Tool folders and files (.tsum / .bsum)

Partly availableSome of what this page describes is in DimSum today and some is still coming. Parts marked Coming are designed but not built yet.

Your tools live in their own files you can keep, back up and send to anyone — `.tsum` for tools and saved parts today, and one day for lists, assemblies and styles as well.

Overview

Tools in DimSum aren't locked inside the app. They're saved in library files you can keep, back up, version and send to anyone:

File	Holds	State
.tsum Tool Library	Today: tabs and folders, tools with their properties and parts, and saved parts; shared lists; tables, imported material lists — the Material Library's sections — with the saved parts generated from them, and each tool's Playground drawings. every table in it is part of the Material Library — which is why there is no separate material-library file. where the file sits decides what it shows — in the Tools folder, its tools; in the Materials folder, its tables and lists (below). an Advanced Part's table, filters, sort and last match are kept with its part (TSUM 0015). Later:; assemblies, line and dimension styles, stamps
.bsum Building Template library	One or more Building (Project) Templates	Coming

You can have many folders at once — a company master, a personal one, one per trade — and every one of them is on screen at once, in the Tool Designer's Tools tree and Material Library and in a job's Tools panel, under DimSum Defaults and Custom (below).

A material library is not a file.

Folders, not libraries

· "The folders destination should be in the default system settings as well. Just like everything else."

Nothing about the file changed — a .tsum keeps everything it holds and how it holds it, and there was no migration. What went is the idea of one open library:

• Your tools folder is the list. System Settings → Tools → Tools folder (Automatic — Documents\DimSum Tools) is where DimSum looks. Every .tsum at the top level of that folder is a Custom folder, named by its file, listed alphabetically. DimSum Defaults stays built in and read-only, with its lock icon.
• DimSum looks when it starts and again when its window comes back to the front — so a file you put there while DimSum was in the background is there when you come back. Changing the setting moves nothing; DimSum just looks somewhere else.
• Everything shows at once — the Tool Designer's Tools tree and Material Library, and a job's Tools panel, all under DimSum Defaults and Custom. There is no Library box, no New / Open / Save As, and File → Tool Libraries is now File → Tool Folders.
• A folder is a file. My Tools.tsum is the folder My Tools; Framing.tsum is Framing. Custom folders are one level deep; inside one, tabs and folders nest as they always have (Tool Designer → Folders).

To…	Do this
Make a folder	Right-click Custom → New folder…, or File → Tool Folders → New folder…, and type a name. It makes ‹name›.tsum in the tools folder
Rename one	Right-click it → Rename…. The folder and its file are renamed; a name another folder has is refused in the box — "Framing" is already a folder. The old name is remembered as a former name, so jobs that took values from it still find it on the update screen. The rename is on the one Undo — Undo Rename folder to Trusses in Trusses — and the file follows Undo and Redo
Find its file	Right-click it → Show in Explorer. Right-click Custom → Show the tools folder for the folder itself
Remove one	Right-click it → Delete…. DimSum asks in its own dialog — "Delete Trusses? Trusses.tsum goes to the Windows Recycle Bin. Undo can't bring it back — the Recycle Bin can." — and the file is never deleted outright
Share one	Send its .tsum — email, USB, a shared drive. That is the whole of it
Take one a coworker sent you	File → Tool Folders → Add a .tsum to the tools folder…, or put the file into your tools folder in Explorer. It appears under Custom as a folder of its own
Start one from another	There is no Save As, and nothing replaces it. Make a New folder… and Move to… the tools you want into it (or Duplicate first and move the copy). A .tsum copied in Explorer shows greyed — it is a copy of another folder
Put a new thing in one	Select something in that folder. The button says where it will go — + Tab in Framing, Table in My Tools, Import… into My Tools

DimSum Defaults answers the same right-click with every item greyed and "DimSum Defaults is read-only."

