When authoring a new Piping Part Filter, one of the choices to be made when setting the Type of a Parameters Link is deciding whether to utilize the values as defined in a resources table (i.e. NominalSize, EndStyle, Rating, etc ...) or the live KeyWord values within the contents of a Catalog. Here's a couple tips I utilize when setting up my filters
- Whenever there is potential for the value to be utilized in another table as part of an evaluation (example: validating compatible end styles) where the precise formatting is critical, I specify the table content
- Whenever I want to be certain I consider all of the Catalog Chapter content, and the content is not utilized, I specify the Catalog Chapter content
In the example here (image ParametersLink_Step1), I have set NominalSize, Standard, MaterialCategory, and EndStyle be be linked to the specified table content (see the chain icon), leaving MaterialCode and Shecdule to be searched live from the Chapter content. The results for searching the MaterialCategory table content reveals a decent list of available options (image ParametersLink_Step2a)
If instead I specify the search on MaterialCategory to be the live content from the Catalog Chapter (i.e. no link to the table as seen in ParameterLink_Step3) the results to filter on in this case are significantly different (image ParameterLink_Step4) and reveal that only StainlessSteel items have (so far) been added to the Catalog Chapter content
There is no absolute right or wrong way, but the choice you make can impact the contents that designers will have available.
