MicroStation V8i

Forum Post: Re: Can't write to a DGN using C#

Joerg Teresniak — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 05:58:00 GMT

[quote user="kenwilliams5"]I still get a "File is read-only" error on the line that tries to add the line[/quote]

I have created a new Console Application project using your code. It runs, the line element was created.
You should check your designfile.

Forum Post: How to add fields in Text Element using VBA objects

Graham — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 05:34:00 GMT

I want to do what this subject says. At the moment I can only do it using CadInputQueue, which I got when recording a macro.

Here's the only way I know to do it so far:

This is the code to put a field into a Text Element, using CadInputQueue (it's all one line of code):

CadInputQueue.SendMessageToApplication "WORDPROC", "1 insertField 243 <Evaluator>ElemProp</Evaluator><Expression><Class><String>MstnText</String></Class><Access><String>TextString</String></Access><Enabler><String>MstnProp</String></Enabler></Expression><Dependents><Element0><ID>" & LCase(DLongToHexString(oEl.ID)) & "</ID></Element0></Dependents> 127>"

However to use it I have to (in code) open the word processor, run the above line of code, then simulate a data click to place the text. The user will see the Word processor open while the code runs, things flash around, it runs slow and looks bad.

Is there a VBA object that I can use to do the same thing? Further, I would like to know what all the arguments are to be able to control the contents of the field (eg, display the length of a line or the area of a shape).

If it helps, below is a small procedure to place new text elements below all existing text elements in the drawing. The new elements contain a field that displays the text of the existing elements.

Regards,

Graham

Sub CreateFields()
    Dim startPoint As Point3d
    Dim oEnum As ElementEnumerator
    Dim oEl As Element

CadInputQueue.SendCommand "CHOOSE ALL"

Set oEnum = ActiveModelReference.GetSelectedElements

    oEnum.Reset
    do While oEnum.MoveNext
        Set oEl = oEnum.Current
        If oEl.IsTextElement Then

            CadInputQueue.SendCommand "WORDPROCESSOR PLACE TEXT ICON"
            CadInputQueue.SendMessageToApplication "WORDPROC", "1 insertField 243 <Evaluator>ElemProp</Evaluator><Expression><Class><String>MstnText</String></Class><Access><String>TextString</String></Access><Enabler><String>MstnProp</String></Enabler></Expression><Dependents><Element0><ID>" & LCase(DLongToHexString(oEl.ID)) & "</ID></Element0></Dependents> 127>"
            'CadInputQueue.SendMessageToApplication "WORDPROC", "1 insertField 243 <Evaluator>ElemProp</Evaluator><Expression><Class><String>MstnText</String></Class><Access><String>TextString</String></Access><Enabler><String>MstnProp</String></Enabler></Expression><Dependents><Element0><ID>" & LCase(DLongToHexString(oEl.ID)) & "</ID></Element0></Dependents> 127 ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????>????0"

            startPoint = oEl.AsTextElement.Origin
            startPoint.Y = startPoint.Y - oEl.AsTextElement.TextStyle.Height * 1.5

            CadInputQueue.SendDataPoint startPoint, 1
            CadInputQueue.SendReset
        End If
    Loop

    CommandState.StartDefaultCommand
End Sub

Forum Post: Dimension Driven Design, Generative Components, Parametric Cell Studio, Dependencies, none of the above?

jharkless — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 03:40:00 GMT

Disclaimer: I hate nothing more than a really vague post/question. So, at the risk of doing so myself, here goes...

Are these all not very similar concepts? I haven't used any of them but understand that DDD has been around the longest but I hear maybe not very user friendly and not great in 3D (just heresay)? Since I'm looking for simple primitive geometry than complex (solids, etc), I'm thinking GC is probably overkill for my needs (which I may explain further later if I so feel the need) and DDD is what I plan on investing time into getting to know (starting with the 26 part video series I came across).

But before I do spend said time, I was hoping to know:

What is the future of DDD?
Has it been updated to make use of the new dependency engine on which V8i uses?

A much less important question but one to ask nonetheless: why are there so many variations of complex solutions and more importantly, why can't a catch all solution just exist natively in the platform? Maybe there is a lot of programmatic overhead with the more complicated (GC) stuff, but make a user turn it on first- that should solve that issue.

