Date problem, please help

We recently changed out titleblocks, and we also changed the date
format for the "Date" field.

Our old format was , Month/Day/Year (06/21/05)

Our new format is Year-Month-Day (2005-06-21)

I have a custom property called "Date", and its in Date format.

I know that this field is determined by the Windows Date/Time system
settings on your computer, but thats were my problme arises.

If I change my system setting to 2005-06-21, the field in the
titleblock looks fine. If I open that drawing on someone elses
computer though, the date displays in whatever format their system
setting is set at.

Why does this happen? It makes sense for when you first enter the
date, but why does the date field change depending on the computer?

Is there a way around this? I could change the custom property format
to Text, but then I wouldnt be able to use the macro I have that inputs
this date automatically with a touch of a button.

Anyone ever run into this issue? Any ideas how I can resolve it?

 

It sounds as if you know the answer already. You have to change every
computer in the Windows setting to the Windows Date/Time to show
2005-06-21. We use the same date codeing and we have all (2) of our
CAD stations set to have the 2005-06-21 date code and it works fine.

KM

 

Well, that only works for the computers that CREATE the drawing. If
you save the drawing, and open it on another computer that doesnt have
that date format setting in the system settings, the date WILL change
from how you had it on your computer.

Why does SolidWorks do this? I can understand this when you first
enter the date, but this format shouldnt change by just opening the
document.

The problem is, we have 20+ people who view SolidWorks drawings. Only
about 8 actually create them.

Also, if I send it out for a quote, it wouldnt make sense to have to
tell them to change their Windows settings so the date will display
correctly.

Am I the only one that has this problem ?

 

The action makes sense to me in that the user sees a date formatted per his
choice. I don't know exactly what your macro does to stuff in the date, but
how about changing it to grab today's date, convert it to text, put it in
the desired order, and then stuff that value into the note.

WT

 

That is starting to sound a little more complicated. What about
setting the "viewers" to read only access to the drives of your
drawings. We changed to the long date code for manufacturers overseas.
We did make sure their date code was the same as ours. Anyone else we
send prints to either gets it via Edrawings or PDF so it makes it
easier for us.

KM

 

That sounds like it would work. If its in text format, than the
windows setting wouldnt matter.

Do you have such a macro to do this? Im not sure how to get a macro to
convert the date to text, and put it in the desired order

 

In your macro, set a variable for the date to the type of String, such as:
Dim strDate as String

Then down in your code do something like:
strDate = Date

This will assign the current date value to the variable as a string, which
you can then assign to your date field as you currently are. If you still
need help, post your macro code where you are currently assigning the
current date.

WT

 

Oops, I forgot to rearrange it. Use the substring function to grab a piece
of it and then paste it back together.

WT

 

Thanks WT,

Here is my code. Somehow, I think your first post didnt go thru.

Dim swApp As Object
Dim DrawingDoc As Object
Sub main()
Set swApp = CreateObject("SldWorks.Application")
Set DrawingDoc = swApp.ActiveDoc
retval = DrawingDoc.DeleteCustomInfo("DATE")
retval = DrawingDoc.AddCustomInfo("DATE", "Date", Str(Date))
DrawingDoc.EditRebuild
End Sub

 

Sorry for the delay - quite busy.

It looks like it should work with a couple things. Change the AddCustomInfo
line to:

retval = DrawingDoc.AddCustomInfo("DATE", "Text", Str(Date))

This sets the type of the property to text, rather than a date property.
The date string that you paste back in then will be in the format of your
current Windows setting, which should be as you want it, and the property in
the file should not change since it's text, and not a date.

Now, the other issue. The DeleteCustomInfo function is case sensitive, as
in if the file has a property called "Date" then the delete will fail, and
you won't be able to write the new one in. So, if your drawings are all the
same - ok. If not, you will have to either delete it manually, or run a
routine that looks through all the properties to see if one exists that is
the same as "DATE" only with different case.

WT

 

That works. Thanks. I would be nice if the macro could change the
date to the proper format, rather than getting everyone to change their
windows date/time setting. I noticed the date format also changes in a
number of other programs, which could give us a headache later on.

Do know of a way to have a custom property in a particular cell of the
new revision table added in SW 2004? If I edit text in the cell, and
link to a custom property, the custom property doesnt show up, only
$PRP:"Released_Date"

Reason I need this in a cell, is we start off at Rev 0. When adding a
Rev to the rev table, it starts at Rev 1. So we had to manually add a
row, so we could have a Rev 0.