I was reading through the CONNECT online help and I noticed that Tags are now considered deprecated. I previously used Tags in my Titleblocks however I am now left wondering what users are now utilising instead for titleblock text?
Also, when I was last using MicroStation, I created a VBA project in Excel with which I was able to import Tag information from DGN files, edit the tag values and export updated values back to the DGN files. Is the replacement for tags (Item Types?) something that can be as easily manipulated via Excel VBA?
Barry Lothian said:Tags are now considered deprecated
That what Bentley would like us to accept. But remember that Microsoft deprecated VBA many years ago, when .NET arrived? VBA is still with us.
Item Types are great, but there remain one or two things that tags do that Item Types don't yet offer. We already offer a set of TagWorks tools that use Item Types in MicroStation CONNECT. Contact me by e-mail if you would like to discuss a TitleBlocker using Item Types.
Barry Lothian said:Is the replacement for tags (Item Types?) something that can be as easily manipulated via Excel VBA?
VBA support for Item Types arrived with MicroStation CONNECT Update 10.
Regards, Jon Summers LA Solutions
Jon Summers said:That what Bentley would like us to accept. But remember that Microsoft deprecated VBA many years ago, when .NET arrived? VBA is still with us.
Indeed however there is enough evidence to suggest Bentley will remove tools considered deprecated as we have examples of them already doing so in relatively recent past:
Intellitrim
Dimension Stroke
Dimension Arrow
Those are just a few that come to mind (as an aside, each of those was not replaced with a superior alternative - in my opinion) so I don't hold much hope for tags.
Barry Lothian said:Bentley will remove tools
Bentley Systems tend not to break long-standing technology. Why are enter-data fields still with us? Many people have incorporated tags into their workflow since the technology was introduced with MicroStation v5 (approximately). It would break too much to eliminate tags.
That's rather different than replacing a tool with something superior (or otherwise). A new tool doesn't break the DGN file format.
Jon Summers said:It would break too much to eliminate tags.
I am not sure it would break to much to eliminate something, it is just impossible to eliminate something without a file format change. The fact that they exist in this current file format and could still be created with tools in a prior version makes it impossible to remove them. There is a path to deprecation first it is to remove them from the UI, then remove the tools allowing new to be created and allowing tools to modify them then also make a path to upgrade to the replacement but until they have a file format change its impossible to fully deprecate a thing that exists.
Barry Lothian said:Intellitrim
I am curious why you think the new tools are not better than this one. Also deprecation/replacement of a tool is very much different /easier than deprecation/replacement of a element type
Barry Lothian said:Its a pretty slick operation but I'm not sure the proposed tool is going to come close.
Yeah I agree I think their workflow needs some work.
~HTH
John.
yep
John Frampton said:I am curious why you think the new tools are not better than this one. Also deprecation/replacement of a tool is very much different /easier than deprecation/replacement of a element type
In my view, Intellitrim is far superior to the current Tim Multiple tool for the following reasons
As such the Trim Multiple pales in comparison to Intellitrim (IMHO) plus I find the tool icons quite unintuitive yet my own custom icons which I used for Intellitrim were so much easier for me to discern. So overall, the replacement tool gave us absolutely no benefits that we didn't already have and I've yet to read anything proving that it does something Intellitrim did not.
Barry Lothian said:Once a Cutting/Extension target element has been defined, the simple mode for trim and extend requires a 2 point click to define the elements to trim/extend whereas Trim Multiple requires a drag operation. Its my personal preference that the 2 point click is a more enjoyable experience and the drag is well.... a drag really
If you are only defining one element to trim or extend then a drag line is not needed. click on the trim line, click on the line to be trimmed, no accept, just pick a new line to trim or rest to complete or pick a new command. two data point is all that's needed no drag line involved or extra click to accept the operation.