Microstation Basic and text nodes question

Hi people,

Long time no write.

I've be out of the Ustn business for a while now and feel like a complete
beginner again.

I found a piece of code to modify texts in a text node doing the following,
once the node header is found:

 

as I said, a real beginner.

I forgot to specify that it's for MS SE and J, not V8

 

Hi Francois. Nice to speak again.
I often have problems getting on this NG so I'll post here and to you
offline as well.
The piece of code replaces all text in existing textnodes with "xxxxx" but
what is the objective of populating blank text nodes and how many lines of
text would you want.I'll send you a macro in a short while

 

Sorry to tell you that now most of the Microstation Community reads (and
answers) in bentley.* hierarchy
It's possibile to find a web interface to some of these newsgroups in my own
web site, for example vba programming is here:

http://www.b3soft.com/phpnuke/newsgroup-4-0.html

and try the search engine you can find in the upper part of the page, it's
very powerful

 

Hi Dave,

Indeed, nice to see that all the good ole boys are still around.

Basically, the text nodes are part of the title blocks and I'm writing an
interface between Ustn and Documentum (EDMS) to populate the title block
with values extracted from Document attributes, such as Document Name,
Version number, last modif date, etc....

Of course, the first time a title block is placed in the design file, the
text nodes are empty, hence my problem

Cheers

Francois

 

So, does the macro do what you want?

 

Hi Francois,

Yup. I'm present.
But I know even less than you about Basic :-o

Hey, my brain has been effectively marinated in MDL and spicey C for decades
so I guess it is too late now to change this taste ;-)

Cheers,
/Chris Z.

 

Which macro, mine ????

if it's mine, it doesn't. I works only for text nodes with a text already in
them.

If it's yours, I didn't receive it :-(

Regards,
Francois

 

Sent offline, but I'll try here again - first time I could get on here in a
few days

 

I can see an attachment on the posting now, so should be OK.

 

Hello Dave,

I don't see an attachment, I don't think that you can use attachments
on these newsgroups anymore.

Harry Stegeman

 

Her it is:-

'macro to swap text nodes for "xxxxx"

sub main
dim filepos as long
dim endoffilepos as long
dim element as New MbeElement
dim origin as MbePoint
dim ElemText as string
dim ChangeText as string

EndofFilePos = MbeDgnInfo.endoffile
ChangeText = "xxxxx"

MbeSendCommand "null"

'disable text editor
MbeSetAppVariable "MGDSHOOK", "userPrefsP->textEditorStyle", 2#


'scan through each element in file
filepos = element.fromfile (0)
do while filepos >= 0 and filepos <= EndofFilepos
filesize = element.filesize
if element.type = Mbe_TextNode then

'if no text, edit it
if element.nextComponent <> Mbe_Success then
stat = element.getOrigin(origin)
mbesendcommand "edit text"
mbelocateelement filepos
mbesenddatapoint origin
mbesendkeyin changetext

'if text change it
else
do
If element.getString(elemText) = Mbe_Success Then
status = element.setString(ChangeText)
End If
loop while element.nextComponent = Mbe_Success
status = element.rewrite()

end if
end if
filepos = element.fromfile (filepos + filesize)
loop

'enable text editor
MbeSetAppVariable "MGDSHOOK", "userPrefsP->textEditorStyle", 0#

end sub

 

Hi Francois,
Where's the 'Ferrari in your e-mail address gone?

 

And it does exactly what I needed.

Thanx a lot Dave

Francois

 

uhhh ????

 

He probably meant BMW, no, wait, he meant Bentley ;-)

/Chris Z.

 

McLaren of course! I do get them funny looking cars mixed up. Are you now
manager of Planet Hollywood in NL and that is where your new e-mail address
comes from?

 

No Planet is only my ISP in the NL

McLaren is history for me and I don't miss it. I usually don't burn bridges
behind me but I have to say that it is good to be alive again

 

No problem - glad to be of help

 

Hi Francois,
Conecting external data to _text nodes_ in a title block is definately
the way to go, especially for the title itself which can be 1 line or x
lines. I'm tired of whiz-bang EDMS that ony work with tag data
(single-line only) or plain text (also single-line). Also, text nodes
are readily editable by the users, so it's not weird to edit titles
on-the-fly when necessary (it's _always_ necessary to do this), but
you'll need a way to extract title block data...

Anyway, just one tidbit: I learned that it was necessary to use the
"Preserve Text Nodes" user preference (Workspace > Preferences, Text,
check Preserve Text Nodes) to allow the text node to shrink to one line
(as drawing titles can be) without becoming plain text (Type 17).
Without this option, text nodes would become plain text as single-line
titles, then it was difficult to go back to 2 or more lines of text. I
don't remember the details exactly, but doing this made it a lot easier
to code the macro.

HTH,
Simon