Location box...different behaviour in 2012 ?

[CAD-ICE]

Hi there,

I´m experiencing different behaviour working with location boxes in ACADE2012. This relates to when stretching or shrinking the box area and also with regards to naming or actually renaming the locationbox?

Anyone else experiencing this change in behaviour? I think that the 2011 behaviour was much better....any suggestions?

Regards, Gary

[Wheelie22]

Well it updates every thing if you edit it (or open and close).

But you need to do this setting :

GROUPDISPLAYMODE = 0

[dougmcalexander]

0	Displays grips on all objects in the selected group
1	Displays a single grip at the center of the grouped objects
2	Displays the group bounding box with a single grip at the center

Keep in mind that the GROUPDISPLAYMODE setting is inherent to the drafting engine, not Electrical.  Mode 0, as defined above, allows you to grip all objects within the location box and manipulate them, but there is no inherent value to AutoCAD Electrical without subsequent operator manipulation .  You could use mode 0 to grip a location box and resize it by gripping its corners or sides, but you still need to edit the box and click OK to update the components within its new boundaries.

Actually the default GROUPDISPLAYMODE setting of 2 is appropriate for Electrical.  Using grips to manipulate location boxes can resize or move them but there is currently no subroutine within Electrical that detects the change and automatically updates affected components that fall within the new boundaries of the box or are left over from where it was previously positioned.  With mode 2 (default) you can grip and move the entire box to surround another component or group of components, but you will need to manually edit the leftover component(s) INST/LOC value to disassociate them from the moved location box.  You must also edit the location box in its new position to update all components within its new boundary.  Simply click OK and the components that fall within its boundaries will be associated to its INST/LOC assignment. 

Hint:  If you need to resize a location box it can be quicker to just delete it (use delete component command) and re-insert it.  However, you can use the AutoCAD Stretch command if you wish, but you will need to subsequently edit the location box and click OK to trigger the subroutine in Electrical which assigns all components within the box to the INST/LOC value of the box.

[CAD-ICE]

Hello Dough,

thank´s for looking into this and for good answers as usual

I´m a bit confused though...I typed in the command i.e. "groupdisplaymode" and the current setting was 2. I changed the setting to 0 but after that I´m seeing the old behaviour again? I dont see any changes between settings of 0-1-2 ?

When I click on a locationbox blue handles are displayed on all corners and sides and the box can be stretched by pulling these blue handles wich is the behaviour I was missing. The different behaviour I mentioned in my first post is gone for some reason ??

To explain this different behavior a little that is how I experienced it, when clicking on a location box only one blue handle appeared in the middle of the location box and a frame that was extended a little outside the box border. The only option I had in this case was to drag the box to a different location. If I wanted to enlarge og shrink the box I would need to use the stretch command for this purpose.

I´m also experiencing in some cases that the box description is no longer linked to the "Edit Location Box" dialog such that when editing the description in the dialog box it wont update?

Dough, I appreciate your suggestion that the most easy way to go forward would be to delete the box and insert a new one but still there must be some explanation for this, right?

Thank´s again for your support.

Regards, Gary

Spoiler

[dougmcalexander · Accepted solution]

Mode zero allows you to select various points and corners of the box, allowing you to reshape the box.  Mode 2 selects only the center point inside the box and allows you to move the entire box.  Mode 1 is very similar to mode 2, but mode 1 doesn't show the bounding box.  Release 2011 introduced improvements to the location boxes, allowing us to move components in and out of the boundaries and have the INST/LOC values of the moved components updated accordingly.  It also introduced the option to hide the INST/LOC attributes of components that are surrounded by the box.  But there is no functionality that automatically updates components within the box after the box has been moved or reshaped/stretched.

I have seen an issue with the box description not updating after you edit the box description.  Before release 2011 there was an issue with the box losing it's intelligence altogether and it couldn't be edited again.  This was improved somewhat but sometimes edits to the location box description still do not update the actual text that is displayed next to the box. 

The location box code started as nothing more than Electrical making a call to AutoCAD for the rectangle command, then looping back to Electrical to perform an update of the INST/LOC value of components found within the boundary of the box.  It would also place dumb text as a box description if we entered a description.  There was no option to automatically fill in the box description with the IEC style description (Use =Installation+Location Values). 

The location box appears to still be evolving as a feature but isn't quite perfect in my opinion.  But it is only an inconvenience, nothing that prevents me from doing my job.  For example, the prompts are actually not in the proper order of typical IEC hierarchy.  The edit dialog contains the Location field above the Installation field, giving the appearance that Location supersedes Installation. Actually Installation supersedes Location.  Installation might be a factory name (i.e. ATL for Atlanta) or production line number (i.e. L1 for LINE 1) and Location might be a particular panel within the facility or production line (i.e. MP for Main Panel, JB1 for Junction Box 1).  The fact that the fields are reversed causes no functional problem though. 

The occasion where the box description doesn't actually update after an edit is an inconvenience that I just have to watch our for, but I can manually edit the box description to correct this.  The box description is still only a text entity.  Electrical calls AutoCAD and asks for the text command and then fills in the text value from the entry we make in the Box Description field.  Later releases introduced new code that would change the text value of the box description after editing the location box, but it has never been 100% reliable.  Being aware of this inconsistency I always double check and edit manually when necessary.  This is not a new issue for 2012.   It has actually become slightly more reliable but is still not perfect.

[jean.renaud.grimard]

I have some point to report.  in ACADE2012, the positioning of the location box description, related to the box center, will be top, bottom, left, and right.  More specifically, it is top center, bottom center, middle left and middle right.

In the case where a lot of location boxes are very close, in a horizontal array, there is no space to put the description at the left and at the right.  Then, top and bottom is problematic because wires will go out sometimes exactly at the top center of the box, then overlap the description.

There should be positioning options like "top left, top right", like that:

xx

|¯¯¯¯¯¯¯|

|_______|

            xx
|¯¯¯¯¯¯¯|

|_______|

And the same examples but at the bottom...

I admit that switching grouping variable to 0 will help to reposition the description, but there should be a way to reposition it while leaving grouping variable to 2.

[jean.renaud.grimard]

Ok... i've just found that, despite the fact that moving the box will also move the description, we can use STRETCH command by windowing just the description, then move only the description that way.  That is a faster solution than modifying grouping variable, or un-grouping entities.  In fact, it renders my post almost useless.

The only good thing to include the option in the dialog is to permit a default value of "top left" or other one.  That should eliminate the need of moving the description each time.