Forum Post: Re: MicroStation VBA Element Type - Smart Solid/Surface

Quirky — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 00:49:00 GMT

Appreciate the advice on Smart second class VBA citizens (MicroStation V8i SS1), hopefully I can determine if a cell element has smart element characteristics... Thanks

Forum Post: Reference Reprojection Problem

R22YU — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:09:00 GMT

Hi All,

I am having trouble with v8i reprojecting a reference that it should not be. My drawing and reference file were both created from the same seed file, so they have all the same settings and GeoCS. I am working on a plan and profile drawing.

I attach the reference file by "Coincident World," and the plan portion falls into the correct spot. I then attach that very same reference file to the drawing for the profile portion, again by "Coincident World," except that Microstation will not let me move/rotate the reference so that I can place the profile properly under the plan view.

When I try to move the profile I get a message stating "Reference geographically reprojected, can't be user-transformed." I don't understand what is going wrong here? This is something I have done thousands of times in the last 5 years, but for some reason it stopped working.

Help anyone?

I am running V8i (SELECTseries 2) 08.11.07.443

Forum Post: Re: crCount problem with TextNode

DanPaul — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:41:00 GMT

Still does not work correctly... looks like mdlText_extractStringsFromDscrWide adds new line after every node component...

Any suggestion?

Dan

Forum Post: Re: Trying to get parentdevdir name of Reference attachments attached with relative path

Jon Summers — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:38:00 GMT

[quote user="Barry Lothian"]My code needs to be able to determine the value of parentdevdir for each of my reference attachments[/quote]

Add a VBA reference to the Windows Scripting Runtime DLL. Scripting Runtime provides the invaluable FileSytemObject (FSO).

The FSO gives you what you need to work with files and folders. The File object has methods to extract bits of a file path and reassemble them. Our article provides some examples. You'll find more on Microsoft news groups.

Forum Post: Re: all my MVBA does not start anymore : error code: 0x800a02c9

Mark.Anderson — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:15:00 GMT

Are your projects using any controls that are not part of MicroStation? Here is some information that we have been gathering related to this type of stuff:

1. Open your VBA project and verify the references. The ones in particular would be 3rd party controls like mscomctrl is suggested. One posting below stated that detach and re-attach resolved the issue. There are other things to try in that link, but I would start there.

ERROR: "Object library invalid or contains references to object definitions that could not be found" or "Element not found"

ARTICLE: "Object library invalid or contains references to object definitions that could not be found" or "Element not found"

blogs.msdn.com/.../object-library-invalid-or-contains-references-to-object-definitions-that-could-not-be-found-or-element-not-found.aspx

2. At the beginning of the article there is mention to Microsoft article 960715 (Update Rollup for Active X Kill Bits) causing the problem. This is the more common reason for VBA projects to not load after updating Microsoft security patches or Office products. I recommend using Microsoft Procmon to capture the full load of an application that has a failing VBA project. Then filter for the ActiveX kill bit paths and review those that have errors loading (the kill bit is a data value of 1024) and selectively decide to backup and remove those component kill bit keys from the registry. Once you know which ones are the problem you can create a registry file to remove those keys everytime a new Microsoft update attempts to re-activate “known bad controls” through a security update (Microsoft or your IT policies delploy), or Office Upgrade/patches roll out

I think this might be related to the Internet Explorer update.

HTH,

Forum Post: Re: DGNLIB - Custom Line Styles

Chuck Meuser — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:44:00 GMT

Thanks for the reply John,

No offense, this is just another reason why NOT to have LS's in a DGNLIB file. I also filed a change request.

Chuck

Forum Post: Re: How to add Levels to PDF?

Frank_Klein — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:05:00 GMT

Hi Sandeep,

A more safe way using a editor for free is notepad++. You get some xml tools to provide well syntaxed xml.
And PDF settings looks like this if you edit your .pltcfg file. Please watch your V8i Versions, because newer versions
create newer print configurations files that are not backward compatible.

Forum Post: Re: Drawing inversion on screen lock and mouse pointer disappearing

Russell Smith — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:24:00 GMT

I agree with Frank... Check the graphics driver first. It's always best to do a clean install, too.

