EasyPDM v0.4.1

An item's number now reads the same in EasyPDM and on disk. The CAD macros built file names from the bare number, so a Part with the prefix "C" was C5 in the database but 5 (Name).A.sldprt on your drive. Numbers can now also be zero-padded — C0001(plate) — set in Settings → Numbering with a live example; prefix and padding are both fixed when an item is created.

An Assembly can no longer reach "In review" or "Released" ahead of the components one level below it. When they are behind, the change is offered rather than refused.

Update your CAD macros — all six changed, download included

Added

• An Assembly can no longer get ahead of its own bill of materials. Moving an Assembly
  to "In review" now requires every component one level below it to be at least in review,
  and moving it to "Released" requires every one of them to be released — because an
  assembly that is "done" while the parts it is made of are still being drawn is a promise
  nobody can keep. Only the direct children are checked: what sits deeper is guarded by the
  same rule applied to the sub-assembly when its own turn comes, so the message always
  names something visible on screen rather than a part five levels down that means nothing
  to whoever is looking.

• When components are not there yet, the status change is offered rather than refused:
  a window lists exactly which ones are behind and asks whether to move them along with
  the assembly. Declining changes nothing at all. Accepting moves the components first and
  the assembly second, in one transaction — a half-released bill of materials would be
  worse than not starting. Each component moved this way gets its own history entry and its
  author gets the same notification they would have had if someone had moved that part on
  its own.

• Two cases deliberately stop short of that offer. A sub-assembly that is behind has a
  bill of materials of its own, so it is named and left alone — walking it automatically
  would cascade changes nobody asked for. A component that is cancelled, locked by
  someone else, or in a project the person has no access to is named together with the
  reason and nothing is touched: bringing a cancelled part back into circulation is a
  decision, not a side effect of releasing an assembly.

• The number format is now shown while you set it, not after. Each prefix field in
  Settings -> Numbering carries a live example to its left, so typing "C" immediately shows
  C0001 instead of leaving you to guess whether the letter is glued to the number or gets
  a separator.

• Numbers can be zero-padded to a fixed width. Switch padding on, set the digit count,
  and new numbers read 0001, 0002; switched off, everything behaves exactly as before.
  A number longer than the width is not truncated — it is a minimum, not a fixed-length
  format. Padding is frozen on an item when it is created, exactly like the prefix, and so
  applies only to items created after the change: the item's number is also the name its
  file carries on disk and as an attachment, and those cannot be rewritten after the fact.
  A database that has been running for a while will therefore hold a mix of 4 and 0005
  — the same way it already holds items with and without a prefix.

Changed

• Correcting a Part's kind now corrects its prefix too — as long as nothing has been
  uploaded to it yet. Picking "Manufactured" instead of "Purchased" used to leave the item
  stuck with the wrong letter forever, because the prefix is frozen when the item is
  created. It is frozen for a reason: the CAD macros build a file's name out of that number,
  so the file carries it on disk and in the database. The prefix therefore follows the kind
  only until something lands in one of the four dedicated slots — CAD file, drawing, PDF or
  3D model. Ordinary attachments (a mill certificate, a photo) keep their own names and
  block nothing. Once a dedicated slot is filled the kind itself can no longer be changed:
  the buttons grey out and say why, because a kind that disagrees with the number would be
  worse than not being able to correct it. The number itself never changes either way.
• The space between the number and the name is gone: an item now reads C0001(plate)
  and its file is written as C0001(plate).A.sldprt. This is the same convention
  everywhere — the tree, the bill-of-materials exports, the folders inside a documentation
  ZIP and all three CAD macros. Files written before the change keep their space and are
  still recognized, because the macros' name matching never required one.

Fixed

• The CAD macros now name files the way the database does. They built every file name
  from the bare number, so a Part whose kind had the prefix "C" was C5 in EasyPDM but
  5 (Name).A.sldprt on disk — the prefix existed only in the database. All three macros
  now take the ready-made number from the server (prefix and padding included), for the CAD
  file, the STEP and the PDF alike, and their name-matching accepts both the new names and
  the ones they wrote before.
• Rows of buttons no longer spill outside their panel in English and German. Several rows —
  the kind of a Part/Assembly in the "Add item" window, the four statuses, the item and
  project toolbars, and the client header — were laid out without wrapping, which held as
  long as the labels were the short Polish ones. "Standard part", "Dokumentation
  herunterladen" or "Aus der Struktur entfernen" did not fit, and since the detail panel's
  width is dragged by the person using it, a narrow panel could push the buttons out of the
  frame in Polish too.