Drawing registers

[nikihoops]

Hi all,

 

 I'm trying to create a 'clever' drawing register. I've created a worksheet data object and its on a sheet; looks great etc. However when I change the name of a sheet for example it doesn't update on the worksheet - I have tried recalculating it. This is also the same with adding revisions. I have my own sheets set up with title blocks that all seem to work fine. 

 

I've looked online for videos/explanations with no luck.

 

Can anyone point me in the right direction/give me some pointers? 

Example.vwx

[line-weight]

11 hours ago, Boh said:

A while back I tried to do something similar but without success. I think I even got @Nikolay Zhelyazkov to see if it was possible but as I recall it either wasn't or was just way too complicated. I gave up on trying to create a custom worksheet for drawing revisions partly for this reason and I now just use the auto generated one, which though it isn't ideal, is good enough for my purposes. For the auto generated Project Revision history worksheet the only way to make it clear that an unrevised drawing has been issued is to give it a revision number.

 

This pretty much sums up where I ended up too.

 

Of the three ones that can be auto generated the "Title Block Project Revision History" one is the one that is near enough what I want, with a few customisations that can be made without breaking it. It can't show a zero or dot for sheets that have been issued without a revision number. One of the other auto generated ones *can* show dots but the overall format of the report doesn't do what I want it to do.

 

I kind of decided, independently of VW limitations, that I'd start just issuing drawings as "Revision A" to start with, because this actually removes the potential for various other confusions that can arise.

[Tom W.]

9 minutes ago, line-weight said:

I kind of decided, independently of VW limitations, that I'd start just issuing drawings as "Revision A" to start with, because this actually removes the potential for various other confusions that can arise.

 

I considered doing this too but wasn't happy with it. Time will tell whether I'm happier with this though:

 

 

(Not sure how I ended up with certain revisions being issued twice. Issue 1 isn't correct. I feel that there should be some way to go back + correct this but I can't figure out how).

[line-weight]

5 hours ago, Tom W. said:

 

I considered doing this too but wasn't happy with it. Time will tell whether I'm happier with this though:

 

 

(Not sure how I ended up with certain revisions being issued twice. Issue 1 isn't correct. I feel that there should be some way to go back + correct this but I can't figure out how).

Presumably this means you're not using the auto-generated variety, and have to do a certain amount of manual messing around to get what you want? I abandoned that route because it just seemed too easy to end up with that sort of thing; certain issues being incorrect or getting in the wrong order.

[Tom W.]

8 minutes ago, line-weight said:

Presumably this means you're not using the auto-generated variety

Correct. And after all the useful info in this thread I thought I should try the auto one but it wasn't generating anything when I did... Not sure why.

 

10 minutes ago, line-weight said:

have to do a certain amount of manual messing around to get what you want?

If 'all' I have to do is reorder the issue columns each time I create a new issue I can live with that. The database part of the worksheet you can reorder the columns very easily by changing the Issue Data in the drop-down in the column header. But if info is actually incorrect then that's not so good. This particular project is a bit of a mess as firstly, the sheets were spread over several files initially + I'm in the process now of consolidating everything into a single file, and secondly, I only decided I needed a drawing issue register mid way through the project... I need to test my worksheet out in a new project + also try the built-in TBM one again + see if it works this time. So you customised the stock one + saved it in your user folder?

[line-weight]

8 minutes ago, Tom W. said:

 So you customised the stock one + saved it in your user folder?

Yup.

[Boh]

Clearly there are improvements VW should make on managing title blocks, revisions and issues. It needs to be automated yet customisable, reliable, editable and straightforward. 

[Nikolay Zhelyazkov]

Hello all,

 

There are some improvements in VW 2024 to the title block reports. Now it is possible to sort and filter them from the title block manager.

 

Let me know if you find this helpful and easy to use.

 

Best Regards,

Nikolay Zhelyazkov

[_James]

Hi Nikolay,

This is great news - could you elaborate a little on how this might benefit the issues highlighted in this thread? I don't fully follow what you've written

[Nikolay Zhelyazkov]

22 minutes ago, _James said:

Hi Nikolay,

This is great news - could you elaborate a little on how this might benefit the issues highlighted in this thread? I don't fully follow what you've written

 

- This is a big thread and I did not check it carefully to see why exactly I had it marked as addressed with the 2024 changes. Anyway, a quick read through the posts got me to this that is part of the 2024 changes.

 

On 5/8/2023 at 1:13 PM, line-weight said:

Of the three ones that can be auto generated the "Title Block Project Revision History" one is the one that is near enough what I want, with a few customisations that can be made without breaking it. It can't show a zero or dot for sheets that have been issued without a revision number.

- The Project Revision History now shows dots for sheets that have been issued without a revision number

 

Not really sure if the sorting and filtering are also requested here, but this is a big thread with many people involved so there might be someone that finds this useful. 🙂

 

[line-weight]

I have a slightly side question:

 

I am making a special title block border for the sheet that I will put my drawing register on.

 

Can I make that title block automatically report the date of the latest drawing issue?

 

Can one of these options for linked text do that?

 

 

 

It's the date in the red circle I'm after (this is a sreenshot of the drawing register):

 

[Nikolay Zhelyazkov]

8 hours ago, line-weight said:

I have a slightly side question:

 

I am making a special title block border for the sheet that I will put my drawing register on.

 

Can I make that title block automatically report the date of the latest drawing issue?

 

Can one of these options for linked text do that?

 

 

 

It's the date in the red circle I'm after (this is a sreenshot of the drawing register):

 

- Yes, this can be done with the custom linked text options. You should have Latest Date as an option there, when you edit the TBB layout and select a text object.

