About Meta Inputs

You can find here additional information about Meta Inputs.

Meta inputs:

  • Improve templates instantiation.

  • Allow better control of templates instantiation. The architect can associate a name with a meta input thus ensuring the selection of the corresponding input at instantiation.

  • Improve the usability of templates in the Know-how Apps Componentsapp.

The characteristics of a meta input are:

  • Its name.
  • Its link to one or several real inputs. A real input cannot be linked to several meta inputs, so when an input is associated with a meta input, it is removed from the list of the remaining inputs. A meta input that is not connected to any real input is not taken into account. If the inputs are modified, the meta inputs have some obsolete links to old inputs. These links are checked each time sub-inputs of meta inputs are required programmatically.
  • Its type (optional). This type is a Knowledge type, ranking from parameters to mechanical specifications (Hole, ...), products, electrical objects, user feature. This type is an information that prevents you from selecting objects that do not support it. This information is also used in the "type generation process"of user features: those meta inputs appear as attributes of this type. If the definition of the 3D Templates Capture changes, the meta input is changed accordingly (if an input disappears, no meta input can refer to this input anymore).