Combining custom property fields

Hi All,

I'm currently structuring our new templates here at work and I'm
looking to have it so that some of the fields on the drawing sheet
(eg. Drawing Number) are actually a combination of a number of
different custom properties.

Now on the drawing sheet I can combine them by just referencing each
field to print after the previous one. However, I can't do the same in
the BOM because each column just references one custom property. If my
"Drawing Number" was made up fo three separate fields, I'd need three
columns in the BOM to report the drawing number, whereas I'd like to
do it in one.

Is there any way to combine multiple custom property fields into one?

Furthermore is there any way to apply logic to the way referenced
custom properties appear on a sheet?

I could make the reference for "Drawing Number": "custpropfield1" -
"custpropfield2" - "custpropfield3" where "custpropfieldX" is the
various sections of my drawing number.

the drawback is that if I want to have a drawing number of "N/A" then
it will then report as "- N/A -" with the hyphens still included.

It's looking likely that I'll can the flash stuff and just go back to
using single-fields and use a third-party mass-editor like "Custom
Property Propagator" to bulk-control the parts, but I'd still like to
know if it's possible for future reference.

Thanks,

George Maddever
(Mech)
kanDO innovation.

 

I came across this very problem a week ago and gave a quick call to my
VAR (Javelin Technologies) which has always given great support, and
the answer is this.

First, the custom properties you wish to combine must all be created
and saved before you can create the custom property that combines
them.

Now say you have a custom property called DrawingSeriesNumber and a
custom property called DetailNumber, and wish to create a custom
property that combines the two with a hypen for a custom property
called DrawingNumber, the format for the custom property DrawingNumber
value is as follows.

$PRP:"DrawingSeriesNumber"-$PRP:"DetailNumber"

This is a great way to quickly change the drawing numbers. I use a
small program (Change Custom Properties ver 1.1, it is free) from
TriMech Solutions (www.trimech.com) that will change, add or delete
(Custom Properties only), in models, assemblies, and drawings. This
program will do all files and optionaly files in sub folders as well.
Great way to mass fill out a lot of common properties.

Mark McCumber

 

Hi Mark,

That's absolutely spot-on, top stuff, thanks a lot!