Outliner

The Outliner is used to view your Group and Component hierarchies as a hierarchical tree. This feature is great for navigating through large models, restructuring the model hierarchy, locating instances of a particular component, or renaming groups and components. Activate the Outliner dialog box from the Window menu.

Traverse Component and Group Hierarchies

The outliner contains a hierarchy view that reflects your hierarchy of components and groups in your model. To navigate a component or group hierarchy using the hierarchical view:

1. Display the Outliner using the Window > Component menu item. The Outliner dialog box opens with a hierarchical view of your model. The Group and Component entities at the root (top-most) level of the hierarchy are displayed. An icon with a plus sign will appear next to any components or groups if additional levels in the hierarchy exists (additional groups or components within the top-level groups or components).
2. Click on the plus (+) icon to list groups or components within other groups or components. Or, optionally, click on the Outliner's Details Menu and select the Expand All menu item to expand the hierarchy so all levels are displayed.
3. Click on any group or component name in the hierarchical view to select the group or component in your model.
4. (optional) Double-click on the group or component name in the hierarchical view to edit the group or component in your model.

Identifying Entries in the Outliner Hierarchy

The Outliner uses a combination of icons and text to identify groups and component status in a hierarchy.

• Component - Four black squares
• Group - One solid square
• Locked Component - Four grey squares with small lock in lower right corner
• Locked Group - One grey square with small lock in lower right corner
• Open Component - Four hollow squares
• Open Group - One hollow square
• Hidden Component or Group - Name of component or group is in italics

Moving Items Within the Outliner

Use the Outliner to reorganize groups and components in the hierarchy. For example, you can move a group, buried deep within the hierarchy, to the top of the hierarchy for easy editing. To move items within the outline:

1. Display the Outliner using the Window > Outliner menu item. The Outliner dialog box opens with a hierarchical view of your model. The Group and Component entities at the root (top-most) level of the hierarchy are displayed. An icon with a plus sign will appear next to any components or groups if additional levels in the hierarchy exists (additional groups or components within the top-level groups or components).
2. Click on the plus (+) icon to list groups or components within other groups or components. Or, optionally, click on the Details Menu and select the Expand All menu item to expand the hierarchy so all levels are displayed.
3. Click and hold on the group or component you want to move in the hierarchy.
4. Move the group or component to a new position in the hierarchy.

Filtering Groups and Components in the Hierarchical View

The Outliner contains a Filter field for displaying only those groups or components containing a specific filter string. This feature helps you to locate only like components or groups. To filter items within the Outliner:

1. Display the Outliner using the Window > Outliner menu item. The Outliner dialog box opens with a hierarchical view of your model. The Group and Component entities at the root (top-most) level of the hierarchy are displayed. An icon with a plus sign will appear next to any components or groups if additional levels in the hierarchy exists (additional groups or components within the top-level groups or components).
2. Type a string in the Filter field.
3. Click on the plus (+) icon to list groups or components within other groups or components. Or, optionally, click on the Details Menu and select the Expand All menu item to expand the hierarchy so all levels are displayed. Items containing the filter string will be listed, in red, in the hierarchical view.

Name Groups and Components Within the Outliner

The Outliner displays groups by their group names and components by a combination of the definition and specific instance name.

Naming a Component Definition

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, components are identified in the outliner by a combination of their instance and definition names (the definition name is enclosed in less-than and greater-than symbols). For example, Jim's Office <Cubicle Style 1>. Where you may have several Cubicle Style 1 components in your model, but only one instance represents Jim's Office.

The component definition name generally refers to type of component, such as a certain type of cubicle (Cubicle Style 1) or certain type of video camera (VideoX 8mm camera). This name can either be established when the component is first created, or you can accept the default (Component#X, X being some number) and rename the component definition using the outliner. To rename the component definition:

1. Context-click on the component in the Outliner. The context menu for the Component entity is displayed. Notice that this is the same context menu as the context menu displayed when you context-click on an entity in the drawing area (except this context menu has a Rename menu item).
2. Click on Entity Info menu item. The Entity Info dialog box is displayed.
3. Click on the Definition tab to display information about this component's definition.
4. Type a new name in the definition's name field.
5. Click outside of the Entity Info dialog box to save your change.

Naming a Component Instance

A component instance name is useful when you want to differentiate different component instances from each other in the Outliner (the default name for all component instances is "Component"). For example, you might want to have different instance names if several chairs are all from the same definition in your model. To rename the component instance:

1. Context-click on the component in the Outliner. The context menu for the Component entity is displayed. Notice that this is the same context menu as the context menu displayed when you context-click on an entity in the drawing area (except this context menu has a Rename menu item).
2. Select the Rename menu item
3. Type the new component instance name in the Outliner.
4. Press Enter to save your change.

Note - You can also use the Name field at the top of a component's Entity Info dialog box to rename component instances.

Tip - Use instance names to differentiate different instances of the same definition in your model. This tip is particularly useful if you want to easily locate a specific component instance in the outliner.

Naming a Group

You can also name your groups for easy identification in the Outliner. To rename a group:

1. Context-click on the group in the Outliner. The context menu for the Component entity is displayed. Notice that this is the same context menu as the context menu displayed when you context-click on an entity in the drawing area (except this context menu has a Rename menu item).
2. Select the Rename menu item
3. Type the new component instance name in the Outliner.
4. Press Enter to save your change.

Details Menu

Click on the right arrow next to the Filter field to open the details pop-up menu. This menu allows you perform additional Outliner-related functions.

Expand All

Select the Expand All menu item to expand (open all branches) the entire hierarchical view in the Outliner.

Collapse All

Select the Collapse All menu item to collapse (close all branches) the entire hierarchical view in the Outliner.

Sort by Name

Select the Sort by name menu item to toggle the sorting of the groups and components alphabetically.