create a new ItemType from Part
Hi,
Can anyone advise when I try to create a copy of the Part, right click on Part from the ItemTypes search results grid, and choose 'Save as' from the pop-up menu, and I got this error:
Reference ...
Forum Discussion
Hello,
While it is possible to the 'Save As' functionality to create copies of Items, ItemTypes in particular are very complex and are not easily copied. You will need to manually create your new ItemType.
Chris
Christopher Gillis Aras Labs Software Engineer
Christopher Gillis Aras Labs Software Engineer
Hello Chris, Thanks for this confirmation, I was getting errors when trying.
But does this behavior not undermine good programming practices?
So rather than modifying the existing ItemType, you copy the original and modify the copy.
The name of the copy would then also start with a company/client specific prefix.
Is there really no better alternative? Perhaps only for subscriberss?
As a note; I once ran into an error because I was able to SaveAs an Item but run into the maximum length of the name and hence was not able to create a copy. So the max length of a name can also be a limiting factor.Chris is unfortunately no longer at Aras. But we all wait for his return.
In general there are a few scenarios where Save As is not recommended to be used (even if Innovator doesn´t prevent it).
But "Copy "an ItemType is something I would avoid at all cost
When you create an ItemType, automatically a couple of sub items are created, especially Form and CUI elements.Your custom prefix that you assign afterwards will not affect the underlying items. So you have to rename all of them, otherwise your database will become a mess.
This is also the reason, why you should choose your ItemType name wisely at the start, cause you should avoid to change an ItemType name at all cost (for other elements it´s most of the time no problem).
If you really want to build a clone of an ItemType, do it via AML or packaging. So export the ItemType and then modify the file (name + ids). But this most of the time don´t save you much time compared to manual building.
