NEWSLETTER

Improvements and New Features in BSD SpecLink-E

Both BSD SpecLink®-E and BSD LinkMan®-E have had numerous improvements and enhancements since the fall release.  A few of the more significant changes are summarized below.

BSD SpecLink-E:

• The Project ID entered by users in the Summary Info dialog box (Customer ID) is now included in the Open Project and Delete Project dialog boxes, and projects can be sorted by that number as well as by the project name, the BSD-assigned Project ID, the number of Documents, and the time of Last Change.
• In the Corporate version of SLE, the Assign System Roles dialog box now allows users to sort by columns, making it easier to find specific users.
• A number of printing functions have been improved, as follows:
• The strike-out function has been moved from the Styles dialog box to the Font group on the Format tab, so it can now be used to strike out individual words or paragraphs. This capability will allow users to show changes from a previous version, but users should also be aware of the Compare report, which shows changes automatically and allows both versions to be preserved.
• If Print in Color is selected in the Print dialog box, the three draft reports now preview and print the choices in blue, green, or red, as appropriate for multiple choice, global, and fill-in choices, respectively.
• The All Text Draft and Master Text Only reports now display the selected choices by means of underlining. All choices continue to appear in italics, but the currently selected choices are also underlined.
• The Printer Properties button has been removed from the Print dialog box. It is now possible to select Duplex and Collate from the SLE Print dialog box when those options are valid for your printer.
• Project Location has been added as a keyword in the Header/Footer dialog box.
• Selection of all text in a header or footer is now possible by using Control+A.  Users can subsequently change fonts for all text or use Control+C and Control+V to copy and paste all header or footer text to another tab.
• Server Maintenance has been moved to the SLE Support Utilities application, which also includes backup and restore functions. Server maintenance is an SLE/LME database optimization process that runs automatically at night, assuming the server (or  the standalone computer) is operating. From this utility, timing for both server maintenance and backup functions can be scheduled, or they can both be run manually.
• The Update Reminder dialog box can no longer be suppressed, so each time an out-of-date project is opened, the dialog will remind users of the number of obsolete paragraphs in the project.
• We have also made a number of improvements that include retention of formatting for choices with fill-ins, allowing immediate application of user-defined tags, and resolution of a problem with Hierarchy Lock when multiple users are in a project.

BSD LinkMan-E:

• There is a new tab for Revit Materials, in order to accommodate keynoting for all Revit elements.
• The Revit tab now is split horizontally, showing at the bottom the materials associated with particular elements when they are selected in the top portion of the tab.
• An Import Keynotes command is now available on the Keynotes tab, which opens a browser that allows the user to select and import an existing keynote file into LinkMan for subsequent modification or enhancement. This command will automatically merge any keynotes from the selected file with the LinkMan master keynotes, organizing them numerically. There is also a Delete User Keynotes command that will delete any imported keynotes.
• Within Revit, users now have three different options for importing a keynotes text file from LinkMan, a process that automatically assigns keynotes to the corresponding elements in Revit – including the replacement of any active Revit project keynotes that have been revised in LinkMan:
• “All Keynotes” includes all LinkMan master keynotes, all project keynotes, and all user keynotes that have been imported into LinkMan. All these keynotes are organized automatically into a single file in numerical order.
• “All Master and Project Keynotes” is the same as “All Keynotes” except that user keynotes are excluded.
• “All Project Keynotes” includes only those keynotes that are currently in the Revit keynote columns – including any that have been copied from the LinkMan master keynotes or the user keynotes.
• There is a new UniFormat hierarchy in the LinkMan tree, corresponding to the latest CSI changes.

The changes to SLE and LME described above have been made in response to requests from our customers, so we hope the results will enhance the experience of using our software. For a more complete description of changes in this release, please see the Release Notes for each product. As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions for improvements.