[Tom W.]

38 minutes ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

- Yes, this can be done with the custom linked text options. You should have Latest Date as an option there, when you edit the TBB layout and select a text object.

 

I really like TBBs! I think they are a really impressive feature. Be great to have this degree of functionality/customisation with other objects in VW!

[line-weight]

1 hour ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

- Yes, this can be done with the custom linked text options. You should have Latest Date as an option there, when you edit the TBB layout and select a text object.

 

Thanks. I've tried these three

 

 

The first one pulls through a date, but it's the date that I set as the issue date of the sheet the drawing register's on.

 

I suppose that will work as long as I include the drawing register in each issue I make, but ideally I'd like it to pull the same data that the drawing issue worksheet pulls.

 

[Nikolay Zhelyazkov]

1 minute ago, line-weight said:

 

Thanks. I've tried these three

 

 

The first one pulls through a date, but it's the date that I set as the issue date of the sheet the drawing register's on.

 

I suppose that will work as long as I include the drawing register in each issue I make, but ideally I'd like it to pull the same data that the drawing issue worksheet pulls.

 

- ohh, okay got it, this means that this linked text could be reading data from other TBBs, which is currently not possible. You can set up a project data field for this that you will have to manually update, but then the data will be visible in all TBBs.

[line-weight]

1 hour ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

- ohh, okay got it, this means that this linked text could be reading data from other TBBs, which is currently not possible. You can set up a project data field for this that you will have to manually update, but then the data will be visible in all TBBs.

 

I see. I guess I'd assumed the "most recent issue" data would be stored at file level rather than being contained in individual TBBs. Does VW have to look through every TBB in the file to work out what's the latest issue date?

 

Anyway, I think it works fine just to include the drawing register sheet in each issue, because if it displays the latest issue no. and date for that sheet, it ought always to be correct (hopefully...time will tell).

[Nikolay Zhelyazkov]

15 minutes ago, line-weight said:

I see. I guess I'd assumed the "most recent issue" data would be stored at file level rather than being contained in individual TBBs. Does VW have to look through every TBB in the file to work out what's the latest issue date?

Yes, this data is stored in the document but the Latest Issue custom link formula is reading the data of the object.

[line-weight]

On 4/19/2023 at 9:09 AM, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

 

1) This is possible if you create multiple pages/worksheets. However, then you cannot add extra columns and have to use the TB Manager every time to update the data for you. The other way to go for this is to change the criteria of the database report and make it show only the active TBBs or use some custom field as mentioned in this thread. The TBManager will not overwrite the criteria so it will remain the one that you set even after an update:

 

2) will be covered if you go for one of the workflows mentioned in 1

 

3) is not possible at this time. I will add a wishlist item in our database so that it can be considered for future improvements. The only way to go around this is to manually reorder the worksheet formulas and then do not use the TB Manager to update the report as it will overwrite them again.

 

 

Have come across a small issue. My drawing register is set up, as per @Nikolay Zhelyazkov's suggestion above, so that only title blocks where I've ticked "activate title block" are included in the register.

 

That's fine - I can have various drawing sheets that are works-in-progress and choose not to have them included in the register until they are actually ready to be issued.

 

However, if I duplicate an existing sheet layer, which has that box unticked, then the new sheet layer is given a new sheet number, but that number is not reflected in its title block.

 

So for example I have sheet number 250, and duplicate it, and VW automatically numbers the duplicated version 251 (which is what I want) but sheet 251's title block still has 250 as its sheet number. I have to tick and then untick the "activate title block" box in order to get it to display the correct number.

 

Is this intended behaviour?

[Nikolay Zhelyazkov]

19 minutes ago, line-weight said:

 

Have come across a small issue. My drawing register is set up, as per @Nikolay Zhelyazkov's suggestion above, so that only title blocks where I've ticked "activate title block" are included in the register.

 

That's fine - I can have various drawing sheets that are works-in-progress and choose not to have them included in the register until they are actually ready to be issued.

 

However, if I duplicate an existing sheet layer, which has that box unticked, then the new sheet layer is given a new sheet number, but that number is not reflected in its title block.

 

So for example I have sheet number 250, and duplicate it, and VW automatically numbers the duplicated version 251 (which is what I want) but sheet 251's title block still has 250 as its sheet number. I have to tick and then untick the "activate title block" box in order to get it to display the correct number.

 

Is this intended behaviour?

- The Sheet Number/Title coordination is not related to the active state of the TBB. If you just move the TBB to get it to reset it will correctly update its sheet data.

So you have found a bug that on layer duplicate the TBBs do not get reset and therefore do not get their sheet data updated. I will log a bug about this and will work on a fix.

 

Best Regards,

Nikolay Zhelyazkov

[line-weight]

18 minutes ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

So you have found a bug that on layer duplicate the TBBs do not get reset and therefore do not get their sheet data updated. I will log a bug about this and will work on a fix.

 

Normally when I duplicate them, the data gets updated. Today this did not seem to be happening, and I assumed it was because I'd made them not active (because ticking the box fixed it). But maybe it is unrelated.

[Nikolay Zhelyazkov]

14 hours ago, line-weight said:

 

Normally when I duplicate them, the data gets updated. Today this did not seem to be happening, and I assumed it was because I'd made them not active (because ticking the box fixed it). But maybe it is unrelated.

- It is currently working when it is active as the TBB gets reset to update the Total Number of Sheets and Page Number fields. The side effect of this is that the Sheet Number and Title get updated too.