Nothing is left out without a reason — the rule a table hidden in another library taught:

• a backup DimSum made itself is not a folder, and System Settings → Tools says so: "1 backup in the tools folder isn't shown: My Tools.before-cleanup.tsum. DimSum made it before a clean-up; it is not a folder.";
• a .tsum that can't be read shows as a greyed folder with the reason, and System Settings → Tools names it too;
• a folder another copy of DimSum has open is read-only, and says so, as it always has;

A job didn't change. It never pointed at a .tsum, and it still holds its numbers frozen with three names — the first of which is the folder's name, the same text the library's name was. Its update screen is now titled Update from the Material Library. A tool linked to a table in another folder holds the values copied in, frozen, with the folder's, table's and row's names; a table in the same folder is followed live — both exactly as between libraries before. (a tool folder holds no tables, so every link is the another folder kind — Tools and Materials apart.) If that other folder is gone from the tools folder, the tool says so and keeps the value: "Common Animals is in My Tools, which isn't in your tools folder — the value is kept".

One Undo for every folder. Each .tsum keeps its own history, as it always has; the Tool Designer remembers the order edits happened in, so Ctrl+Z undoes the most recent edit whatever folder it was in — Undo Edit cell in My Tools, Undo Add table New table 1 in Framing — and after a restart the most recent edit across all folders is still first. A tool moved to another folder is two steps in it: the copy there, the delete here.

Tools and Materials apart

One file type, two places. A material folder is still a .tsum — "Not a new file type" still stands — but tools and materials are kept in different folders on disk:

A .tsum in…	Shows in	Holds
the Tools folder — Documents\DimSum Tools, System Settings → Tools → Tools folder	the Tools tree, a job's Tools panel, Load part… (Tools → Custom → ‹folder›)	tabs, folders, tools, saved parts
the Materials folder — Documents\DimSum Materials, System Settings → Tools → Materials folder	Material Library → Lists and Tables, under Custom; Load part… (Materials → Custom → ‹folder›)	tables, lists
DimSum Defaults	both — its tools in the Tools tree, its lists and tables in the Material Library	both, read-only

• Each place has its own folders. The Tools tree shows only tool folders; the Material Library shows only material folders, with DimSum Defaults above them. Tools tree → right-click Custom → New folder… makes a .tsum in the tools folder. Material Library → right-click Custom offers New folder…, Show the materials folder and Add a .tsum to the materials folder…, and its New folder box says so: "A new folder under Material Library → Custom, for tables and lists. It makes no tool folder." Rename…, Show in Explorer and Delete… (to the Recycle Bin) work as above, each in its own place.
• A tool folder and a material folder may share a name — your My Tools is both. A name has to be unique only within its place. Where two share a name, the one Undo's tooltip says which it means: in My Tools (Material Library).
• Tables and lists are made only in material folders — Table in My Tools, Import… into My Tools, and under Lists List in My Tools; + Tab and + Tool only in tool folders.
• File → Tool Folders has Show the materials folder and Add a .tsum to the materials folder… as well as the tools folder's own.
• Nothing is hidden without a word. A file holding something its place doesn't show keeps it — nothing is deleted — and System Settings → Tools names it: "Framing.tsum in the Materials folder also holds 2 tools. They show only from the Tools folder.", or for a tool file, "… in the Tools folder also holds 2 tables. They aren't shown: tables and lists show only from the Materials folder."

Your tables moved once, keeping their names.

