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Clearwater, Florida, USA —
It is 3:00 PM on Thursday. This means that Monday's drawing submission
deadline is rapidly approaching. Dreams of that Saturday afternoon
barbecue are rapidly fading. Now, your entire Saturday afternoon
is shaping up to be a trip to the office. Even worse, those fresh
steaks you picked out last night for this weekend's barbecue are
looking more and more like they're going into the freezer for the
following weekend.
The project is almost done and the finishing touches are all that
is left. Unfortunately, one of those finishing touches is ensuring
that all the project data in title blocks is correct. It is your
responsibility to ensure that all of the title block data is up-to-date
and to manually update all 500 files in your project. This is painstaking
and could take days.
Enter Title Block Manager
Title Block Manager, Axiom's premier title block management
software, can intelligently read a batch of design files and distinguish
between elements that are in title blocks and elements that are
not in title blocks. Once Title Block Manager finds these
title-block-specific elements, it can then update and modify title
blocks in hundreds of design files at the same time. This dramatically
cuts down the time it takes to perform mundane tasks like modifying
sheet numbers or adding revision data into a title block.
This article is going to show you how to tell Title Block Manager
how to intelligently find title block elements in your design files
using the newly added Rule Wizard.
What's a rule?
Rules are the foundation for Title Block Manager's ability
to understand your existing title blocks. Rules make up the roadmap
that Title Block Administrator (the administrative component
of Title Block Manager) follows to find your title block elements.
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| Title Block Administrator's Rule
Wizard helps users create rules in an easy, step-by-step manner. |
We're off to see the wizard.
The latest versions of Title Block Administrator now utilize
a Rule Wizard that helps users create rules using an easy, step-by-step
process. After choosing "Wizard Mode" from the "Choose
Editing Mode" dialog box, click the <Add> button to create
your first rule.
After clicking the <Add> button, the Rule Wizard asks the
user to define a label. A label is the unchanging text within a
title block that identifies the type of information that goes in
a specific area. Examples of labels are "Designer:", "Drafter:"
and "Title:".
Title Block Administrator first locates a label element,
then looks for a corresponding value element in a location relative
to the location where it found that label element.
Once you have selected your label, it's time to use the Rule Wizard
to tell Title Block Manager how to find the value that goes
with each label. Select the value just as you did with the label.
Values usually correspond to a label.
An example of a value would be the phone number in the picture below.
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| This screenshot shows a label-value pair.
"Phone:" is the label. "(727)555-8855" is
the value. Once you've told Rule Wizard about the relationship
between the label and value, Title Block Administrator
can now find all the phone numbers in all the title blocks in
all your design files totally automatically! |
After identifying the value, click the <Next> button.
Once you have defined a value, the Rule Wizard will ask you to define
a field name. Field names are unique names used for the "magic
link" Title Block Manager attaches to the value. Typically,
field names match the label. However, for certain cases the field
name may be defined as "Revision 1", "Revision 2"
and so on, in order to accommodate labels with multiple values.
After defining your field name, you're almost done!
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| Checking your label and value properties
allows you to put the "finishing touches" on your
rules before moving on to the next step. |
All that's left is to check the properties of your labels and values.
This is your chance to check your work. Title Block Administrator
uses this data to find labels and values in multiple design files.
If a label or value resides on another level in other design files,
click the magnifying glass button to select the other levels it
could reside on. If a property you want to modify does not have
a magnifying glass button, you can type new values directly into
the proper field.
Once you have checked your label and value attributes click the
<Finish> button.
Success! You have just created your first rule using Title Block
Administrator's Rule Wizard. Now, all that's left is to repeat
the steps with the remaining labels and values in your title block.
After you have created rules for each label and value pair, run
Title Block Administrator's "Upgrade existing text to
TBMgr text" action on your active file.
Grillin' and Chillin'
Now, once you have updated all of the title block data in your title
blocks, your weekend will be filled with steak rather than overtime.
Call
now!
For more information on Title Block Manager contact an Axiom MicroStation Consultant
today! Call 727-442-7774 extension 9729 or e-mail 9729@AxiomInt.com.
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