By Rick Sewell

Rejected! You know the feeling. It’s the one that washes away any feeling of satisfaction you might have had when you completed and submitted that last project. In looking over the reason the project was rejected, you find out that certain elements were put on the wrong level. In fact, all of the elements on “Electric-Main” shouldn’t be there and need to be moved to “Electric-Prime”. If it was just one design file, it wouldn’t be a problem, but this project has over 500 design files! So much for dinner with the family. While the changes aren’t hard, the correction will easily eat up days. This is certainly not the most efficient use of your time — or your skills.

Lucky for MicroStation users like you, there’s a solution — Global File Changer™. Global File Changer has a built-in custom command that allows you to move — in batch — all of the elements from one level (or even multiple levels) to another level in any number of design files.

Here’s how:

1. Load Global File Changer from your Axiom pull-down menu.
2. Select “Custom | Move elements to different levels…”. This will open the “Move Elements to Different Levels” dialog box.



Figure 1. Global File Changer lets you make unlimited changes to multiple design files quickly and easily. The “Custom” menu contains a growing number of built-in commands (such as moving elements to different levels) that just cannot be done using MicroStation key-in commands.

3. Press the <Add> button to load the “Level Mapping Rule” dialog box.



Figure 2. The “Move Elements to Different Levels” dialog box lets you easily set up rules for moving elements from one level to another level — in batch — in just a few or in hundreds or thousands of design files.

4. Press the <Levels…> button next to the top field labeled “Move elements from which levels?”
   This will open a dialog box that lists of all of the available levels in your active file.



Figure 3. You can choose which level or levels you want to quickly move elements from — in batch — with this super-simple interface.

5. In this example, we’re moving all of the elements from “Electric-Main” to another level. So, you would select “Electric-Main” and press <OK>.
6. Next, press <Level…> (Figure 2) which is next to the field labeled “To level:”. This will open the same “Select Levels” dialog box as in Step 4, only this time we are selecting the level that your elements are to be moved to.
7. For this example, you would select “Electric-Prime”, and press <OK>.
8. Press <OK> again on the “Level Mapping Rule” dialog box.
9. Now, at the “Move Elements to Different Levels” dialog box, you can see the “Source” and “Target” levels that you have selected. You can make further selections if you choose, but for this example, we’re finished.


Figure 4. Never get stuck again manually moving elements from one level to another. The “Move Elements to Different Levels” dialog box , shown here, displays the rules that you have set up for moving elements — in batch — from one level (or levels) to another level.

10. Press <OK> on the “Move Elements to Different Levels” dialog box.
11. You will be prompted to choose a location and file name for saving the instructions you just created for Global File Changer to use while processing. Do so and press <OK> to return to the main Global File Changer dialog box.
12. From the main Global File Changer dialog box, press <Select…>, which is next to the “Design Files:” field. This will open the “Choose Files to Process” dialog box.


Figure 5. The button makes it easy to select any number of design files that contain the elements you want to move from one level (or levels) to another level. Whether you select a few or a few hundred files, Global File Changer will process them all in batch, quickly moving your elements to the level you selected.

Here, you can browse for all of the files you need to process. There is more than one way to select your files for processing. From talking to customers, I’ve found that most users just press the “Browse for files” button. This will allow you to navigate to and select each file that should be processed. Once your files are selected, press <OK> .

Finally, press <Start> on the main Global File Changer dialog box to process your files.

After a matter of minutes the job will be complete! Your client won’t believe that you made the necessary changes in that amount of time. Now you can go back to the feeling of satisfaction of finally having the project complete.

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