9.4 Routing a cable through a network
Select a cable, and in the inspector set Routing → Route via to a tray. Its route then becomes derived: device → nearest entry point on the network → shortest path along it → nearest exit → device, re-derived live as trays and devices move.
Cables enter anywhere along a tray, not only at its ends, because that is what installers do.
The tray you choose names a network, not a path. With several disjoint runs in one venue, “the closest tray anywhere” is ambiguous — and “the run I attached it to” is what attaching meant.
Two behaviours make attachment safe:
- Manual waypoints are kept and ignored while a cable is on a tray, and come straight back on detach. Attaching is not destructive.
- Deleting a tray does not delete the cables through it. The attachment is cleared and each cable falls back to its own waypoints. One undo restores the tray and every attachment to it.
Worked example — the demo project’s cable schedule
| HDMI-01 · Player (1) → Epson CO-FH01 (1), via the tray | 9.21 m |
| ETH-01 · Switch (1) → Epson CO-FH01 (1), via the tray | 9.45 m |
| HDMI-02 · Player (2) → Epson CO-FH01 (2), via the tray | 17.65 m |
| ETH-02 · Switch (1) → Epson CO-FH01 (2), via the tray | 17.77 m |
Every figure includes the project’s 10 % slack. All four runs ride the same tray network, so each length is the routed path — device to tray, along the run, and down to the machine — not a straight line.