Dynamic revision boxes!

[Muhzel]

Hi All

I'm looking for some help with developing a dynamic block which i will use as a revision box on my drawings.

Hopefully this will make sense for what I'm after but please message me if I need to clarify further. In all honesty I'm pretty lost as to where to start with this one!

I have a very standard revision box (See attached) with attributes in a standard fixed block. What I'm looking to do is have a dynamic block with an attribute that will add an additional text line and extend the box size down a line to suit as required when my text entry is too large for the original two row block that i want to use as a standard.

Like I mentioned before i hope this makes sense and I would really appreciate any input and help on this.

Many thanks and kind regards.

[AcadAdamLT]

Here's a revision box that I've made for my templates, hopefully it can give you some ideas.

Unfortunately it does not have the ability to resize or add another row for text input since I don't have any use of an extra row.

Good luck.

[Muhzel]

AcadAdamLT

Thanks for the response, unfortunately this was not really what i was looking for. I already have a template which i use similar to yours, i.e. standard polylines with attributes associated in block format. However i was looking for a dynamic solution to the problem of longer revision notes.

I have been having a play aound with some ideas and have attached the block for you to see however I'm very picky and would like the stretch action on the polylines to be fully automated in line with the text entry. If possible i would also like the revision note text restricted automatically to the width of the box which it is designated to.

Cheers,

Muhzel.

[Libbya]

I do not know of a way to make the box automatically larger with text entry.  I would make the stretch incremental and use the size of the line of text as the increment.  Restricting the length of the text to fit the box is easy enough.  Just use a multiline attribute and set it's border wherever you want it. 

[Muhzel]

Hi Libbya

Thanks for the response. I realised that once i have inserted the block i can edit the Mtext attribute and set the width of text which works well, however, I was hoping that i could set the width of the text in the block itself so that whenever I bring it in from my design center the width is set from the very start. Not a huge issue, just one of those things that would be nice is all.

I did think of adding an increment to the stretch action but to be honest I'm not 100% sold on it yet, i might change my mind and add it at a later date though.

Thanks for the input though, appreciate the help.

[Libbya]

You can set the mtext width in the block definition and any time you insert it as a new block in a drawing it will come in with that format.  Of course, if you insert a block into a drawing where the block name is already defined, then it will adopt the characteristics of the already existing block definition unless you redefine it.  

[Muhzel]

Sorry I think i may be confusing the situation. When i say the width of the text, i mean the overall ruler width of the multiline text not the width of the actual text itself.

It seems that if i set the ruler width to what i want in the block it resets itself when i bring it into drawings. These are minor issues though really! Thanks.

[ojuris]

Do You need annotative attribute?

If You use not annotative attribute, then it's width are same when You use block

[Muhzel]

Hi Ojuris

Thanks for your response. I think you have hit the nail on the head with this. The attribute does not need to be annotative and as such works a dream now! Is there a way of locking the boundary width so it is uneditbale when entering your text? If not I'm still very happy with this result so thank you.

Only thing now is if anyone knows of a way to automatically set the stretch increment to suit the ammount of rows input by the text?!

Cheers guys.

[dmfrazier]

Another thing you might try (assuming you haven't already) is using a table object.  You can even create what you want in Excel first, if you're more comfortable there, and then copy/paste it into AutoCAD as a table.  The table cells can contain fields and/or attributes as well as text.

[Muhzel]

Hi dmfrazier

I had not tried the using a table, however, having just had a play with the block again i cannot see anyway how i can use attributes within the table cells to automatically set the depth of the cell to reflect the length of my revision note? Any help on this would be appreciated.

In my latest revision of the block I have simple used visibilty states to set my requirement for the ammount of lines I need.

Thanks.

[dmfrazier]

See attached DWG containing a block definition, an insert of the block, and a table containing an insert of the block definition in one of its cells.

This is probably not exactly what you are after, but it illustrates the ability to insert a block (which contains only a multi-line attribute) into a table cell which will expand its row vertically (but not the column horizontally) as the attribute value gets larger (more lines).

To ensure the table column doesn't grow horizontally, the attribute within the block must be defined as Multi-line and it must have a specific Boundary Width based on the width you want the table column to be, taking margins into account.

Once you insert the block into the cell, it becomes defined as a "Block" Cell Type, and because the block contains an attribute, the Attribute property appears on the Properties Palette when the cell is selected, allowing you to modify the value.

Although I defined the table with a header row and multiple data rows, you might find it more user-friendly to create a table with just a single row, and then copy it for successive revs.

I suspect that although it is possible to do this, you might be losing some advantage of using attributes which have unique tags.  If so, I guess you could create as many table+block combos as you need for each unique revision.