Firm Folder

Creating a Firm Folder

This is a guide to creating a firm folder in which various files and settings can be placed, making
them available for all models.
Files in the firm folder are read before files in the system folder and after files in the model folder.
So for example if a template file with the same name is in all 3, the one in the model folder will be
read and the other 2 ignored. If the one in the model folder is removed the file in the firm folder will
then be read. This means files can be copied from the system folder, placed into a firm folder and
modified without making any changes to the system files.
The first thing to do is create the firm folder itself. This can be called anything you want but for
this guide well call the folder Firm
Also, well create the folder in another folder called Company-Settings. This folder will be
created in the TeklaStructures folder
Well now create an initialization file in the firm folder. Create a text file in the firm folder and call
it firm.ini
We can use this firm.ini file to set various advanced options we want for each model
Open the firm.ini file and type the following line:
set XS_USE_ASSEMBLY_NUMBER_FOR=MAIN_PART
Save the file and open a Tekla model.
Open component 101 and save some settings. This will create a file in your model attributes folder
Copy this file into your firm folder
Now well need to tell Tekla to read the firm folder and firm.ini file when it starts up. To do this
well need to add a couple of lines to the user.ini file
The user.ini file can often be hidden away. The easiest way to find its location is through the
directory browser macro. Go to Tools>Macros and run the macro
Clicking on User Settings will open the folder where the user.ini file is located
Open this file, remove the rem from in front of the XS_FIRM line and paste the path of the firm
folder location here
Well also need to call in the firm.ini file so the settings in here are being used. Under the
XS_FIRM line add the following line:
call C:\TeklaStructures\Company-Settings\Firm\firm.ini
Save the file and exit out of Tekla
Reopen Tekla and start a new model. The advanced option XS_USE_ASSEMBLY_NUMBER_FOR
should now be set to MAIN_PART and connection 101 should have the settings saved earlier
available to load
Tags:
firm folder
firm
folder