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Text object listed in spreadsheet


Itchy

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I have 85 text blocks on a drawing indicating heights of timber piles that i would like to list on a spreadsheet - is it possible to get this info direct from a text field without linking to a record?

Using a database and setting the criteria i can get the sheet to show the 85 items, just can not get them to list the numbers of the text field?

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  • Marionette Maven

Marionette might be able to help you with this.

I'm attaching a simple file with some text objects and a Marionette script.

This script will traverse through all text objects and insert their values into Column A. This script can be modified to better suit your needs.

If you're interested in trying this method, and want to give me more information as to what else you need accomplished (i.e. appending to an existing worksheet, adding more information, only adding strings that are numeric, etc.) I'd be more than happy to help.

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Thanks all

Yes I should of been a bit smarter at the start and used an object that i could easily pull the data from, didn't think that i was going to need to schedule it though, now i know for next time.

Thanks Marissa that script did the trick, just had to make it so that it just looked at a certain class so it didn't pick everything up. I haven't looked into Marionette yet maybes it' time to do a bit of reading up on it.

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So... this script appears to create and automatically populate a worksheet with the text of the text objects. If the text objects are changed, the worksheet can be updated by re-running the script. But the worksheet isn't actually reporting on the text object's "data," and so there isn't the ability to edit the text objects from the worksheet, which is often what makes worksheets especially powerful. Or am I missing something in how this script works?...

Wouldn't it be far easier, and far more capable, if Vectorworks could report on the text of, well, text, just as it reports on the text of callouts? Then, we could devote our efforts using Marionette to much greater things (i.e. customization for realizing project-specific designs, for accommodating unique work flows, and so on...).

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  • Marionette Maven

You're correct in the case that this specific script only goes in one direction to update the worksheet, however it's also possible to go the other direction to create/update text objects in the document from values in a worksheet.

I think the problem with Text Objects vs. objects such as Callouts is that Callouts and the like generally have a hidden record attached to them which holds the information, whereas text objects do not.

This is definitely a limitation for the situation you bring up.

I shared my script because for the situation Xsasinator was in, it seemed to be the simplest solution for his specific request. My script won't solve everyone's problem, but for the time being, it was helpful to him.

As for your statement about devoting Marionette efforts to much greater things, Marionette was introduced as a tool to allow users further control and a simpler approach to scripting. It's completely up to the user on how they would like to use it, as simple or as complex as they would like. I don't think it's fair to suggest that anything Marionette does is less than great, if it solves a problem or provides an alternative workflow, I think it's completely appropriate to create.

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Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that anything Marionette does is less than great; quite the contrary, Marionette rocks! My point is that it would be best used to expand the capabilities of Vectorworks, not to close the gap between what Vectorworks can and, arguably, should be able to do "out of the box."

For example, it's been a very long-standing feature request that EAPs be able to use symbols for their profiles. Now there's a script that seems to do just that (you or Sarah made it (sorry, can't remember)), but, even the simplest script created with the easiest scripting methodology is still far more involved than it would be if EAPs simply had an inherent capability to use symbols for their profiles.

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  • Marionette Maven

I think the problem with feature enhancements not making it in is that the priority of other fixes takes precedence, and sometimes, maybe even more than I think, that precedence isn't determined only by internal employees.

We have a long, long, long list of enhancement requests that we sort through; we consider the time it will take to implement, determine the priority, and hopefully get to include them in a release at some point. We definitely take into account how many people have wished for the items, but not everything finds its way in as soon as one would hope.

It's also good to remember that Marionette solutions can be created and shared MUCH more frequently than Service Packs or Versions, and most of the time, involved enhancements won't be released in Service Packs, for fear of breaking something important, or for time constraints, or for some other logical reason, and instead end up in a new Version altogether. That's why I try to solve what I can with Marionette (and just to claim my ownership, I created that script, and it can be found here ;) ), to at least attempt to satisfy users in our community.

I do agree with you that it would be awesome to include everything that can be done with Marionette in the application itself, and I assure you, I'm working to do what I can to get everything I can figure out with Marionette included in the base package, but until I can expand my knowledge and weight in development choices, most of what I want probably won't happen as quickly as it could :P I still have a lot to learn when it comes to compiled languages, but I'm hopeful to expand my knowledge and help you and all of the other users however I can.

EDIT:

After speaking with Jim, I realized I should clarify that I hope to create actual tools that perform the same way that my Marionette scripts do, not just include the Marionette scripts in the software.

Edited by MarissaF
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Nice workaround, Will.

I don't think it's possible either. I usually create a symbol and link text to a record format. Makes it easy to do math on the values.

mk

Or just create a record and attach that to the object? Then you can also read out the information, though it will not show as text in the drawing is it would be possible with symbols.

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Thank you for this; it's very helpful. I'm pretty sure the "long, long, long list of enhancement requests" is trumped by an even longer list of necessary fixes, which is the main source of my frustration. Almost 10% percent of my time last month - time that otherwise would have been billable - went to encountering and identifying issues, developing workarounds for them, and submitting some of them to Tech Support. Vectorworks will be stellar once a majority of its issues are addressed!!

That all said, I will say that the attention that you and others, such as Jim in particular, give to these forums is exceptional! Tech Support has been excellent too, in working with me to understand and, in most cases, forward to Engineering the issues that I've encountered.

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  • 2 months later...

For example, it's been a very long-standing feature request that EAPs be able to use symbols for their profiles. Now there's a script that seems to do just that (you or Sarah made it (sorry, can't remember)), but, even the simplest script created with the easiest scripting methodology is still far more involved than it would be if EAPs simply had an inherent capability to use symbols for their profiles.

Hi, the thing I found that to get EAP of a symbol to work with Marionette was to tick the box 'convert to group' when you create the symbol. The object will then EA the path.

Not near a computer to test but if you create a symbol with this method and test in VW normally it should work.

HTH

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  • 4 years later...
On 2/29/2016 at 6:17 AM, Marissa Farrell said:

Marionette might be able to help you with this.

I'm attaching a simple file with some text objects and a Marionette script.

This script will traverse through all text objects and insert their values into Column A. This script can be modified to better suit your needs.

If you're interested in trying this method, and want to give me more information as to what else you need accomplished (i.e. appending to an existing worksheet, adding more information, only adding strings that are numeric, etc.) I'd be more than happy to help.

This script is not longer in the post - do you still have it?  I'd like to look at it for a project -

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8 hours ago, Pat Stanford said:

I posted a worksheet script a while ago that pulls the text out of a text object.

 

 

Thanks - I will explore this approach - here's what I worked out yesterday - crude, but works - I blocked out a marionette sequence that grabs text on any sheet (intended to grab notes from non-keynoted sheets), writes them to records, then use a worksheet to gather and report the results.  You can see from the worksheet that the intent is QA on notes written by multiple people, plus helping to coordinate spec writing.  I added a detail sheet from a set as well - 20050_A7.6 Roof Details.vwx

210216 Get All Text from Sheet.vwx

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