Import Ribbon

The "Import" ribbon hosts four of the most basic menu options, if you want to start a new job. While the first three, Favorites, Recent and Browse, are strongly linked to each other. It gets evident by opening one of those menu items because it is the same dialog. Import is rather independent, which can be seen by the ever changing dialog depending on the corresponding file type you want to import.

Fig 1. - PCB-Investigator Ribbon "Import"

Favorites

The favorite menu is a typical favorite option that provides links to designs, which are frequently needed. For a better searchability these links can be renamed and given an individual icon. The radio button selection at the bottom of the dialog indicates, where changes to the design made with PCB-Investigator are saved. There are two options:

  1. To the originally imported file:
    The link to the originally imported file (ZIP, IPC, GenCAD) is stored. When opening this favorite, the design is extracted/converted again => Changes done in PCB-Investigator will be lost when reopening this favorite due to the new extraction/conversion process of the original input file.
  2. To the temporary file:
    No matter, which data was originally imported, the link to the (temporary extracted/converted) ODB++ directory is stored for this favorite => Changes done in PCB-Investigator are still available when reopening this favorite.

Recent

Recent is a typical history list, it lists links to all recently opened designs and allows them to be added to favorites by right-clicking and selecting the corresponding function.

Browse

Browsing lets you import files, but also add important or frequently needed folders to either QuickLinks or an individually defined Server Tab by right-clicking on the concerning folder and selecting the desired option.

  1. QuickLinks:
    QuickLinks is a small icon bar to the left of the folder structure. Frequently needed folders can either be added by directly dropping them on top of it or by right clicking on the concerned folder and selecting "Add to QuickLinks".
  2. Server Tab:
    The Server Tab option is ideal for setting up a reference to a shared drive. This can be achieved by either right clicking on the concerned folder and selecting "Add as Server Tab" or clicking the yellow plus icon in the left bottom corner of the dialog.
    Please note that each server tab gets recursively traversed when it is opened, so you will not see newly added while you already had it open until you click on the server tab again.

Every time a job is opened, a thumbnail is generated and saved locally. The thumbnail is updated every time the job is opened.

PCBI 365

You can import data from 365 storage directly in the import area.

See more details here