Automate attributes using diesel and an external file

[Anonymous]

Hello all seeing this partains to dynamic blocks i thought i'll give it a go. 

I’m looking for a way to automate some fields in Autocad for a titleblock,

I was thinking about finding an Autolisp program to do this, but recently I’ve found that you can also use diesel. However, I’m just a simple engineer. And I’m not sure if it’s even possible, what I want to do is the following:

Some fields in the title block can easily be automated since they are the same for every drawing, for instance projectnumber, projectname etc. What I thought would be a smart way is to have a *.txt file in the “root” folder of the drawings and just have some simple info in it

[projectnumber]
[projectname]
[Country]

And have a diesel expression pull the info from said file.

However I wouldn’t know where to start. I can modify an expression to fit my needs but starting one from scratch isn’t something that surpasses my knowledge

Anyone have something like this already done like this or similar to it

Folder structure is the same for every project

[MMcCall402]

Have you considered using the sheet set manager for filling in your title block information?

I have title blocks inserted in my drawing template files as blocks with attributes that are pre-loaded with fields that refer to sheet set manager values. Filling in a title block is as simple as adding it to the current sheet set and its done.  If something needs to be changed later on you just need to change it in the sheet set manager and all the title blocks in the set update. The title block block is a dynamic block so it can be resized for sever different sheet sizes.

Added bonus to the sheet set manager is being able to produce a sheet index table, open drawings from the manager, archiving sets, publishing the current set and even sheets from another set without leaving the current drawing.

[Libbya]

In all of the projects I work on, the titleblock is an xref that houses all of the info that is common to all of the sheets.  For the sheet specific info, I use custom fields within sheet set manager.  That system works really well and does not require any custom coding.  

[Anonymous]

I've considered sheet manager, 

but for some reason i find it difficult to get it to work the way i want it. for instance i can open de "standard" drawings but they still are in the company standard folder. somehow i can't seem to export to a project folder and have them still assoiciated, the closest i've gotten is using the archive function and placing it in the designated folder.

i probably should grab a tuturial.

having just a text file that automaticly draws in the required info would be a safer bet from my side. Since the standard drawings won't pass through my hands, and the person doing the changes isn't able to use autocad at all, so just changing the vallues in the text file would be the safest bet.

then again using sheetmanager and some custom properties i'd probably be able to eliminate the person's requirment completly.

@Libbya

i've considered xrefs but our network isn't up to snuf for this kind of thing sadly.