Properties, no expression button shown

[infoQ82EV]

Hello there, I am currently setting up a text property in a assembly document which will be exported to BOM in the end.

Worked already in the past with expressions like "=<G_L>" in the User Defined Properties, which made that fx expression button visible.

Wanted to use this again, but somehow this Button and option is not longer showing up?

Given case:

I do have a iParameter named <Surface> of type of string, which should make no problems, its also tryed to be set to export to let it appear in the properties panel, but lets say I do now have the property "Art" set to string also, telling its value to be "=Some cool other Text <Surface> and some more text" neither that fx button appears at any time, nor the result will be evaluated. Tryed it also with only "=<Surface>" but nothing happened.

What am I missing or did this not exist at 2021 Version?

[James_Willo]

Is your parameter set to 'export' by clicking the checkbox on the right of the parameters dialogue? Without this the =<> won't work.

By the way, I think you are only allowed to do this with 'user parameters' in a later version of Inventor.

[James_Willo]

I checked and you need Inventor 2024 to export boolean values, but normal user parameters should work in 2021. 

[infoQ82EV]

That Checkbox is what I already have checked, but somehow I am not getting that button showing up. Seen in the API that property does have also the property Expression, but from seeing its not recognized if I type in the regular UI things like =<Some_Para>
makes me not hopefull, that might improve anything. Strange thing is, I did see code in existing programms that use checking if value has start char "=" so I would think, it did work in the past, but somehow not any longer? Would make things much easyer to be able to use it...

My current workaround has to interpolate strings just to get the values of that other properties in there, which are two, adding not preferred overhead...

[James_Willo]

Sorry, I did not read your message properly, you are using text strings here? Text strings are not supported in 2021 for export. 

You need 2024 for text string export as well. 

Sorry for the confusion. 

[infoQ82EV]

So in case my property is a integer, it should work from what you say? Because I tryed that also and that button did never ever appear...

[infoQ82EV]

Everytime I create a integer property and = it tells me that I have to switch it to be text type because of thats no number😅

[James_Willo]

They don't have to be integers, decimal also works. 

If it's not working the way I show in the video, you could try the Inventor reset utility, or check you have all the updates. I'm on 2021.5.2

[James_Willo]

I understand what you are doing now, I'll look into, I remember us looking at equations in custom props at some point.

[James_Willo]

Right, so this works in 2021, but you need to use a text custom iProperty and reference a numeric Parameter. Also the numeric parameter has to be exported. 

Note that sometimes you need to close the iProperty dialogue and reopen in order to see the fx, I think this was fixed in a later version.

[infoQ82EV]

Currently re-installing inventor (to my disappointment I am not allowed update to full versions like 2022+ at this point), but I will check which in-between version I am having of 2021 tomorrow.

Opening and closing those windows did not do anything at all.

With integers i tried to tell the German property type "Anzahl" like "Count" in English... I do only have Date, Text, Anzahl and... Think there has been another irrelevant one also. We only use Anzahl and Text in the properties and storing values in parameters transferred from a master part upwards to the master assembly.

[James_Willo]

Please note that even in the most recent version of Inventor, you can only use this for custom iProps that are text type.

[infoQ82EV]

Thanks for remembering me, but honestly, to me it would be a progress, if I could make it appearing ANYWHERE. At this time it is not appearing anywhere no matter what I did so far. So my only hope is to maybe get it useable with the .5 version told of or seems like I have to give up hope and just have to make it hard coded/written without expression.

[James_Willo]

Just to make sure that I know exactly what your issue is, here is a video showing everything possible in 2021