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Forging Turns Components into Items

Items are components that can be recognized by Compfire, imported, and edited.

When you Forge, the Edit window will appear. Here, you may set item properties. But do not have to. You can do it later.

After you have forged an item, you can select it, and Export it directly to your Library.

Once in the library, you can Import it via the Finder or right-click.

Start Simple

When you start out, you do not have to bother with editing advanced item properties. Just give your item a unique library name.

Once you are more comfortable with the Forge workflow, you can start experimenting with editing item branches and other properties.

Edit Afterwards

You can alwasy go back an edit eny property afterwards. You can do this via Edit or via Open Catalog.

Do not be afraid to experiment!

Recommended Forge Workflow

A good asset library should be internally consistent.

The recommended workflow is this:

1. Import an existing library. This creates a staging model.
2. Create a brand new component from scratch, like you normally would.
   Try to give it a definition name that stays unique in your asset library.
3. Select the new component, then run Forge. Check that all looks good.
4. Clear selection. Run Export Library.
   This exports all items in the model, both previous and new ones.
5. Done.

Your Library and Catalog are updated with the newly forged Items.

You may now Import the new items via right-click or the Finder, directly from your updated library.

Get in the Workflow

Compfire is an integrated system. To learn how this command relates to common workflows and best practices, read through the Overview.