1. A backup first — DimSum Tools\Backups\My Tools.before-materials.tsum. It is in a subfolder, so it is never taken for a folder, and System Settings → Tools names it with the other backups.
2. A material folder of the same name gets the tables and lists — columns, rows, cells, key and naming column, units, groups, types and $. My Tools' Lumber, Common Animals and Lumber2 went into Documents\DimSum Materials\My Tools.tsum. If a material folder of that name was already there, they go into it; a table whose name it already has gets (from My Tools) on the end, and the notice says what it is called there.
3. Every link in the tool file to its own tables and lists became a link to that material folder, by name — the same kind a pick from another folder has always made: the values it showed are kept, frozen, with the folder's, the table's or list's, and the row's names. A {Table > …} formula reading one of its own tables is frozen the same way.
4. The tables and lists came out of the tool file, in the same step. Undo in that tool file stops there — it cannot walk back to before the tables left.
5. It says what moved, in System Settings → Tools: "Moved 3 tables from My Tools into the Materials folder (My Tools). A backup is in DimSum Tools\Backups."

Why nothing broke: a link and a job find a row by folder name, table name and row key, and none of the three changed — the material folder has the tool folder's name.

A file another copy of DimSum holds open is skipped, named in the notice, and tried again next launch.

Linking, now. Every table and list a tool uses is in another file, so every link is the another folder kind: the dropdown's choices come from the material folder while it is on this machine, a pick copies the values in with the three names — Undo Choose Fox in Framing — and the update screen offers newer values. Nothing is followed live across files — "they should only link by the pulling in". A link whose material folder is gone keeps its value and says so: "Common Animals is in My Tools, which isn't in your materials folder — the value is kept".

the three names are used. A part loaded from a table row stays linked: when the row changes, or its table's column settings do, or a column is added or removed, the Tool Designer asks on the Update from the Material Library screen — the one jobs use — opening by itself when you come to the Tools tab. What you take is written into the tool folders it touches, one Undo per update (Undo Update 1 part from Lumber2 in Framing); a material folder is never written. Unlink, in the strip at the top of a linked part — Linked to Lumber2 → STUD-92 — forgets the names and keeps the values (Tool Designer → Parts stay linked).

Add as a part is gone from the table rows. The missing … label stays at the end of the row (missing Cost Each). A material becomes a part through the Parts tab's + → Load part…: choose Materials → Custom → My Tools under From folder, and every row of its tables is listed under MATERIALS, named by its naming column with its table beside it. Loading one makes a part — Undo Load a part in Framing — and no table is copied into the tool folder.

A job doesn't change, again: it still holds its numbers frozen with three names, the first the folder's.

Division and Trade

Division and Trade had been in every folder, each its own copy. A copy you had changed moves like any list of yours; one you hadn't is dropped, and its links point at DimSum Defaults' Division and Trade. So Lists now shows Division, Trade and Wall Side once, under DimSum Defaults, and each material folder's own lists under Custom. Division and Trade can't be edited, because DimSum Defaults is read-only.

What DimSum gives you

• Your own library, made for you. The first time you open the Tools tab, DimSum creates My Tools.tsum in Documents\DimSum Tools and lists it beside DimSum Defaults. If a file of that name is already there, it adopts it rather than making a second one.
• It is called My Tools too, and it remembers it was My Templates, so every job that took materials from it still finds them on the update screen.
• New, Open and Save As, on the bar across the top of the Tools tab and on File → Tool Libraries. All three work with no job open.
• DimSum Defaults, generated by DimSum and read-only — the same library on every machine. Change one of its tools by copying it into a library of your own (DimSum Defaults).
• A missing file never breaks anything. Rename or move a .tsum in Explorer and it stays on the list, greyed, saying so. Jobs that used it still open, whole. (the list is the tools folder; see Folders.)
• A version on every library and every tool, bumped by every change, so a job can tell you its copy is behind.

The example libraries that ship with DimSum Coming

The trade libraries below are still to come.*

DimSum will install example libraries covering the CSI MasterFormat divisions 01–14, 21–28, 31–35 and 40–48, so every trade has somewhere to start. Framing (division 06) is built first and in the most depth — smart tools, assemblies, lumber and hardware lists and a count-sheet report template. The other divisions start as usable skeletons (report sections, lists, common items) and grow with later releases.

All of it will be example content: copy it, change it, or delete it. Nothing in the core depends on it, and your own libraries always sit alongside it. They're to be pre-checked in First-Run Setup and added or removed later in Settings → Tools.

