Mass or you can select an existing component in the FeatureManager and the Part Mass will automatically added to the field.
• Part volume - SW Special - You can enter the numeric value of the Volume or you can select an existing component in the FeatureManager and the Part Mass will automatically added to the field.
• Envelope Select - SW Special - You select from the list of envelopes in the assembly. Assembly envelopes are special assembly components that are used to select components that either reside inside, outside or cross it’s volume…but that is a different post.
• Part is interior detail - SW Special - Pretty self explanatory, selects the internal components of an assembly.
• Configuration Name - SW Special - Enter the specific configuration and all the components that have that configuration will be selected.
• Document Name - SW Special - All components that match the entered name will be selected.
• Custom Property - All parts that match the criteria for the value of the specified custom property will be selected.
• Component Status - includes: Resolved, Lightweight, Suppressed, Needs Rebuild, Has Errors, Has Errors, Has Warnings, Has Failed Mates, Has Mates - Under Defined, Has mates, Fully Defined, Has mates - Over Defined and Fixed. (This is my favorite category to use when I am trying to debug errors in an assembly.)
• In Context Relations - Select parts that have broken external references, locked external references, are driven by incontext relations to a selected  component, have driving incontext relations or have mates to the selected parts.
• Display - Selects components that match either wireframe, HLV, HLR, Shaded, Shaded w/ Edges, Default Display, Hide, show or transparent.
• File Status - Selects components that have the status of Read Only, Write Access, Needs Save, Out of Date or has one of the entered users has Write Access.
• File Type - Selects a file if they are a ToolBox part, Fastener, SheetMetal Part, Weldment, Weld Bead, Imported Geometry or Mold Part.

Category2

The Category2 field is used to further define the category selected in Category1. Not all categories require the use of Category2. The only categories that require further definition are:

• Custom Property
• In Context Relations
• File Status

Condition

Conditions are the operators that show how entered value is used with the selected category. Some common condition op0erators are listed:

• = or not =
• < , >, <= or >=
• contains
• is or is not
• is yes or is no

Value

Enter the text string, numeric value, name, user, status or component required for the selected category

And/Or

Acts a logical operator for creating compound selection sets.

Create Simple Selection Set

For this example, we want to create a simple selection set that selects all components in the assembly that contain the word shaft in the Document name. First, for the Category1 field we select Document Name.

For our Condition we will select contains, this will select all the components that contain the word shaft. So if the Document name is Die Shaft or Steel Shaft, it will be selected. If we put is (exactly) here, it would only select the exact value we placed in the Value field.

Now we enter the the word Shaft in the Value field. At this point we can press the Apply button to select all components that match the criteria we defined but we can also save the criteria to be used a later time. Since this is a common criteria we plan to use a lot we can save it as a named criteria that we can easily select later. In the field Name of enter the name Shafts and select the Save button.

Now we select the Apply Button to select all the shafts in the assembly.

Now all the documents that contain the name Shaft will be selected.

Creating a Favorite Search Criteria

You can designate any saved search in the Manage Searches tab a favorite that can quickly be accessed from the Selection pull-down. In the Manage Searches tab, check Add to Favorites for the searches you want to add to the pull-down.

The saved search we created will now be shown in the Selection pull-down.

Showing Hidden Components

The Show Hidden Components tool is different from the Select Hidden command we covered in Component Selection Tools in Assemblies. The Show Hidden Components command is not really a selection tool but it sort of relates to everything we are discussing. The Show Hidden Components temporaily shows all the hidden components in an assembly that you can then select to be shown with the rest of the assembly. Right-click in the graphics area without selecting a component and click Show Hidden Components.

The Show Hidden dialog will open and all the visible components will be hidden and the hidden components will be shown.

Select all the components that you wish to be shown and click Exit Show-Hidden in the Show Hidden dialog.

All components will now be shown in the assembly.

Selecting a Sub-Assembly

Last but certainly not least is the Select Sub Assembly command. In the graphics area there is no easy way to determine which components are part of a sub-assembly. There are times you would like to hide, or apply some other function to, a sub-assembly but if you select a component in the graphics area only that component will be affected. Prevent this by right-clicking on the component and clicking Select Sub Assembly.

Now all components in the sub-assembly that the selected component is a child of will be selected.

Like I have said many times before this by no means is all the available selection tools that you can use in an assembly but as always, that is another post.

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