Ride Posted December 28, 2022 Share Posted December 28, 2022 I work in architectural millwork, doing shop drawings, and I'm trying to create a data tag for our finish notes. I have attached an image of a typical finish note/bubble we use. I can create a data tag easily enough, but I don't know how to make the bubble automatically adjust around the text. What I have works fine *most* of the time, but say I have a longer note (such as WDV-01) that some designers use, it runs outside the bubble. Is there a way to make the bubble adjust to text? Or is there a better tool for this? Any help appreciated! Hope everyone has a good holiday season... Quote Link to comment
Tom W. Posted December 28, 2022 Share Posted December 28, 2022 Try applying constraints to the Text object in the tag layout: This will have the effect of tying the size of the polygon to the size of the text object 1 Quote Link to comment
Ride Posted December 28, 2022 Author Share Posted December 28, 2022 This sounds brilliant. But I'm missing something. When I select the contraints, I get light green dimensions around the bubble. But when I finish editing the data tag, I don't have the bubble anymore. There must be somewhere to specify the distance from the boundary - where is it? Thanks! Quote Link to comment
Ride Posted December 28, 2022 Author Share Posted December 28, 2022 Wait! I got it. Helps if you actually read the instructions. Apply the constraints to the text, not the bubble. Which is great. But last question (I think). When you input a long text note, the bubble ends get elongated. Is there a way to constrain those but adjust the middle portion of the bubble? See attached: Quote Link to comment
Tom W. Posted December 28, 2022 Share Posted December 28, 2022 4 minutes ago, Ride said: When you input a long text note, the bubble ends get elongated. Is there a way to constrain those but adjust the middle portion of the bubble? Hmm I don't know what you can do about this, other than use a Rectangle for the bubble... Perhaps someone else knows a way Quote Link to comment
Ride Posted December 28, 2022 Author Share Posted December 28, 2022 Well I'm very grateful to have gotten this far. And TBH, it's unlikely I would ever have a finish tag that long. But it never hurts to ask! Appreciate the help. This will be a big time saver for me. Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted December 28, 2022 Share Posted December 28, 2022 Instead of making the bubble a polygon, make it an open polygon for each end and constrain them to fixed width and height and appropriately Left and Right. Connect them with lines that are constrained Left and Right and have Fixed Height. That way the ends are separate from the overall length and won't change aspect ratio. Top is a polygon. Bottom is the open poly with line at the top. Bottom line left off for clarity. 4 Quote Link to comment
Ride Posted December 28, 2022 Author Share Posted December 28, 2022 Hmm. This is promising. But why do my lines extend beyond the bubble when the text gets really long? I tried a few different variations on your settings above (including control points of the top and bottom lines), but always the same result. Does your example have the same behaviour? Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted December 28, 2022 Share Posted December 28, 2022 It is not doing that for me. Take a look at the last screen shot above for how I set the Constraints for the line. I set both Right and Left from the end from the respective end of the tag. 1 Quote Link to comment
Ride Posted December 30, 2022 Author Share Posted December 30, 2022 Ok, sorry for the delay on this. I think I have it setup correctly, here are my settings for the lines. But I still get the line extending beyond the side brackets when the text is over 6 characters. Quote Link to comment
Tom W. Posted December 30, 2022 Share Posted December 30, 2022 Do you have the right hand polygon constrained to the right of the boundary as per this screenshot?: Quote Link to comment
Ride Posted December 30, 2022 Author Share Posted December 30, 2022 It is. Here is a file with the data tag. If you have a chance maybe you can take a look? I'm sure I'm missing something simple. data tag sample.vwx Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted December 30, 2022 Share Posted December 30, 2022 Set the Text Block for Left Alignment instead of Center. That will start it at the correct location from the left edge and then calculate the proper length. Not easy. Took me almost a full load of laundry to figure out the difference between yours and mine. 😉 2 Quote Link to comment
Ride Posted December 31, 2022 Author Share Posted December 31, 2022 Yep. That did it! Thank you. I too spent a bunch of time looking, but couldn't figure out why mine didn't work. So in the end, something simple. But not so simple.🤦♂️ Happy New Year! 2 Quote Link to comment
Ride Posted January 20, 2023 Author Share Posted January 20, 2023 Ok, following up on this thread. The data tag works perfectly. But here's a question - now that the bubble are separate lines, the tag has no fill. So if I use this over a woodgrain hatch, things start to look a bit messy. Any way to get a fill for the bubble? Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted January 20, 2023 Share Posted January 20, 2023 Delete the top and bottom lines. Draw a rectangular polygon for the center object. Fix distance on left and right. Use the reshape tool to turn off the right and left edges. HTH 3 Quote Link to comment
Ben3B Posted March 10, 2023 Share Posted March 10, 2023 Very interesting, but too bad that datatags shape are not build like that by default 😞 All that setups are loosing time (and most of the time that appear when we don't have time 😉 ) 1 Quote Link to comment
jlesane Posted March 20, 2023 Share Posted March 20, 2023 Hi Guys - This thread was very helpful - so thank you! I have one more question to add into the data tag mix. Can anyone help me figure out why I am unable to succeed in a 'right constrained' hanging position? All data tags seem to work correctly until the text bubble gets too large. Then my Right Side position label arrow ignores its right constraint, and the poly line bulb behind the text extends past the right constraint. Data Tag A - Text is Right Aligned ; Polyline backing is constrained on both Left & Right Side ; Arrow Constrained on Right Side. Poly Line Backing extends pat right constraint. Data Tag B - Text is Left Aligned ; Polyline backing is constrained on both Left & Right Side ; Arrow Constrained on Right Side. Data Tag insertion point is not the end point ? Data Tag C - Same as Data Tag A, but with the open poly lines as shown on this thread. Any thoughts? Screenshots & File attached! Thanks Data Tag Example.vwx Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted March 20, 2023 Share Posted March 20, 2023 Check that the test is set for Left Align instead of Centered. That was one of the problems above. Your issues look similar. Quote Link to comment
jlesane Posted March 20, 2023 Share Posted March 20, 2023 Hi Pat! So I switched all of my attempts to have the text aligned Left , which fixes the data tag layout, but then the data tag does not insert where I would expect it to. As in when I select the data tag and hover over my object - the little Arrow is the only thing that touches. But once I insert the data tag object, it centers the stage over where I clicked. Can I change that? Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted March 20, 2023 Share Posted March 20, 2023 Post a file with a sample here. I think you just need to edit the layout and just shift everything so that the tip of the black triangle is at the zero,zero point of the layer window. And you may need to use Right Align instead of Left and have different tag styles for right and left ends. Quote Link to comment
jlesane Posted March 21, 2023 Share Posted March 21, 2023 Sample File Attached! Also Attached a screenshot of my data tag which I believe is as you describe with the Black triangle is at the 0,0. Unless I'm misunderstanding, I believe I do have separate data tag styles for Left, Right, Up, and Down Orientation. Data Tag Example.vwx Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted March 22, 2023 Share Posted March 22, 2023 I think there is a bug in the Data tags. It seems that when the insertion point is on the right, some of the objects are shifted right instead of left as they should be. If you can live with your Trim: section being the same distance from the arrow instead of the same distance from the beginning of the text, then you an just insert you Left style tags and then use the Mirror tool to flip it. Sorry. I will try to write up a bug report to get this fixed. 1 Quote Link to comment
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