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How can a user globally edit only certain elements in a flextable?
There are cases when a user may want to globally edit only certain elements in a FlexTable. In such a case, you need to use a filter to remove some of the elements from the FlexTable. Below are steps to do this.
To filter a Flextable, open the element Flextable and right-click on any column header. Next, choose Filter > Custom. This will open the Query Builder dialog.
Next, you will need to create the query you want to filter the FlexTable with. For instance, you may want to only view the pipes with a diameter of 250 mm. If such a case, you would search the Fields table on the left for "Diameter". Double-click this and it will appear in the section at the bottom of the Query Builder dialog. Next, select the operator, such as "=". Next, click the Unique Values button in the upper right and then double-click the value you want to filter by. When you are done, the Query Builder dialog will look similar to the screenshot below
NOTE: If you want to filter by more than one item, you can select the "AND" operator from the middle of the dialog and then go through the process above once more.
Once you click Okay, the filter will be applied. The FlexTable will now look similar to the screenshot below.
Note that it says "FILTERED" in the lower right of the FlexTable. In the lower left, if says that only some of the elements are displayed (in the screenshot above, "4 of 17 elements displayed"). These are indicators that a filter is applied.
Now when you globally edit the FlexTable, only the elements that are displayed will be changed. All other elements will be left with their original values. To do this, right-click on the column header you want to change and choose "Global Edit". A new dialog will open.
Choose the operator. For numerical fields, like diameter, you have an option to "Set" and use mathematical operators, like Add and Multiply. For text fields, only the Set option is available. Choose the operator and enter a value and the value in the FlexTable will change.
To remove the filter, right-click on any column header once more and choose Filter > Reset. This will reset the filter and display all elements.
Another way that you can filter and edit only some elements is via the steps below:
1) Open the Selection Set manager (View > Selection Sets) and highlight the selection set you want to view with a single left click on the name. The selection set name should now be highlighted in blue.
2) Right-click on the selection set name and choose "Select in Drawing" from the pop-up menu. Only the elements in the selection set will be highlighted in the drawing pane.
3) Right-click in the drawing pane and choose "Edit Group"
4) Choose the FlexTable you want to view the selection set with and click the "Ok" button. When the FlexTable opens, only the selected elements will be displayed. You can then globally edit the FlexTable so that only these elements will change.
Similar to the Selection Set option, you can simply manually highlight elements in the drawing. Hold down the control button on your keyboard to select more than one item or use the selection tools located under the 'Edit' menu. You can then right click in the drawing pane and select Edit Group. The rest of the steps are the same as Option 2 above. This method can be less precise then using the other methods, but can be useful if you know which elements you want to change