How to select a reference by clicking object

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 

Good day and tnx for prompt reply.

despite the precise and timely answer, I fear that I was not precise in formulating the question.

(i do not need to manipulate the object in reference or the reference, i need to "Find" the reference in the list)

now I try to be more precise:

Imagine you want to open the reference file for a quick modification of a model in it.

to do this, we usually have the mouse hover over the object in complex scene and wait for the reference name display:

memorize the name and keeping it in mind, visually search for it by reading all reference list as below:

I would be capable of quick finding the reference in the list (imagine 400/500) for "acting to it", as for changing its attribute or opening directly the file just by selecting the object contained in the subject reference, and perhaps being able to highlight it directly in the list without having to scroll and searching the name keeping it in mind.

Thank you very much.

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.

Example of a element or feature that is selected in a View also highlighting the element in a dialog.

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.

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.

Emiliano Porzio said:

PS. I can't change the version because FC has ad hoc plugins and databases that are only read by XM.

A pity !

Mstn CE is 64bit which should help a lot with large files which I am sure you have do deal with in the ship building sector.

Emiliano Porzio said:

PS. I can't change the version because FC has ad hoc plugins and databases that are only read by XM.

A pity !

Mstn CE is 64bit which should help a lot with large files which I am sure you have do deal with in the ship building sector.