Formboard Manager Ribbon Tab

To access: This tab displays on the ribbon when you open a merged / combined formboard design.

Used to create and edit merged / combined formboard designs.

Figure 341: Formboard Manager Ribbon

Figure 342: Formboard Manager Preferences

Description

The tab is made up of:

• A menu of Formboard Manager Preferences to toggle various settings.

• Ribbon actions

Note

Repeat Selected Action. You can use Shift+click to use a ribbon action in continuous mode. Press Esc to end the mode.

Objects

Object	Description
Formboard Manager Preferences — Toggle to Green to turn on
Bundle Contraction	Use to control the behavior of bundles during duplication. If Bundle Contraction is switched off, the process cannot shorten bundles to create alternative routing paths (loops) where required. This is to ensure that already defined fixtures positions are retained. Alternatively, place the branch or even a whole section of a harness a second time.
Auto Rearrange Loops	Controls looped bundle positions when you are unmerging content. On — Automatically rearranges any remaining looped bundles. Off — The process attempts to rearrange any remaining bundles. If this is not possible, it will display a message with details.
Place Fixtures on Merge	With this setting turned on, fixtures which are available on the member design, are placed on the merged design when objects are merged.
Consider Wire Names	Use to include/exclude wire names from the rules that the process uses to assess identical wires when it is merging wires and multicore inner wires. See also “Merging Wires and Multicores”.
Consider Spot Tape Names	With this preference enabled: The merge process considers the names of any Spot Tapes as part of the comparison. The interactive system prompt message boxes (asking you what merge action to take) do not display. Each Spot Tape gets placed on the merged Formboard.
Allow Tolerance on Node Offsets	With this preference enabled, the percentage tolerances described in the “Bundle Tolerance”, are applied to reference node positions. All node components, which are identified as equal and are inside the tolerance, are merged. The interactive system prompt message boxes (asking you what merge action to take) do not display.
Use Largest Min Bend Radius	See “Usage Notes”. Default is OFF.
Duplicate Objects with Different Connectivity	Enable this preference to allow the process to automatically merge bundles that are "nearly" identical, with the only difference being the number, specification or termination of wires going through them. For such merged bundles, the process automatically duplicates connectors, ring terminals, devices, and splices on the merged diagram when the only difference between them on the member designs is their connectivity.
Ribbon Actions
Place All	Typically, you create a merged formboard design by selecting one member design, into which you merge other member designs. Use to place the whole content of the currently selected member design into the merged formboard design window. After this step, you can start merging in the second member design. If you are creating a Combined Formboard, use to place each required full harness onto the combined design. Note Any Critical Dimensions configured on the member diagram are not propagated onto the merged formboard design.
Place / Merge	Use to: Place or merge content from a member design with content already present on the merged formboard design. As an alternative to using the Place All action, to place content, in a step by step manner, from a member design onto a new merged design. To place a bundle from a member design onto a merged design, click the Place/Merge ribbon action, select the required bundle on the member design, and then click into free space on the merged design. To merge a bundle from a member design with an already existing bundle on a merged design, click the Place/Merge ribbon action, select the required bundle on the member design, and then click the related bundle in the merged design. Note Any Critical Dimensions configured on the member diagram are not propagated onto the merged formboard design.
Merge All Matching	Select this action to automatically merge as many unmerged bundles as possible from the selected member design with the content already on the merged design. Only merging is considered, no bundles are placed by this action. The action only merges a bundle if the same is possible in the user interactive method (not Force Merge). See also “Merging Formboards”. You can also use to identify the extent of commonality between two member designs. See “Assessing Optimum Diagram Commonality”. See “Usage Notes”, for how the process identifies relevant content for automatic merging.
Place Remaining	Use to automatically place all un-placed or unmerged content from a selected member design onto the merged design.
Merge Nodes	Use to interactively merge suitable end nodes. Enabled when the merged diagram has focus. See Merging End Nodes.
Unmerge	Use to unmerge content from the merged design back onto the respective member design. See “Unmerging Placed or Merged Content”.
Component Display Filter Dimmer	These filters can enhance your view of “busy” formboard diagrams. Use to: Hide objects which are not relevant to your merging actions Control the visibility of processed and unprocessed components in the selected member design. See Show or Hide Processed Components in Formboard Manager. These controls only apply to objects in a design in a preview window and only display when a preview window has focus. Click the buttons to show or hide the named component types (including any associated styling decorations). Use the dimmer slider to control the visibility of hidden components. All object types are displayed by default. You can configure different filter settings for each preview window. The configured settings are saved and re-applied when you re-open the diagram. Hover over hidden objects to display a ghost image on the diagram, where the object would be located.

Usage Notes

Dimmer

Figure 343: Component Display Dimmer

Merge

All Matching

This action looks for common identical content (connected sections of harness which match) and uses context to match as much as possible.

For example, bundles A, B, and C are connected to each other, in that order, on a member design, and bundles X, Y, and Z are similarly connected on a merged design.

• If bundle A is identical to bundle X, bundle B is identical to bundle Y and bundle C is identical to bundle Z, the process will automatically merge A with X, B with Y and C with Z.

• However, the automatic matching does not match isolated bundles, even if they are identical, because there is a chance that the match could be incorrect (bundles may be identical but may not really be in corresponding places on the harness). This means that if bundle B was identical to bundle Y but bundle A was different to bundle X, then B and Y would not be automatically merged.

Use

Largest Min Bend Radius

Part of the process to decide if two bundles are equal, and suitable for automatic merging, involves a check on their configured minimum bend radius (Min Bend Radius bundle attribute).

The process considers a difference in Min Bend Radius “significant” if both of the following conditions apply:

• The Min Bend Radius of the bundle now being merged in, is greater than that of the existing, target, bundle with which it is being merged.

• The difference in Min Bend Radius is greater than one twentieth of the minimum bend radius of the existing, target, bundle.

If no significant difference in Min Bend Radius exists, both manual and automatic merge proceed.

If a significant difference in Min Bend Radius does exist, the setting “Use Largest Min Bend Radius” determines how the process handles the merge.

• If “Use Largest Min Bend Radius” is Off, the automatic merging of bundles with a significant Min Bend Radius difference is not performed and manual merging results in interactive system prompt message boxes (asking you what merge action to take). Force Merge is not an option.

• If “Use Largest Min Bend Radius” is On, both automatic and manual merges of bundles with a significant Min Bend Radius difference proceed without the interactive system prompt message boxes. After the merge, the merged bundle will have the larger Min Bend Radius, that is, it will have the Min Bend Radius of the most recently merged member bundle.

Parent Topic:

Capital Formboard Manager

Capital Harness Designer User Guide, 2512

Unpublished work. © 2025 Siemens