Shared Cells

I have a few elements on my drawing (given to me by a third party) which appear as shared cells that I cannot do anything with apart from copy them. At first I thought they were just multi-line text but when I tried to edit them nothing happened, when I hover over them a box appears which reads:-

Element not valid for tool

Shared Cell: *U92 \ Text: dp

Level: AJ Drainage

There is no cell library attached with this cell in. The level is not locked or frozen, I have tried to Unlock, Ungroup and Drop the element but nothing happens.

When I open the Element Selection Tool and choose Shared Cell and then remove all other layers apart from the AJ Drainage apparently there are 150 elements. If I open the properties of the AJ Drainage Level in Level Manager, the Usage Tab only counts 2 Shared Cells.

I'm very confused, has anyone any idea how I can even just delete these elements?

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  • Having a Small sample file containing the Shared Cell will go a long way toward helping you. Use the "Advanced Reply Editor" when you Reply, to attach the sample file.
    Don, you say this is an "Anonymous Cell". Is this something from add-on software? and how do you know? Is it the *?
    You say they don't display in the Cell Library dialog either? Are these "Anonymous Cells" locked by the software they came from?
    I see there is a "Delete SCDefs Anonymous" key-in and there is an option under Compress to "Delete Unused Anonymous Shared Cells"
    I kind-of remember hearing about these way back.
    Is there anything you should/can do to these cells?

    I Hope This Helps Someone Reading This!  (Intergraph>PseudoStation>MicroStation user since 1980's)

  • These cells most likely came from DWG, although an add-on application can create them as well.  An anonymous cell is a shared cell that has no name, or a name that is insignificant.  Typically an asterisk "*" is used as the prefix in an anonymous cell name.  MicroStation does not create such a cell in DGN workmode.  This is an ACAD concept that was probably conceived to support the need for "unshared" cells - shared cells which are capable of performing what MicroStation's normal cells can do.  Such a shared cell is controlled only by an application and may be re-created at anytime as the application sees necessary.  Its definition is intentionally hid from an end user, so the user won't be able to place a new shared cell from the definition - a job solely reserved for the application.  However, and end user is allowed to copy, move, or drop an anonymous cell.  And yes, the user can also delete/compress unused anonymous shared cell definitions.

    Whilst an application can lock a shared cell, that is generally not a common practice.  So it is still not clear to me as what has effectively prevented Audrey's shared cells from being dropped.  I can understand why a piece of text as a child of a shared cell definition that is not allowed to be changed, but I'd expect the shared cell instance itself to be dropped and thereafter the dropped text can be edited.



  • I had a similar case now.

    It drives me crazy that a Level lists unused in Level Display and Level Manager while a Shared Cell Definition actually IS using that Level. 

    I finally found that the Level of the Elements was locked the Level of the Shared Cell AND the whole Sharedcell itself was locked on top...

    A normal cell Definition is not bound to a Level, only the Levels grouped with it.

  • one of the first things I do with data / dgns I did not build is run the clean up utility to delete duplicates

    Then I use the power selector to select all shared cells and then drop to normal cells 

    and lastly I run the compress with all options.. save settings and reopen the file..

    This fixs potential problems before they start.. well it works for me...

    Lorys

    Started msnt work 1990 - Retired  Nov 2022 ( oh boy am I old )

    But was long time user V8iss10 (8.11.09.919) dabbler CE  update 16 (10.16.00.80) 

    MicroStation user since 1990 Melbourne Australia.
    click link to PM me 

  • Hi Lorys, I agree with this. Yet I guess that cleanup routine wont help when the Levels and/or the Elements are locked.