Locking multiple sessions of the same part

[AHarrison1]

Is there a way to lock multiple instances of the same file being opened,

Or, like Solidworks, only being able to open a read only copy of a file if it is open somewhere else.

Using 2020

Thanks

Edited December 19, 2019 by AHarrison1
People might think I'm shouting...caps lock

[gcode]

No, multiple users can open the same network file, work on it and save it 

with no warning that someone else is in the file.

It gets worse.... you can open multiple copies of the same file on your PC, work on both of them and save both of them,

again without warning.

I overwrote a day's work once because I had 2 copies of the same file open.

I opened one copy and started working.. then got called away from my desk.

When I came back, I opened a second copy and worked on it all day.

At the end of the day as I was shutting down my PC I saved the original file overwriting a day's work.

The next morning I opened the file and was shocked to see a day's work gone.

Fortunately, I use the backup utility  and have it set to 10 incremental saves so I was able to recover

my work.

I reported this years ago and was told the fix was two or three releases away,,, but that was in X5.

This is an issue that desperately needs addressing.

 

[AHarrison1]

10 minutes ago, gcode said:

This is an issue that desperately needs addressing.

Agreed

[cncappsjames]

My work-around for this has been to make a copy of the file. Set the properties to Read-Only, then open both. A SERIOUS PITA but the Read-Only one never has any toolpath in it. Just CAD. Still though. That function NEEDS to be there... a warning of some sort. 

[JoshC]

This would be a great feature in mastercam, i agree.

 In case anyone is unaware though there is software out there that specializes in this file security like what you have described, i dont know much about it other than it exists and is available for purchase, i think they call it a vault or PDM software i believe. I have never used one but some of our customers that i deal with use them and its pretty cool because they can do a handful of things like check out and check in files so only one person can work with the file and a bunch of other features to make file storage and letting multiple users work with files without the complications that you have described. If you run into this often it might be worth looking into some of the various PDM software's out on the market. Might be something to look into if you run into these problems often and i am sure a bunch of people on this forum already use one or may have additional details on these systems. 

[Zaffin_D]

I put about half an hour into the below solution; it's worth about the time I put into it...

  

It sets and resets the Windows 'Read-only' attribute of the current Mastercam file.  When you attempt to save a Mastercam file that's has it's 'Read-only' attribute set you get the below error message.

 

 

Attached is a .zip archive containing the .dll and .ft files.  Make sure that the .dll is unblocked, then copy it and the .ft file to Mastercam's Chooks folder.  The source can be found on my GitHub.  

FileLocker1_0.zip

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Zaffin said:

I put about half an hour into the below solution; it's worth about the time I put into it...

  

It sets and resets the Windows 'Read-only' attribute of the current Mastercam file.  When you attempt to save a Mastercam file that's has it's 'Read-only' attribute set you get the below error message.

 

 

Attached is a .zip archive containing the .dll and .ft files.  Make sure that the .dll is unblocked, then copy it and the .ft file to Mastercam's Chooks folder.  The source can be found on my GitHub.  

FileLocker1_0.zip

If I may ask? > What version of Mastercam is this for?

[Zaffin_D]

21 minutes ago, peter ~ said:

If I may ask? > What version of Mastercam is this for?

I used 2020 to develop it, but I think it should work for any version later than 2017. 

It only uses the NET-Hook API to get the current file name and to write to the event log.

[Guest]

thank you

[Zaffin_D]

I found another half hour so I added a method to save a locked file.

 

FileLocker1_1.zip

[Guest]

On 12/21/2019 at 1:19 AM, Zaffin_D said:

I used 2020 to develop it, but I think it should work for any version later than 2017. 

It only uses the NET-Hook API to get the current file name and to write to the event log.

All of the NETHook API only stuff I have built has worked on my lowest version x9.

I am unsure about X7-X8

[JoshC]

On 12/21/2019 at 3:02 PM, Zaffin_D said:

I found another half hour so I added a method to save a locked file.

 

FileLocker1_1.zip

Great work and thanks for sharing!

[pro grammer]

On 12/19/2019 at 6:20 AM, gcode said:

I overwrote a day's work once because I had 2 copies of the same file open.

I don't know how many times I have done that. I have constant interruptions. Open this, open that. Then forget where I ended.