Attributes Specific to Windchill Foundation & PDM

The docType attribute of a document is held in common for all iterations and versions. It is stored in the WTDocument merely to allow for database partitioning based on the document type attribute. Customers wishing to create new document types will add values to the DocumentType resource bundle.

The DocumentType resource bundle defines all the types of documents. When users construct documents, they may pick a document type from the enumerated list. Customers may add new document types to the list by putting additional values in the resource bundle. A "$$" prefix on a document type means it is a Windchill-provided document type. The "$$" prefix should not be used for customer types.

Using the DocumentType resource bundle, it is possible to construct new types of documents that users can pick from. This has the following impacts from an administrative perspective:

• Administrative rules do not recognize the new document types. Therefore, all document types are the same from an administrative perspective; they receive the same access control and indexing rules.

• From a workflow point of view, the docType property can be used as an activity variable for workflow branching logic.

To add new document types that can have different administrative controls, the WTDocument class must be extended. Subclassing of WTDocument also is preferable if there are specific associations in which only some documents can participate. These kinds of rules are difficult to specify without subclassing WTDocument. Use the following rules when extending WTDocument:

• For every new child of WTDocument, you must make a corresponding entry in the DocumentType resource bundle. This ensures that the WTDocumentMaster object for each WTDocument child knows the type for its document version.

• When adding new classes of documents, it is not necessary to extend the WTDocumentMaster class, only the WTDocument class. All children classes of WTDocument can share the same WTDocumentMaster class.

• Follow the constructor pattern established in WTDocument. Override the appropriate initialize methods from WTDocument, invoking super.initialize() and then performing your class specific logic. Specifically, invoke the method initialize(number, name, type) where type is substituted for a value that has been added to DocumentTypeRB.java.

Department is implemented as an enumerated type attribute or a valid value list. The valid values are defined in the wt.doc.DepartmentListRB.java file. The values in DepartmentListRB.java can be changed, the file compiled, and replaced in the codebase. For further information, seeEnumerated Types.