The Design Reports Folder dialog is used to specify the folder that all report files generated for designs are saved to, and how these report filenames are constructed.
How To Use The Dialog
Folder For Report Files
This section defines where the design report files are written when using the Reports function. You can choose from four different settings by selecting from the drop-down list.
- Design Folder : report files will be written to the same folder as the design file itself. If the design has not been saved yet, or the report is not design specific, the report will be written to the general folder. (See General Folders).
- This Folder : you specify the folder where all design report files are written. Either type the required folder path, if you type a relative path it will be applied to the current working directory, or use the Browse… button to use an explorer dialog to choose the folder. You can use the pop-up menu to the right of the folder name box to insert keywords that will be replaced with the correct text when the report file is generated. These keywords are explained in the Report File Names Template section below.
- This Folder below design file : you specify a folder name which will be appended to the folder in which the design is stored. For example, if your design is stored in “C:\My Projects\Board 6\Revision 2.pcb”, you can set the reports folder name to “Reports” and all the design’s report files will be written to the folder called “C:\My Projects\Board 6\Reports”. You can use the pop-up menu to the right of the folder name box to insert keywords that will be replaced with the correct text when the report file is generated. These keywords are explained in the Report File Names Template section below.
- General Folder : Use the folder defined in the General Folders dialog. The name of the General folder pre-defined will be shown greyed out as not selectable in the box.
Report File Names Template
This section defines how the report files are constructed. You can type fixed text into the box, and use the drop down menu button to the right of the file name box to insert keywords that will be replaced with the appropriate text when the report is run. The first set of keywords, above the menu dividing line, are only inserted once and therefore show a tick on the menu when inserted. Click on an inserted keyword in the menu to remove it from the template. The keywords below the line can be added multiply and so do not show a tick when inserted, and have to be removed by editing the template. The keywords you can use are described below:
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Design Name : The name of the design the report is being generated for.
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Report Group : The name of report group that the report is in. Each standard report in the list can allocated to a report group using the Generate Reports dialog. The user reports can have a report group assigned by including the Set Report Group command in their script. If the report being run is not in a group this keyword will simply be removed from the file name.
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Report Title : The title of the Report.
e.g. “Design Status Report”
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Design Variant : The name of the Current Variant being used for the design. If variants are not being used, or the current variant is set to the master design variant, the keyword will simply be removed from the file name.
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Design Type : The type of the design that the report is being generated for. This is the default file extension text, so “pcb” for a PCB design, “sch” for a schematic design and “pfp” for a footprint.
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Date and Time - The Date or Time when the file is produced. The format used is the short form of the system time format, but with all special file path characters replaced with a dash character.
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Design Attribute : Use this to insert the value of a design level attribute into the filename when the report file is generated. If the attribute does not exist, or its value is empty the keyword will not be used and will be removed from the name. Choosing this keyword from the menu will add ”$(ATTR)” to the template, where “attr_name” must be replaced in the template with the name of the attribute you want to use.
e.g. If the design has an attribute “JOB_NO” with the value “1806”, then ”$(ATTR)” will be replaced with “1808” in the name.
Note: If the attribute value is for a file name rather than a folder, all folder path special characters in the value will be replaced with an underscore character when the template is applied.
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Start Pre-Text and End Post-Text: Most keywords are obvious, but the ”$(PRE)” and ”$(POST)” keywords are a little different. They are used to add text either side of another optional keyword, but only if it is not blank. So if the optional keyword has a value then the text between the pre-text keyword and the optional keyword will be included and the text between the optional keyword and the post-text keyword will be included. If the optional keyword results in blank text the pre-text and post-text keywords, and all text between them, will be removed from the filename.
For example ”$(PRE)[$(Variant)]$(POST)” will be replaced by “[USA]” for a report for variant “USA” and will produce nothing for a report with no variant.
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If Then Else: There is also a set of advanced keywords that can be used to create conditional folder and filename templates. For example to have completely different report file names for each of the different design type. See the Reports help for more details on these keywords.
Note: If the template is for a file name rather than a folder, all folder path special characters will be removed from the name when the template is applied.
Other Options For Report Writing
Other options controlling the writing of report files can be found in the Reports Dialog. For example, you can specify how the output is written and viewing it, plus settings controlling the headers etc.
Related Topics
Plot Folder | Choose Folder | Design Backups Folder | Design Reports Dialog | General Folders | Library Folders | Library Reports Folder