How to Use Projects in BricsCAD

Quick answer: Projects help BricsCAD find Xrefs and images that aren’t where a drawing expects them, useful when exchanging drawings between people whose folder structures don’t match. Each project holds one or more fallback search paths, and BricsCAD checks them if the saved path comes up empty. Projects are stored globally in the registry, not per drawing.

What Projects Are For

If an Xref or image can’t be found at its originally saved path, for example because you’ve opened someone else’s drawing on your own machine, BricsCAD falls back to searching the search paths defined in the current project instead of just failing to load it.

Creating a Project

1. Open Settings, then go to Program Options > Files > Projects.
2. Click the Browse button next to the Project search paths field to open the Project Settings dialog.
3. Click Add Project or Path to create your first project, then replace the default name (NewProject1) with something meaningful.
4. For additional projects, select Projects at the top of the tree, or an existing project, then click Add Project or Path again and rename it the same way.

Adding Search Paths to a Project

1. In the Project Settings dialog, select the project in the tree.
2. Click Add Project or Path to add a path, and give it a name.
3. Click Browse, choose the folder, and click Select Folder.
4. Repeat to add as many search paths as the project needs.

Reordering Search Paths

Expand a project in the tree, select a search path, then use the up and down buttons to change the order BricsCAD checks them in.

Assigning a Project to Your Current Drawing

Set the PROJECTNAME system variable to the name of the project you want the current drawing to use.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do projects apply to one drawing only, or every drawing? Projects themselves are stored globally in the registry, but which one’s active for a given drawing is controlled per drawing via the PROJECTNAME system variable.

What happens if BricsCAD can’t find an Xref at its saved path? It falls back to searching the active project’s search paths instead of simply failing to load the reference.

Can a project have more than one search path? Yes, and you can reorder them to control which folders get checked first.

How do I tell a specific drawing which project to use? Set the PROJECTNAME system variable to that project’s name.