Jump to content
Developer Wiki and Function Reference Links ×

Editing a Symbol without going into "Edit Symbol"?


Recommended Posts

I was planning on creating a plugin object to do the following...

Create a some text that is converted to a symbol.

I want to duplicate that symbol.

I want to be able to edit the text of the symbol via the Object Info Palette and have it change all the instances of the symbol.

Is this possible? Would it be better/easier to create a plugin object that references a worksheet?

Thanks

Derek

Edited by MaxStudio
Link to comment

I want to be able to create a PIO that works like a symbol, but I only want to create one plugin tool to create these PIO.

one plugin tool that creates the multiple PIOs.

"This is PIO 1" , "This is PIO 2", "This is PIO 3"

I want to be able to select "This is PIO 1" and duplicate. (I can accomplish)

I then want to change the text of "This is PIO 1" to "This is the NEW PIO 1" (I can accomplish)

(the part I don't understand how to accomplish)

Once I change "This is PIO 1" to "This is the NEW PIO 1" I want it to change all the instances of "This is PIO 1" to "This is the NEW PIO 1".

I've tried having the plugin object create a symbol, but once it becomes a symbol it loses it's plugin object abilities.

My only other solution might be to create a way to tag each plugin... Create another Variable to Label them... I was hoping to use the text "This is PIO 1" as the Label and the String of text created.

I hope that makes sense to you. BTW, I'm not sure if I'm trying to reinvent the wheel. I just want a tool that makes it easy for me to create notes... when I change the one instance of the note they all change. I just don't want to have to double click and go into a symbol to accomplish this.

Link to comment

Your last paragraph made the most sense out of your explanation :-)

I believe what you are saying is that you want the PIOs to access a note from a central database rather than an individual parameter field.

There are several approaches to this. Are all instances of the PIO referencing the same data or are there several variants of the PIO instances, where each group would reference a different note (eg. 3 notes among 12 instances)?

If they all access the same data, the easiest route is to store the text in the PIO's default record, and to edit the text via a button event.

If there is a menu of notes from which to choose, then you to need some sort of id tag for each kind of note, and would want to use states to detect if a field changes and copy that data to other PIO's of the same note id.

Which of those best describes what you are trying to do?

-Josh

Link to comment

You could do this fairly easily with a PIO with two fields and a worksheet.

One field (the note) is displayed on the drawing as the body of the PIO.

The second field is used for sorting/summing purposes in the worksheet. You could use any "tag" you wanted in this field.

The Worksheet is set up to SUM on the Tag field. This will give you one row for each of the PIOs with that tag.

When you edit the Note field in the worksheet all of the PIOS with that tag will update.

If you need to change a note from one type to another, just use the OIP to change the TAG of the note to the one you need.

Way less than 2 months of programming to make this work ;-)

Link to comment

By SUMming a worksheet database (select a row in the database and then drag the SUM tile to the proper column header), you "collapse" all of the database items with the same value into a single row.

If you then change that row, all of the items that have been SUMmmed together will change.

Thinking about this you probably don't even need to use a PIO, but could use a symbol with Link Text to Record.

Try this in a new blank file.

Create a new record called MyRecord. Give it two fields Call them Tag and Note.

Create a symbol consisting of just a loci. Create a block of text that will be the placeholder for your note. Select the symbol and the text. Choose Link Text to Record and then select your Record and the Note field.

Put five instances of the symbol on the drawing. Select three of them and set the TAG field to A. Select the other two and set the TAG field to B.

Create a worksheet with a database row. Use a criteria or Record = MyRecord. Columns should be set to MyRecord.TAG and MyRecord.Note. You should end up with 5 rows in the database.

Select one of those rows and drag the SUM tile to the TAG column header. You should now have two rows, one showing a TAG of A and one showing a TAG of B.

Select the NOTE cell in either row and enter some text. The text should appear on the drawing for all of the symbols with that TAG.

See the manual on Link Text to Record for more information.

Link to comment

Pat,

I tried this and it sort of worked. The problem is it only work if I changed the note from the worksheet. Also, when I changed the worksheet it did not update the symbols until I selected one, chose edit 2d symbol and then clicked ok. After that they all updated.

Unfortunately, it wouldn't update the note or tags from the Data tab on the OIP.

I'll check the manual to see if I can come up with a solution.

Josh, how do i go about making a button event?

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...