Find... Command

The Find... command lets you search for specific object types and colors.

Running Other Commands

The Find... command does not prevent you from running other commands on the search results (once selected).

Therefore, you can work with other commands while the Find dialog box remains open. This means that you can:


  • Run commands using menus and icons
  • Apply commands in contextual menus to selected search results using the power input box: for example, you can manipulate selected specification tree elements using the c:center on, c:center graph or c:cut command.

Running a Search for a Color

When searching for a color, the inheritance, the color applied to containers and the name of custom colors are not taken into account.

Inheritance

Inheritance is not taken into account by the Find... functionality and therefore, when searching for a product with a specific color, the search might return a result which seems to have a color different from the one you specified. The reason is that, for Assembly objects, the color you see is not always the color that has been applied. For more information, see Graphic Properties.

Containers

The color of containers (i.e. bodies, geometrical sets, etc.) is only used to set a default color for the elements they contain. This color is not taken into account when running a search, which means that containers cannot be found by a query based on the color.

RGB Value

When you apply basic and custom colors to elements, and search for elements using these colors, a search query is generated. But for custom colors, the RGB value is used instead of the color name. This is useful, for instance, if you modify your color palette (e.g. by deleting the custom color, or the color settings file in your settings folder) then retrieve a search query.

Because the query references the RGB values of the color and not the color name, changes made to the color palette do not affect the search: the search always finds elements referencing a color expressed using RGB values. The names of basic colors, however, remain the same.

Running a Search for a Type

You can search for a specific object type using the Workbench and Type lists.


  • When you leave * in the Workbench box, the Type list displays all the types corresponding to the workbenches that have been previously selected. To display all the types available, click Load all types.
  • When you select a new workbench, by default * remains in the Type list. This means that the search will be performed on all types of elements created by all workbenches. Whichever workbench is selected in the Workbench list, you can search for element types belonging to any other workbench by typing the name of the type in the Type list. If the element type belongs to only one workbench, the correct workbench name is displayed in the Workbench list.
  • Selecting a workbench filters the list of types in the Type list: for example, if you select the workbench Part Design, the Type box is filtered to contain only the element types available in Part documents and if you select a type, the corresponding workbench is displayed. The same principle applies to the other document or workbench types. If the type belongs to several workbenches, a warning message is displayed.