Lists and tables are built; the Waste % list with a default row and decision tables have no build named: your Dynamic Lists (lumber sizes, price lists, Waste %, labor rates, decision tables) live here too, built on the Tools tab's Material Library and saved in the .tsum alongside the tools that use them — in a material folder's .tsum, apart from the tools.

Where to find it

Task	Where	State
See the folders you have	The Tool Designer's Tools tree and Material Library, and the Tools panel in a job — every folder at once, under DimSum Defaults and Custom
Where a new folder goes	The tools folder — Documents\DimSum Tools unless System Settings → Tools says otherwise	only there from ****
The File menu	File → Tool Folders → New folder… / Show the tools folder / Add a .tsum to the tools folder…
Make a folder	Right-click Custom → New folder… in the Tools tree
Rename, find or delete a folder	Right-click it → Rename… / Show in Explorer / Delete… (to the Recycle Bin)
Where DimSum looks for folders	System Settings → Tools → Tools folder — every .tsum at its top level; backups, unreadable files, files outside it and mismatched names are named on the same page	Setting; the list of folders ****
Take in a folder someone sent you	File → Tool Folders → Add a .tsum to the tools folder…, or drop the .tsum into the tools folder
Where DimSum looks for material folders	System Settings → Tools → Materials folder — Automatic, Documents\DimSum Materials; every .tsum in it is a folder under Material Library → Custom
Make a material folder	Right-click Custom in the Material Library → New folder… — "It makes no tool folder."
The materials folder, from the File menu or the Material Library	File → Tool Folders → Show the materials folder / Add a .tsum to the materials folder…, or right-click Custom in the Material Library
What moved, and files holding what their place doesn't show	System Settings → Tools — the one-time move's notice, the backup in DimSum Tools\Backups, and any file holding what its place doesn't show
Add / remove / import / export libraries	Settings → Tools	Coming
Import during setup	First-Run Setup, step 6	Coming

How to use it

Create a new folder

1. Open the Tools tab.
2. Right-click Custom → New folder… (or File → Tool Folders → New folder…).
3. A small New folder dialog opens inside DimSum, with one box: Name. It says where the file goes, live as you type — "A new folder under Custom. It is LowVoltage.tsum in …" — and refuses a name Windows won't take: "A folder name cannot hold \ /: * ? " < > or | — those are not allowed in a file name." Type LowVoltage and press Enter.
4. Build tools in it. There is no Save — every change is written as you make it — and no Save As.

No Explorer window, and nothing to browse for. The folder always goes in your tools folder — Documents\DimSum Tools unless you have changed it in System Settings → Tools → Tools folder.

Add a .tsum you already have

There is nothing to open. Put the file in your tools folder — File → Tool Folders → Add a .tsum to the tools folder…, or copy it there in Explorer — and it is a folder under Custom. DimSum looks when it starts and again when its window comes back to the front.

Share a folder with a coworker

1. Send them the folder's .tsum file (email, USB, shared drive).
2. They add it to their tools folder — File → Tool Folders → Add a .tsum to the tools folder…, or by hand — and it appears under Custom. (Open before it).

Import a newer version of a library you already have Coming

1. Import the file as above.
2. DimSum recognizes the library by its ID and sees a newer version.
3. Choose one: | Choice | Result | |---|---| | Merge | Combines the two. | | Replace | Your copy is replaced by the new file | | Keep both | Both are kept as separate libraries |

Remove a folder

1. The tools folder is the list, so there is no list to take a folder off. Right-click the folder → Delete….
2. DimSum asks in its own dialog — "Delete Trusses? Trusses.tsum goes to the Windows Recycle Bin. Undo can't bring it back — the Recycle Bin can." — and moves the file to the Windows Recycle Bin. It is never deleted outright.
3. Jobs that used it are unaffected: they have their own copies of everything they placed.

