Ho do i change the save location of .bak files ?

DFLY

Hi I did this in AutoCAD a few years ago and it was great.

How do I change the automatic save location of .bak files that BricsCAD creates each time I save?

I am working on projects where the client wants separate dwg files for each sheet, and it's a huge pain having more .bak files in the folder than dwg files (when I change the revision i get an extra bak file).

Jason Bourhill

There is a feature in Express Tools for BricsCAD called MOVEBAK that allows you to specify a folder for .bak files

Regards,
Jason Bourhill
CAD Concepts

Michael Mayer

I also find :

File.bak
File.dwg
File.dwl
File.dwl2

for each single active File extremely irritating when doing
administration tasks in Finder/Explorer.

rkmcswain

I don't know for sure in BricsCAD, but in AutoCAD the creation of the .DWL and .DWL2 files used to be controlled by an external .ARX file. Now it's built into the code with no way to disable (AFAIK).

I'm guessing that Bricsys is using the same technique. Those files are pretty much worthless for us since we have multiple nodes containing our DWG files and we don't replicate those anyway. I bet I can count one one hand the number of users I've run across who even know that the WHOHAS command exists....

Torsten Moses

The dwl and dwl2 files are used by AutoCAD + BricsCAD to ensure "file locking", in multi-user environment ...
see inside the file(s), with notepad.exe, just plain text files containing informations on who & where a dwg file is opened, to prevent a dwg file is opened write-enabled by different users at same time ...
and also used by WHOHAS :-)

So depending on the environment, those dwl and dwl2 files are very important (and automatically deleted when a dwg file is closed).
many greetings !

Michael Mayer

I also think they might be useful.
Not so much for me as a one man show,
they only show me their existence in Bricscad after a crash,
where I will ignore the lock.

I just would like to ban DWLs and BAKs to a specific Folder
where they don't disturb. But I think there is no way for the
Lock Files to do their job other than by existing directly
beside their parent File (?)

DFLY

@Jason Bourhill said:
There is a feature in Express Tools for BricsCAD called MOVEBAK that allows you to specify a folder for .bak files

Regards,
Jason Bourhill
CAD Concepts

Thanks. Worked perfectly.

And Wow ! The good old Express tools. I've missed them a bit. Great for making super hatches and writing text around circles.

Pavel Perina

The link is broken - it lead to cadwiesel.de webpage fine not found. is there a different location for Express Tools?

DFLY

The link still works. I just tried it again. Could it possibly be your connection ?

Michael Mayer

@Torsten Moses said:

dwl and dwl2 files are very important
(and automatically deleted when a dwg file is closed).
many greetings !

If a DWG File is closed as expected ....
As I have tons of these in my Test Folders left over from Bricscad/Shape crashes.

But I'm still not sure what the BAK files are for.
Do they store the complete data like the original file ?

Joe Dunfee

The BAK file is actually the DWG file you opened. When you saved your DWG, the old BAK file is deleted. Then, the older DWG was renamed to be a BAK file. Finally the version you are saving will be saved as a new DWG file with the old name. If you want to use a BAK file, all you need to do is change the .BAK extension to be .DWG.

I don't know how the MOVEBAK utility works. But, I am guessing that after the new BAK file is created, then it is move to the other directory.

As an aside, if you have set BricsCAD to do autosaves, it will save the file as a .SV$ in what ever directory it is set to do this. (set by SAVEFILEPATH) Whenever you close a drawing, or exit BricsCAD gracefully (i.e. no crash) it will delete any SV$ files it created for the drawing. Like a BAK file, you just need to find the SV$ file, and rename the extension to DWG to use it.

-Joe

Michael Mayer

Thanks Joe,
I think I got it.