How to select a reference by clicking object

Question

How to select a reference (in a long list) by clicking on object in view. Without having to hover on object reading the reference file name and searcing for it in the long list of references windows. 
 Tnx

Ron Jones · Accepted Answer

Emiliano Porzio said: Personally so far I use the reverse method "dominic SEAH" described 
 
 Emiliano, Since you must use MicroStation XM, you could try the following method to simplify your process of clicking on each reference in the References dialog, one after another, and watching for the desired element to be highlighted in the view window. 
 
 Click on the reference listed at the top of the References dialog. 
 Use the up/down arrow keys to systematically select each reference, while focusing on the view window, watching for the element to highlight. (instead of using the mouse to pick each reference sequentially) 
 
 That way you avoid shifting your attention back and forth between the References dialog and the view window, because you can completely ignore the References dialog while using the arrow keys to change the reference selection. 
 You should be able to step through the reference list more quickly with the arrow keys, so this should at least streamline your process a bit. 
 Hopefully this will work in XM. 
 Regards, Ron

dominic SEAH · Answer

Hi Emiliano, 
 I think that what you are after does not exist OOTB in any version of Mstn. It has been requested before. 
 1. Pick any element in the View Window. 
 2. The Ref that contains the element is selected in the Ref Dialog. 
 The reverse works: 
 1. Select any Ref attachment in the Ref Dialog 
 2. All elements contained by the Ref attachment hilites in the View Window. 
 Mstn sessions tend to have tons of Ref attachments and you end up having to hover over the element, trying read the slot Nr. or Ref name then searching for the name in the Ref dialog.

Lorys · Answer

with the old version you still can use the exchange to reference then it would open that reference and that then would give you the file path and name in the history when you return to the parent file you can even do the file open now and copy the file name....BTW you have too many references to make scrolling easy have you thought of using nested references ie refs inside refs so you group refs together by common name ie also make use of the logical name column for simple two description easier than model of ref file names... 
 parent xref Steel ( below are the nested or sub references) 
 >details1 
 >details 2 
 Etc 
 When Iuse microstation and in the ref manager i set the tree visible first icon button on the left, also I reset the order so the the slots are in increasing order not draw order these makes finding the ref easier as the slot number is displayed in the yellow fly out when you hover object then in the ref manager its much easier to scroll if you know the slot number, and you can set to increase or decrease which ever will get you to shorter scroll... Unfortunately what your asking for is not available in any version of microstation todate, ie select object and auto highlight in ref manager, however later version do let you use the activate in place to do minor edits to symbology or delete etc and also the already mentioned treat as element in the ref manager... 
 I am a little curious what are you actually trying to achieve in the end once you actually know which xref an object belongs to? I'm not at work so I cant check anything here and your using very very very old version of microstation, but in say v8iss10 the properties ( information button in xm?) may list the xref which might be copy pasteable as text... not sure what you end goal is.... if you want to export a list of xrefs i have an old bas macro ( no good for nested xrefs) that will export the xref file names to text or excel private message me if you want me to go get it from the archives and send it to you.. not much call for basic anymore as vba in much better and basic no longer runs in current versions of microstation.

dominic SEAH · Answer

I think Mstn XM (8.9) does support nested Ref attachments? 
 If so, the up/down arrows only work with a particular nesting level. So, you would not always save much time, and still have to divide your attention between the View Windows and Dialog. 
 What may be good is if the Selecting the Ref attachment in the Ref Dialog's Hierarchy panel would also highlight the Ref attachments elements in the View Window? The up/down arrow buttons seem to span over the nested Attachments... 
 Using Mstn CE U16.3, OBD U9.2.

Maria Garcia · Answer

Hi Emiliano, 
 I believe that if the references have treat attachment as elements for manipulation turned on from the References dialog this will allow you to select the reference by just selecting one of its elements. 
 When turned on the Reference can be manipulated with the standard Manipulation tools by simply selecting an element in a reference. 
 This can be turned on in the attachment moment

but Locate must be turned on too, otherwise when trying to select the element you will receive the message: element is in a reference will locate turned off

see also https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/w/microstation__wiki/16928/how-to-manipulate-reference-attachments-as-elements 
 
 Regards 
 Maria

Emiliano Porzio · Answer

thank you so much for your input, I will try all your suggestions as soon as I get back to work, but first of all I try to answer your questions: 
 we are one of the many companies that work on FINCANTIERI warships. Each of the companies works on various facilities and various areas of the ship. when you are in charge of making a base for a particular machine, it often happens that you do not know which reference it is in, because maybe there are obsolete versions and positions, or simply the machine assigning company gets the wrong name or assignment area, but models in the right place . So you are forced to "have to look for it", attaching all the references in the area and neighboring, find the machine and temporarily hide or change transparencies and colors. To do this, once the machine / object has been found, it would be convenient not to have to scroll through all the refs in the list. As you suggest it is okay to create and use nested references, but since it would take a lot of time compared to a search described above, it is useful but impractical. 
 Personally so far I use the reverse method "dominic SEAH" described by gradually selecting the refs in the list and "waiting" for the object to light up. I hope I have been called. and thank you very much for your answer which was the closest to the solution. 
 PS. I can't change the version because FC has ad hoc plugins and databases that are only read by XM.

Ron Jones · Answer

Hi Emiliano, 
 You can easily Temporarily Activate a reference file for In-Place Editing by using the Element Selection tool. 
 Check out the following link to the MicroStation documentation which explains how to do this. 
 How to Temporarily Activate a Reference for In-Place Editing . 
 Regards, Ron

How to select a reference by clicking object

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