Puzzled about record format

[KrisM]

I have been using the data fields in a door style to provide information for a door schedule. I am looking at using a record format because the presentation and editing of information in the OIP is much easier using a record format (at least I think so). So imagine my surprise when I go into a door style and can't attach a record format. I can only attach the record format for a door which is placed in the drawing. Is there a way to attach the record format to the style settings? I think I'm missing something here.

 

[Pat Stanford]

Styles are not really symbols. They just look like symbols in the Resource Manager because that was the way VW chose to make them resources.

When you apply a Style, the script reads the data out of the "symbol" in the resource manager and applies it to the object in the drawing.

 

To do what you want to do you would need to create real symbols of doors with the record attached. These doors could by styled and have the correct information attached, but if you change the Style, it will not change the record information of the Door it is applied to.

 

Take a look at the Data Manager. It should allow you to take the standard Door fields and give you a version that will show up in the Data tab of the OIP in the order you want so you may not need a separate record.

[KrisM]

Pat, Thanks for your comment. I worked in Revit for a time and found the logic of it totally understandable. VW and I seem to be diametrically opposed. I will look at the Data Manager. It looks promising.

[Pat Stanford]

It can be hard to switch software.  The best I can suggest is to not expect VW to work like Revit. Hopefully eventually you will see the logic behind it and it will be totally understandable also.

 

Ask again if you need more help.

[KrisM]

I don't expect VW to work like Revit. It was more a comment about the way my mind works versus the minds of the VW programmers. I can adapt. 🙂

Edited June 3, 2021 by KrisM

[Pat Stanford]

I understand. But after many years of tell people coming from Autocad to forget everything they know in order to come up to speed on VW faster, it is just kind of second nature.  ;-)

 

[KrisM]

So now I'm looking at the Data Manager and have created my own Data Sheet which presents the data I'm interested in in a useful format (grammar?). I'm using the User Fields for some information. These are  text fields. Is there a possibility some of these can be a pop-up field? Or is there some other method which can have a pop-up field in the Data Sheet?

Edited June 4, 2021 by KrisM

[Pat Stanford]

From the Data Manager, pick the Data Sheet, then pick the field you want to have as a popup. Click the Edit Field button at the bottom.

From the Edit Data Sheet Field dialog box, check the Use Field Validation box and then set it as a popup and set your choices.

 

If you have entered something that is not in the popup, it will not display and the first choice from the popup will show instead, but it will not be saved unless you actually pull down the popup.

 

I don't think there is a way to keep manually entered values (from a different data sheet or the Settings dialog box) if you look at the popup options.

[KrisM]

That is great. Works like a charm. Don't know why I didn't see that. I've got a good Data Sheet now so don't really have any need to edit the built in options. Thanks.

[Boh]

@Pat Stanford can you recommend any good tutorials or videos demonstrating how the data manager works? I have looked and can’t seem to find anything for a data noob like myself.

[Pat Stanford]

unfortunately, I can't make any recommendations. I just started playing with it last week myself. Seems very powerful.

[Tom W.]

Hi @Boh did you look at this one? https://university.vectorworks.net/mod/scorm/player.php?a=147&currentorg=articulate_rise&scoid=294

I meant to but not got round to it yet so don't know how useful it is...

 

 

[Boh]

Thanks @Tom W.. That was a good tip. I ripped through that course in 15min.

 

The data manager is really powerful but, as the course says itself, is most useful for large collaborative projects using Bim /ifc.
 

We aren’t a big office and whilst we do use ifc the scale of our projects is relatively small so “data management” isn’t really an issue.

 

That said I do like how with the data manager classes can be mapped so that records can automatically be associated to objects placed in classes. How I can use that? I’m not sure...

 

I like to set my object attributes to “by-class” and have a whole range of classes set up specifically to make objects display certain graphic attributes. It seems that data mapping by class could be like an extension of that.

 

The other useful-to-me aspect of the data manager perhaps is the ability to attach records to symbol definitions. 

[Tom W.]

@Boh see these posts by @drelARCH 

 

 

 

 

[Boh]

Thanks again @Tom W..

 

So the tip I picked up going through those posts is to experiment with data sheets. I’m thinking of setting them up to quickly edit commonly changed settings of parametric plugins without having to go into often clunky and overly complicated settings dialogues.

[Boh]

15 hours ago, Boh said:

I’m thinking of setting them up to quickly edit commonly changed settings of parametric plugins without having to go into often clunky and overly complicated settings dialogues.

I made some basic try out data sheets for Framing objects and a couple of other things and it is pretty cool how you can filter out what fields you want to see in the OIP data pane and edit the objects from there rather than from the shape pane. It's a bit hit and miss though as it looks like not all types of parametric objects can have data sheets (Title Blocks for example don't appear in the available list of built-in plug-in objects list in the data manager) and not all the settings via the data pane work like their equivalents do in the shape pane or settings dialogues - e.g. to enter a colour in the data pane you need to know the colour number.

 

Mapping data sets by class is pretty slick though. That, I think, will be a useful tool as our office gets better at using records, data tags, worksheets etc.

 

Interesting that mapping a data set to a symbol definition via the data manager doesn't seem to add it to the symbols definition itself rather, from what I seen, adds it to the symbol instances as they are inserted. I.e. after mapping a data set to a symbol definition you can't see the "added" data in the data pane of the RM but when you drag the symbol into the drawing the data is indeed attached to the symbol instance.