OpenBuildings VBA SheetNumber Model Property

Hi Amador,

Amador Ontiveros said:

I've set up a search criteria to scan all my tags in my drawing

Not important for the discussion how to change the sheet parameters ;-)

Amador Ontiveros said:

Another odd thing is if I type "sheetnumber"

API naming and MicroStation GUI are different, I assume because of history and MicroStation features development. It can be confusing, but right "mapping" can be found easily.

Amador Ontiveros said:

Any help would be much appreciated.

This should work:

Public Sub ChangeSheetParams()

    If ActiveModelReference.Type <> msdModelTypeSheet Then
        Exit Sub
    End If
    
    Dim sheetDef As SheetDefinition
    Set sheetDef = ActiveModelReference.GetSheetDefinition
    
    ' Set sheet number
    sheetDef.SheetName = "Whatever number"
    
    ' Set sequence number
    sheetDef.SheetNumber = 9999
    
    ' Save changes back to the sheet definition
    ActiveModelReference.SetSheetDefinition sheetDef
    
End Sub

With regards,

  Jan

Thank you for your reply Jan! I understand what you've presented but I'm starting to think the sheet number is part of a different definition in OpenBuilding. Notice the debugger highlighted ".SheetNumber" as the error.

the debug highlights a part of the code that seems correct so I checked all the options for "MyModel" and notice "SheetNumber" is not included.

Maybe this is a glitch in the version of OpenBuilding that I'm using, as my company has not upgraded to the latest build.

Amador Ontiveros said:

the sheet number

Because of confusing naming (different in GUI and in API), I recommend to post picture what "sheet number" do you mean.

Amador Ontiveros said:

is part of a different definition in OpenBuilding

It cannot be, but I guess only the picture (I have not OBD installed) can confirm you mean "sheet number" from MicroStation and not "sheet number" used by OBD in different context. But I do not think it's the case.

Amador Ontiveros said:

Notice the debugger highlighted ".SheetNumber" as the error.

Of course it does. As Jon wrote, sheet number (as well as all other sheet properties) is not part of model data structure. It means you cannot access properties like sheet number, sheet name etc. using model reference (it just not makes sense). The right way, as demonstrated in my code, is to obtain SheetDefinition object at first.

Amador Ontiveros said:

Maybe this is a glitch in the version of OpenBuilding that I'm using

I am pretty sure it's not.

Why do you not try my code, extract SheetDefinition, to change SheetName property (displayed as "Sheet number" in GUI) in this object and to assign it back to the model?

With regards,

  Jan

Here is the image Jan

Jan Šlegr said:

Of course it does. As Jon wrote, sheet number (as well as all other sheet properties) is not part of model data structure. It means you cannot access properties like sheet number, sheet name etc. using model reference (it just not makes sense). The right way, as demonstrated in my code, is to obtain SheetDefinition object at first.

If i change the code to

If Tag.TagDefinitionName = "drawing_number" Then
                MyModel.Description = Tag.Value
            End If

It does write back to the "Description" column in the GUI, so I'm not sure I follow... I posted in my reply to Jon that I used ".GetSheetDefinition". I will start a new VBA session to test your code as is to see if it writes back.

Thanks again for help with this!

Here is the image Jan

Jan Šlegr said:

Of course it does. As Jon wrote, sheet number (as well as all other sheet properties) is not part of model data structure. It means you cannot access properties like sheet number, sheet name etc. using model reference (it just not makes sense). The right way, as demonstrated in my code, is to obtain SheetDefinition object at first.

If i change the code to

If Tag.TagDefinitionName = "drawing_number" Then
                MyModel.Description = Tag.Value
            End If

It does write back to the "Description" column in the GUI, so I'm not sure I follow... I posted in my reply to Jon that I used ".GetSheetDefinition". I will start a new VBA session to test your code as is to see if it writes back.

Thanks again for help with this!

Amador Ontiveros said:

It does write back to the "Description" column in the GUI, so I'm not sure I follow

What is not clear and what you do not follow?

Description is ModelReference property.

SheetNumber, SheetName etc. are SheetDefinition properties.

Regards,

  Jan

Thanks Jan, it's working! One was a blatant error on my part. I was lacking the following code to write back to the definition.

ActiveModelReference.SetSheetDefinition MySheetDef

The other part isn't a glitch, but as you stated 

Jan Šlegr said:

Because of confusing naming

OpenBuildings labels the value as "Sheet Number" in every GUI, but the code needed to call out "Name", as follows

If Tag.TagDefinitionName = "drawing_number" Then
                MySheetDef.SheetName = Tag.Value
                ActiveModelReference.SetSheetDefinition MySheetDef
            End If

Because of the inconsistency with naming I couldn't follow which value was model property and which was sheet definition. I apologize, I'm an end user with no formal training in VBA or Microstation code.

Thanks again for your help, I've marked your previous reply with the correct code as the correct answer.

Amador Ontiveros said:

Because of the inconsistency with naming I couldn't follow which value was model property and which was sheet definition.

It's simple, use Debug to compare values in GUI and values available in code:

Amador Ontiveros said:

I'm an end user with no formal training in VBA or Microstation code.

It's hard to write a code in such case. You should buy and read Learning MicroStation VBA book at least. Even when it's quite old and written for V8i, the most of its content is still valid, because VBA API did not change too much between V8i and CE.

Regards,

  Jan