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using different versions of part

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using different versions of part
Hi,
could somebody please explain me, how to solve this probley *easily* (i.e. with a few clicks, without separately clicking all objects involved, renaming/removing directories, etc)

I have a big assembly, which contains a smaller sub-assembly. The outline of this sub-assembly (i.e. the interface to the big assembly) is well defined, but this sub-assembly is in active development, and it is changing internally, every week. I would like to
1) keep previous versions of this sub-assembly
2) easily switch between different versions of this sub-assembly in the big assembly
I would also like to have a separate sub-assembly .dwb file to manipulate this sub-assembly easier, create a 2D drawing for this sub-assembly, etc. This sub-assembly .dwb file should also follow the versioning.

I did the following (somewhat tricky) way (under Linux)

1) create a directory named 'sub-assembly', and create a sub-directory '1' under this directory (this sub-directory will correspond to the versions later...)

2) create part files within the directory '1', and create the sub-assembly .dwb file also within this directory: subassembly.dwb

3) If I want to create a new version, then first of all copy the sub-directory '1' to '2' (i.e. version 2): "cp -r 1 2",
then rename the directory '1' to some dummy name: "mv 1 1.dummy", then open 2/subassembly.dwb, and when VariCAD complains about not finding the part files in the directory '1', specify the path for all files as the directory '2'. Then move back the dummy directory: "mv 1.dummy 1". This extremely cumbersome procedure is needed because part files are included by absolute pathname (my earlier suggestion to have an option of using relative pathnames was turned down), and this is how I can force VariCAD to search for new path for ALL parts (I would surely forget to update the insertion path for a few, if I did it myself...)

4) make a copy of the sub-directory '1' as 'current-version': "cp -r 1 current-version", and in the big assembly, File-->Insert_Object_From_File, and select 'sub-assembly/current-version/subassembly.dwb'. Save and close the big-assembly file, and then remove the subdirectory 'current-version', and link 1 to current-version: "ln -s 1 current-version". This step is needed because during the insertion of objects from files, symbolic links are resolved in VariCAD, it seems, and the parts would be inserted as being in the subdirectory '1', which I do not want. This way I have forced VariCAD to store the insertion path of the parts as 'sub-assembly/current-version/...', and later I can simply change this soft link to the actual version I want to use.

Can somebody suggest any easier solution?
Thanks
sub-assembly
Of course this above-mentioned solution only works if the sub-assembly (to be modified/changed/etc) contains always the same parts. It is not applicable anymore, if different versions of the sub-assembly contain different/more/less/etc parts.
To that, the solution would only be the possibility to really use sub-assemblies.
sub-assembly
Daniel;

Yep, this is a problem I'm also experiencing. It is especially frustrating if one is used to other (though much more expensive) CAD programs. Anyway, I understand that sub-assemblies will be a possibility in future, not sure when.

There is no easy way of solving this, unfortunately. The way I'm doing this is by using blank/unblank in combination with groups, but it remains a cumbersome and clumsy approach.

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