Title Block Border - Custom Field Types

[Kevin McAllister]

Hello,

 

I am wondering how to make a custom field in the Title Block Border behave as it did in VW2017. I use two date fields in my standard title block, one for the date a drawing is initially created and one for when a drawing is revised. The date field uses the Title Block Border "date" field and appears as a single line entry box. When I type in a date and hit enter it exits the title block edit dialog. Nice and simple.

 

 

The revised field uses a custom field (imported from my old title block). The field is formatted as "text" and defaults to a multi-line entry box. This is where the problem starts. When you type in a date and hit enter, the cursor wraps to a new line instead of exiting the title block edit dialog.

 

 

This is different than the behaviour in the old Sheet Border Tool and quite frustrating. Each time it happens I have to back up, delete the carriage return and manually click on the "OK" button to exit the dialog. How do I get the revised field to default to a single line entry box and to exit the dialog when I hit enter? It must be possible. This new flow really slows things down when I need to update the revision date on a dozen or more sheets. The field needs to be a "text" type field because I enter the date plus my initials.

 

Thanks,

 

Kevin

 

 

[Andy Broomell]

To reiterate your question, because I realize am wondering as well, HOW do you generally specify whether a field is single line or multi-line? It used to be you added a "#" symbol to the end of the field name.

 

One would assume that you could click Edit and choose single line or multi-line. But there is no such setting.

 

@Nikolay Zhelyazkov Do you know the answer to this?

 

 

[In the meantime Kevin, if your keyboard has a numpad "Enter" this will register as clicking OK instead of a carriage return. But I realize most laptops don't have this, plus it doesn't address the fact that you still have to remember to do it in the first place.]

[Andy Broomell]

1 minute ago, Andy Broomell said:

[In the meantime Kevin, if your keyboard has a numpad "Enter" this will register as clicking OK instead of a carriage return. But I realize most laptops don't have this, plus it doesn't address the fact that you still have to remember to do it in the first place.]

 

I should also mention that on many Macbook pros you can hit fn+return in order to get "enter."

 

I've started utilizing this even for Text Objects since it commits the change instead of adding a carriage return.

Edited July 19, 2018 by Andy Broomell

[Kevin McAllister]

46 minutes ago, Andy Broomell said:

 

I should also mention that on many Macbook pros you can hit fn+return in order to get "enter."

 

I've started utilizing this even for Text Objects since it commits the change instead of adding a carriage return.

 

Andy, this is awesome info to have!

 

This leads me to ask a slightly different question big picture question - why isn't the behaviour of the Return key consistent throughout VW for clicking OK? The same problem exists when editing Callouts for example. In every other program if I need a carriage return I use a modifier key plus return (eg. to wrap in Excel for example). Callouts and multi-line fields should follow a similar convention instead of being exceptions to another convention....

 

Kevin

 

[Nikolay Zhelyazkov]

Hello Kevi, Andy,

 

In the Title Block Border the custom fields are regular record fields and, as such, they do not have different types for multiline and single line text. That is why, we have decided to make them all multiline, when the type is text, as that way users are not restricted to single line fields only. As of now, there is no way to make custom text fields single line.

 

Best Regards,

Nikolay Zhelyazkov

[Kevin McAllister]

Thanks for the clarification. This is not ideal but I can see why the decision was made.

 

I'm going to add a wishlist item asking for an additional record field type so there is differentiation between single line and multiline text. Unfortunately in my workflow having all of the custom fields in a Title Block Border that are text be multiline is a bit of a user interface nightmare that could affect hundreds, if not thousands, of data entries in a year.

 

Kevin