A folder that has moved or been renamed

1. Nothing breaks. The app opens, the job opens, and every item drawn from that folder keeps its properties, its parts and its formulas.
2. Rename a folder in DimSum — right-click → Rename… — and the file is renamed with it; jobs still find it by its former name.
3. A file moved out of the tools folder is no longer a folder. A file renamed in Explorer so its name no longer matches its folder's is listed there with the reason. A file that can't be read stays in the trees as a greyed folder with the reason.
4. The job's This job root still lists and still places every tool the job has already used.

Pull tool changes into a job

Placing a tool copies it into the job, so a later edit to the tool — a formula, a default, a property added or removed, a part added, removed or renamed, a setting — doesn't change a job by itself.

1. Open the job. With anything behind, the update screen opens by itself — titled Updates when any tool is behind. The top bar's Refresh counts rows and tool items together (2 waiting) and opens it any time.
2. Read the tool's group — Critter · Framing · version 28 → 31 — 2 items: what changed, listed once for the tool — a formula old → new (Studs › Qty), New part: Top Plate, Removed part: Blocking, a part renamed, a setting (Stud Spacing · Group, Color #00AA00 → #CC5500), a property added or removed, values written as the Properties panel writes them (8' → 10'). Then every item placed from that tool, each with a tick and its sheet (Critter 2 · A-101 · Foundation).
3. What you changed on a placed item stays yours, and the screen says so under the item: Height — kept, you set 9'. That is any value you typed or picked, and any that no longer matches the version you placed from. A part you deleted comes back only if the tool adds it new; a part you renamed keeps your name.
4. Update selected takes everything ticked — rows and tools together — as one Undo (Update 2 items from Critter). Or Skip: it skips that tool version for every item placed from the tool, as its tooltip says. If the tool has changed again since the screen was drawn, Update is refused with a line saying so; Refresh offers the newer version.

• A tool whose folder isn't on this machine is never offered, and nothing in the job changes. A tool deleted from its folder is the same. A folder that is there but won't read is named on the screen.
• A price from a Material Library row is offered only under its row, as before — never again under the tool, even when a linked part took it in the Tool Designer (Tool Designer → Parts stay linked).
• Not listed: changes to the built-in properties' own settings and input defaults — they come into the job's copy of the tool when you accept, but the screen doesn't list them. a changed label template is listed like any other setting, as Label: changed; taking it changes the job's copy of the tool, which its items follow, and never writes onto the items (the Label tab). Taking the tool's value for a property you edited is a later build.

Full detail: Dynamic Lists → A changed tool.

a job's copy shows its version, and says when the library has moved on (v3 · library has v5). Place it again and the new version is used, the job's copy is brought up to date, and a toast says "…updated to v5 in this job — existing items unchanged". Items already drawn are never changed (Tool Designer).

Options & settings

Setting / property	What it does	State
Library ID	Identifies the library across copies and machines. DimSum Defaults has the same id on every machine
Library version	Goes up with every change you make
Tool version	Every tool carries its own; a job records the version it copied and shows it on the row. a job opening compares each placed item's version with the tool in its folder on this machine, and offers anything newer (Pull tool changes into a job)	the comparison ****
Location	The tools folder from System Settings → Tools (Documents\DimSum Tools to start) — a .tsum anywhere else is not a folder.
Shared lists	A library holds the lists its properties choose from, under Material Library → Lists. Division and Trade are in every library. A list a tool points at travels with the tool when it is placed. lists live in material folders, Division and Trade once in DimSum Defaults (read-only); a tool's list property takes its choices from there while the folder is on this machine, and keeps its value always. Division and Trade are in the material folder My Tools, editable, and only Wall Side is in DimSum Defaults (Division and Trade)
Shared tables	A library holds its tables too, under Material Library → Tables, where every library of your own shows under Custom, and its saved parts and tools' parts follow their rows live inside it. A saved part or tool loaded from another library brings its table into this one, whole, matched by the table's id so the same one is never pulled in twice — and from then on it follows this library's copy. tables live only in material folders, and a tool keeps a table's values frozen with the three names, never following a row live
What a job gets of them	Not the table. Placing copies the numbers, frozen, plus three names — the library, the list and the row's key — so a .dsum holds no library table and nothing in a job changes by itself. A newer number is offered on the update screen, which finds the row again by name while that library is open (Materials Library → Into a tool, and on into a job)	reversing's carry
Read-only	DimSum Defaults refuses every change; copy a tool out of it to change it
In the tools folder / not	Whether it is a folder: a .tsum at the top of the tools folder is; Delete… sends the file to the Recycle Bin
Folder name	The file's name, shown under Custom. Rename… renames both and remembers the old name
Encryption	Library files encrypted, like the .dsum	Coming

