topic Re: title block problem in Inventor Programming Forum

title block problem

Anonymous — Mon, 26 Nov 2018 14:50:31 GMT

Hi all,

looking for some help on how to approach this one.

I have a title block and in it I have a prompted entry ( and I hate it) the rest is done by an ilogic form and I would love to add this to it BUT.

it changes on every sheet.

witch from my form side of things is easy, but should I convert it to just text and add it that way or keep it prompted entry.

Kind Regards

Re: title block problem

philip1009 — Mon, 26 Nov 2018 15:12:03 GMT

What is the value that changes between sheets? Are you showing different views, different part/assembly files? It might be easier to store info in the part/assembly/presentation file and the title block pulls that info from the first placed view, but it's all dependent on what info is put into the title block.

Re: title block problem

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Nov 2018 11:41:13 GMT

it is a unique number per sheet (sometimes this is not in order). our client splits our drawings out into each sheet so they can put it into there document management system and file them.

this does not relate to what type of views I have displayed. I have looked into pulling from model and this is not suitable

example of display

Sheet:1 - 123456M-1001

Sheet:2 - 123456M-1002

Sheet:3 - 123456M-1003

Sheet:4- 123456M-1007

Sheet:5 - 123456M-1029

I want to be able to put 20 text boxes on my form and the user fills in each text box and then I want to push each one to each sheet and change the value

I have tried looking into accessing a textbox in the title box in ilogic but cant get this to work ( find and replace function). I think if I can get this to work it would be the best way to deal with this.

Kind Regards

Re: title block problem

doug.johnston — Tue, 27 Nov 2018 12:28:23 GMT

You might want to try and use the TABS in the ilogic form to have one per sheet, where you can fill out specific values for each sheet.

I have done it in the past on old idw's and it can be a bit too much to fill out, but it will work.

For example:

Create custom iproperties specific for each sheet where each value is specific to that sheet.

SHT1_123456M1001

SHT2_123456M1002

SHT3_123456M1003

I will dig through my files and see if I can post an example of what I have done.

Re: title block problem

philip1009 — Tue, 27 Nov 2018 15:05:00 GMT

Using Prompted Entries might be your best option. Whenever a new drawing or a new sheet in a drawing is made, it will prompt for entry and you can change that entry by looking under the title block of each sheet.

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/inventor-products/learn-explore/caas/screencast/Main/Details/9355479c-3d43-4e02-90fe-f6b509b5d17a.html

Re: title block problem

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Nov 2018 15:34:39 GMT

that's what I have at the moment and that is my concern.

I would prefer to control it from my Ilogic form if possible.

I wonder if I could turn off the promoted entry box from showing on new sheet. if I can then I know I can get that via code

Kind Regards

Re: title block problem

doug.johnston — Tue, 27 Nov 2018 16:48:35 GMT

Unfortunately I don't think you "turn off" the prompted entries. The only way I found is to delete the text/entry fields in the titleblock.

Unless someone else has any ideas ….

Re: title block problem

philip1009 — Tue, 27 Nov 2018 19:14:24 GMT

No, there's no options box for how Prompted Entries works, you can just click cancel or hit escape and then enter the info later. The easiest way to do this would be to directly read and edit title block values, unfortunately that's not possible through iLogic, and as far as I can tell, there's no manipulating Prompted Entries with iLogic either. Is there always a set number or maximum number of sheets? There's some tricks that can be done if the number of sheets is limited to 10 or something like that. Other than that, I'm still sticking with Prompted Entries being the best option for now until a better solution comes along.

Re: title block problem

JamieVJohnson2 — Thu, 29 Nov 2018 19:21:24 GMT

A Titleblock is a sketch definition. The textbox entities are in that definition. A PromptedEntry, is a textbox entity with the set field added into it. We all know this part.

Since the Titleblock definition is one per document (unless you copy it), editing the Titleblock sketch to remove a prompted entry and turn it into a dumb text with value (you can certainly do this) will put that value on every instance of the Titleblock. Another option could be to use a 'custom property drawing' field in the textbox then tie that into a document's iProperty/Custom section. You would then not get the prompt at insert, but can manipulate the value (one for all instances such as total sheet count, btw already a field of its own) in the iProperty/Custom section. If you want to create MULTIPLE TITLEBLOCKS using the sketch definition then copy it. You could insert a different Titleblock per sheet, even if the only difference is a new reference to a different custom property (messy but effective). However editing titleblocks requires you to activate the sketch editor (very much a screen visible thing), then exit edit (flashy but effective), all this can be done by code. You can find textbox entities by their contents, or even add hidden attribute data to look for via code so you can change them at whim.

Re: title block problem

philip1009 — Thu, 29 Nov 2018 20:40:44 GMT

Would you mind sharing an example to edit the text in a Title Block? Either I can't find the methods or they're not documented in the API Guide. Other than that, my idea is to have different Title Block for each sheet and then the user can change the info in a form using Parameters, but you'd need separate parameters and title blocks for every sheet for this method to work.

Re: title block problem

JamieVJohnson2 — Thu, 06 Dec 2018 17:03:57 GMT

And one week later, (sorry)

First get the document in question:

Dim drawDoc as DrawingDocument = (active document or whatever)

Then get the Titleblock definitions (modify loop and contents for your logic needs):

dim tbd as TitleBlockDefinition = nothing

For Each sht as Sheet in drawDoc.Sheets

if sht.TitleBlock IsNot Nothing then

tbd = sht.TitleBlock.Definition

'do work on tbd

End if

Next edit the Titleblock definition as if it were a sketch (because it is):

dim tbSketch as DrawingSketch = nothing

tbd.Edit(tbSketch) 'this populated the sketch variable while opening it for edit in the context of the titleblock's definition.

'looping through all textboxes in sketch

for each txt as TextBox in tbSketch.TextBoxes

if txt.FormattedText.Contains("my property of concern") then 'example: ">PART NUMBER</Property>" cuts through all the formatting codes and looks for the field attached to the Part Number property

'do work here

end if

I suggest you write a helper routine to print out (debug.Print() or msgbox()) the formatted text of the textbox before and after your changes done by hand, you can then use those values in code. Pay attention to the IDs, Inventor makes them up to keep them unique for prompted entries, you may have to as well.

You can set formattedtext to values like this (resetting a dynamic value to a prompted entry example):

txt.FormattedText = "<Prompt ReadOnlyUniqueID='110'><PART NUMBER></Prompt>"

You can set formattedtext to something dynamic like this:

txt.FormattedText = "<StyleOverride FontSize='0.4572'><Property Document='model' FormatID='{32853F0F-3444-11D1-9E93-0060B03C1CA6}' PropertyID='5'>PART NUMBER</Property></StyleOverride>"

Finally don't forget

tbd.ExitEdit

And a handy way to force titleblocks to update is to get their result text:

For Each sht as Sheet in drawDoc.Sheets

for each txt as TextBox in tbd.Sketch.TextBoxes

sht.TitleBlock.GetResultText(txt)