New Vault Explorer Extension

Altium Vault 2.6, in conjunction with Altium Designer 16.0, delivers a new interface with which to browse the contents of an Altium Vault, from within Altium Designer. Delivered as a dedicated extension to the software - Vault Explorer - access to this interface remains the same, courtesy of Altium Designer's faithful Vaults panel - you simply get an enhanced user interface, along with elements of functionality that are only supported through this 'interface upgrade'.

Accessing the Extension

The Vault Explorer extension is included in your Altium Designer 16.0 installation and should be installed by default. In the event of an accidental uninstall, go to the Extensions & Updates page (DXP » Extensions & Updates) and navigate to the Purchased tab. Use the search function or scroll to find Vault Explorer. Click on the extension to install it; you may need to restarted Altium Designer before using it with the Vault Explorer extension.

Support for New Functionality

When you access the Vaults panel after installing the extension, the familiar interface you have become accustomed to seeing looks, at first glimpse, as it did before. But let the eyes wander a little and you'll notice there are differences. Aside from graphical differences, for example, in the iconography used in the vault's folder tree, the underlying browser technology of the new Vault Explorer extension facilitates additional features in Altium Vault 2.6:

• Search - being able to search by component type, and across unit-aware parameteric component data. Not only can you search for desired components within a range of values for a supported component parameter type, or search for values greater, or less than a supplied value, but you can also define your own set of saved searches. Build a search interface that is different for each supported component type, determine search criteria, and save with a preferred name. You can even assign a keyboard shortcut, for immediate access to kick off a search when you need a component quickly!
• Part Requests - if you can't find a component you need for your design, you can put in a request for that part to be made through the Vaults panel. Simply use the available control to put in a request, detailing the part required, then sit back and receive notifications from your company's Librarians as to when you can expect that part to arrive in your vault.

The Search tab of the Vaults panel. The Part Request feature becomes available when a search does not return any matching parts within the Vault.