Examples

• Open the Tools tab: the picker holds DimSum Defaults (read-only) and My Tools, made for you in Documents\DimSum Tools. Build a Framing tab in My Tools, copy Ext Wall 2x6 (example) out of the defaults into it, change the studs, and place it in a job. Rename My Tools.tsum in Explorer and reopen the job: the wall is still there with every part, and the panel tells you the library has moved.
• Company standard (lumber yard). Coming AcmeFraming.tsum holds the Framing Pack, Wall/Floor/Roof assemblies, the lumber lists with yard pricing, the Waste % and labor-rate lists, the company count sheets (report templates) and the POS Export Profile. AcmeBuildings.bsum holds "Single Story", "2 Story", "2 Story w/ Basement". Both go out to every estimator.
• Personal tweaks. An estimator keeps MyTemplates.tsum with personal shortcuts and variations, loaded alongside the company library.
• Trade libraries. A contractor who does both framing and low-voltage keeps Framing.tsum and LowVoltage.tsum separate and loads only what each job needs.
• Price update. The purchasing manager updates lumber prices in AcmeFraming.tsum and sends it out. Estimators import it with Merge. Existing projects keep their prices; each project's Refresh Center then shows a "41 lumber prices changed" row with a before/after view, and the estimator decides whether to re-price (New Project Process → Refresh Center).
• Customer price levels. A yard that gives Contractor A 10% off list adds its own custom property/column to the price list — DimSum doesn't ship price levels, because that's exactly what custom properties are for.

Tips & shortcuts

• Keep your folders in Documents\DimSum Tools — and, Documents\DimSum Materials — and include them in your backups. One file, one library — copy it and you have copied everything in it.
• Give each library a clear, trade- or owner-based name (LowVoltage.tsum, MyTemplates.tsum).
• Before a big change, Duplicate the tool first — there is no Save As for a whole folder any more.
• Keep every .tsum you use in the tools folder; one outside it is not a folder, and System Settings → Tools says so.
• One folder per trade or per owner — Framing, LowVoltage — is one file per trade or owner, so you can send exactly the part of your setup someone needs.

Rules, limits & edge cases

• A .tsum must be in the tools folder to use its tools in new work; a job you have already drawn does not need it. it is also what a job checks its tools against: a tool whose folder isn't on this machine is never offered on the update screen, and nothing in the job changes; a folder that won't read is named there.
• DimSum Defaults is read-only — every write to it is refused. Copy a tool out of it to change it (DimSum Defaults).
• Nothing is left out silently — an unreadable file is greyed with its reason, and backups, files outside the tools folder and mismatched names are named in System Settings → Tools.
• No live sharing in v1: sharing is sending the file.
• Two people editing the same library file at the same time (e.g. on a shared drive) isn't supported.
• In v1 anyone who has a library file can edit it. Admin locks come later (see below).

Related features

• Tool Designer & Tools
• Building Templates
• New Project Process
• File types & the .dsum project file
• Settings page
• Dynamic Lists & the Advanced Part
• Report Designer