Edit in place not allowed on some mechanical components?

galex

Why do some mechanical components give the error message 'Cannot REFEDIT anonymous blocks' when I try and edit in place using either REFEDIT or by double clicking?
For example, FR-02 cannot be edited in place, however FR-01 can.
Also I have no idea why the icons in the browser are different to each other. Can somebody point me to a help resource that explains mechanical browser icons?

Lyubov Osina

Previously mechanical components were not editable in place, as they were an anonymous blocks. Such component can be edited by editing the component file. If the component is local, it should be externalized, edited and saved, then made local again, if necessary.
From V22 a new type of components is available - mechanical blocks, which are editable in place. Maybe you just have two different types of components.
Component icon with an arrow means an external component, this Help article has a description of Mechanical Browser icons: https://help.bricsys.com/document/_guides--MCAD_assembly_design--GD_componentproperties/V23/EN_US
And here is a link to article about mechanical blocks: https://help.bricsys.com/document/_guides--MCAD_assembly_design--GD_mechanicalblocksxrefsand3dsolids/V23/EN_US

galex

Lyubov_Osina said:

Previously mechanical components were not editable in place, as they were an anonymous blocks. Such component can be edited by editing the component file. If the component is local, it should be externalized, edited and saved, then made local again, if necessary.
From V22 a new type of components is available - mechanical blocks, which are editable in place. Maybe you just have two different types of components.
Component icon with an arrow means an external component, this Help article has a description of Mechanical Browser icons: https://help.bricsys.com/document/_guides--MCAD_assembly_design--GD_componentproperties/V23/EN_US
And here is a link to article about mechanical blocks: https://help.bricsys.com/document/_guides--MCAD_assembly_design--GD_mechanicalblocksxrefsand3dsolids/V23/EN_US

OK, thank you for clearing that up.
I chose to disable the mechanical blocks option as it was making the app unstable - I had quite a few crashes.
After I disabled it the crashes stopped.
I think editing in place is very useful, it is unfortunate that it cannot be done on mechanical components.
One alternative I can think of is to start with a top level skeleton part and xref it in to new files to derive individual components. I am coming from Inventor so I am looking for ways to mimic my old workflow.