NVIDIA just released a new driver yesterday for Quadro 2000/4000... 276.52. Here's the link for the Win7 64-bit, English version:

www.nvidia.com/.../quadro-tesla-win7-winvista-64bit-276.52-whql-driver.html

Forum Post: Re: PowerDraft installation issue

John Cannon — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:56:00 GMT

\Buttons, \Fkeys, \MicroStation and \PowerDraft.

I uninstalled/re-installed and did not copy in my .upf and now it's working. The projects, fkeymenu and btnmenu that I copied in from MS seem to be working. The custom toolbox I use in MS must have some tools in it that PD doesn't support. I can create a new on in PD - I was just trying to avoid this step. Sometime soon I'm going to have to get a couple of users running on PD but I've never used it before. I'll be back if I have any more problems.

Forum Post: Edge vs Fill

José Pinho — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:31:00 GMT

Hi all,

I've been reading some posts that shows that many people have the same problem than me.
I'm struggling with the presentation of 3d references to 2d models for layouts in the end of the line with plans, elevations & sections.

I always believe that Autodesk has something to learn with Bentley and vice-versa, and in this case in Acad we can have a edge (boundary) with a different level, color & tickness, than the fill.

I don't know if with this variables in element templates this even work... It's something that needs to work with display styles menu...

Is Bentley concerned about this and working on to resolve this issue so we can do the same in Microstation?
If this isn't realizable, Microstation users will have a lots of work to present layout the way they supposed to...

Thanks.

Forum Post: Re: matching attributes

Jon Summers — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:19:00 GMT

I don't see the need to be embarassed. Not everybody wants to write VBA, and not everybody needs to be a VBA developer (if you were, then you'd put people like me out of a job, so maybe I'm biassed).

But there is a VBA Forum, should you feel that way inclined 8-)

Forum Post: Re: MS_DEF vs MS_RFDIR

Larry Whitt — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:34:00 GMT

I think there used to be an mdl application (for MS/J) that provided the ability to use wildcards to represent sub-folders. Maybe if that could be updated for V8 and up and incorporated into the product, some configuration could be greatly simplified.

Forum Post: Re: LineStyle Scale of Custom LineStyles

caddcop — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:09:00 GMT

AutoCAD does not support physical (fixed) line type scale. The best that you can do is to make multiple linetypes that are used bylayer and substitute different ones based upon the drawing scale. That's why they have DASHED, DASHED2, DASHEDX2.

Forum Post: Re: Print Organizer pset settings not being saved.

mwlong — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:28:00 GMT

It's been a while since I used PO but, if you have a print driver defined in you plot style and the plot driver has a paper size checked to be the default size (not the 11x17 tabloid) PO will pull that paper size when you open the pset (at least that is the problem I had).

I stopped using PO because it was not versatile enough for my use. The old batch printing is limited but it serves my purposes much better than PO. I'm looking forward to the new release.

Forum Post: Re: Batch process 3D to 2D

slehner — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:25:00 GMT

We recently upgraded to V8i and the "msbatch" is in a different directory. (The old folder names don't match.)

I also want to point out that "msbatch" is just a switch. The folder names used in the command are just GUI for the user. So really you can do "IN" and "OUT" folders. What ever you put into the "IN" folder goes to the "OUT" folder as the opposite of the original.

_________________________________________

cd "C:\Program Files\Bentley\MicroStation V8i (SELECTseries)\MicroStation"

msbatch cnvdgn inname:C:\3DConv\3D\*.* outname:C:\3DConv\2D\

pause

_________________________________________

cd "C:\Program Files\Bentley\MicroStation V8i (SELECTseries)\MicroStation"

msbatch cnvdgn inname:C:\3DConv\2D\*.* outname:C:\3DConv\3D\

pause

Forum Post: Re: Label Line Question

Inga Morozoff — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:09:00 GMT

What's interesting is that it shows find in the preview at the bottom of the dialog. I'll file a TR for this. In the meantime, you could go to the design file settings and change the label from sf to '.

Then set the Label Format to MU Label.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Forum Post: Re: Label Line Anomalies

John Cannon — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:46:00 GMT

The key-in "dimcreate element labelline" brings up the new version.