User’s Guide — Title Block Client

Chapter 1 — Introduction

Title Blocks

A title block contains information about a design file. This format is derived from paper based design, where each drawing would have information about the designer, draftsman, project, scale, dates, etc., drawn on the design, usually inside of a rectangular “block” that had lines and boxes to be filled in. The lines and the information they contained composed the “title block” for the drawing. The same concept has carried over into CAD drawings. A very simple Title Block in a design file might look something like this:

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Title Block Client

Title Block Client helps you to place and maintain standard title block information in design files.

Title Block Client uses special title block cells for placing and modifying title blocks in design files. These title block cells can be in any format in any cell library. They are created from the in house title block design by the project manager using the Title Block Administrator program.

These title blocks have qualities that make them preferable to other title blocks. They contain hidden code that enables linking to a database as well as some special properties for automatically inserting data into a title block.

Title blocks created using Title Block Administrator are easy to place and modify. In the design file, they can exist as shared cells, regular cells or individual elements.

Chapter 2 — Installation

Before you install

This chapter will walk you through a typical Axiom product installation. These instructions apply to both MicroStation V8 and V10. Microsoft Office Importer for V8 and V10 are used in these examples, but you can use these instructions for other tools and multi-tool installers for both MicroStation V8/XM/V8i and V10.

To install one or more Axiom products, you need:

  • The Axiom product’s downloaded setup program; and
  • A license file for the product(s) you are about to install.

Please shut down all MicroStation sessions on your computer before continuing.

Typical installation

  • Double-click on the Axiom product’s setup program.
  • A box similar to the following will appear.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

For questions about which type of installation is best for you, please call Axiom Support at 727-442-7774 or e-mail Support@AxiomInt.com.

  • Choose which type of installation you want to perform. The “Typical” installation is best for most situations and asks the user to make very few decisions.

These instructions will cover only the “Typical” installation path. Choose “Typical” and click {Next}.

  • Choose the license file for this installation. Click on “I have a license file somewhere else.” And press {Next}.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

  • Browse to the “axiom.lic” file wherever you have it saved and click {Open}.
  • The licenses contained in your chosen license file will display in the next box (not shown here). Click {Next}.
  • It is common for one computer to have more than one instance of MicroStation installed on it. For example, you might have two versions of MicroStation V8 installed or one V8. If prompted, click on the version of MicroStation you want to associate your Axiom tools with and click {Next}.

Note: Be sure to choose a MicroStation V8 installation if you are installing V8 Axiom tools and a MicroStation V10 installation if you are installing V10 Axiom tools.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Be sure to choose a MicroStation V8 installation if you are installing V8 Axiom tools and a MicroStation V10 installation if you are installing V10 Axiom tools.

  • Since this is a “Typical” installation, all programs for which an Axiom license was found will already be “checked-on” to be installed. Other items that are also automatically “checked-on” for installation are the product User’s Guides, individual product sample files and Axiom’s MicroStation pull-down menu.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

  • To proceed with default selections click {Next}.

Note: Once you reach this point in the setup, you cannot go back to an earlier step. But you can press {Cancel} and start over if you need to change an earlier selection.

  • The {Next} button is grayed-out unless you accept the agreement.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

  • If you accept the license, please choose “I accept the agreement.” And then click {Next}.
  • This is the final confirmation box before the installation occurs. If everything looks okay, press {Install}. You can click {Cancel} at any time during the installation.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

  • Your installation is complete. By default the “View Readme.pdf” option is toggled on and will display the Readme.pdf document when you click {Finish}.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Congratulations

That’s it! You have successfully completed the installation of your Axiom tools.

Chapter 3 — Uninstalling

Uninstalling Axiom products

Axiom products can be uninstalled easily through the Windows® Start Menu.

  1. Go to {Start}, Programs | Axiom.
    • Select “Uninstall V7 products”, “Uninstall V8 products” or “Uninstall V10 products”, depending on the products you want to uninstall. The uninstall process is consistent for all three MicroStation families.Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation
    • Choose “Select all.” or “Select components to uninstall.” If you choose “Select components to uninstall.” then each product in the list can be manually checked or unchecked. This allows for any combination of products to be uninstalled. Only installed products will be shown in the list.Note: At the bottom of the list of products you also have the option to uninstall sample design files, user’s guides and even the Axiom pulldown menu.
    • Once you’ve made your selections, click the {Uninstall} button to complete the uninstall process.

That’s it! You have successfully completed the uninstallation of your Axiom tools.

Chapter 4 — Quick Start

Title blocks

Have you looked for a way to keep all title blocks in a project in a standard format?

Title Block Client places title blocks in design files from a cell library allows you to easily update the data in them in your DGN files.

Additionally, the text elements in these title blocks contain hidden fields that enable project managers to generate reports and update title blocks from a database.

You will use cells created from your own title blocks. In this quick start, we use simple title block cells for demonstration only.

When should I use Title Block Client?

Once your title blocks have been converted to cells by Title Block Administrator, use Title Block Client whenever you want to add a title block to a design file or modify data in an existing title block.

Quick Start Objectives

The purpose of this Quick Start is to introduce you to the two basic functions of Title Block Client so that you can immediately use the program.

This Quick Start should take about 10 minutes.

Prerequisites

  1. MicroStation CONNECT Edition (version 10.00.00.25) or later.
    • Title Block Client for V10 must be installed on your computer. You can verify this by selecting the “Axiom” ribbon tab, then pressing the Title Block Client button. If Title Block Client does not load, follow the instructions in the Installation section of your Title Block Client user’s guide.
    • You can practice this “quick start” on any sample DGN file.
      One sample cell library is delivered with Title Block Client. This library contains four sample title block cells that you can practice with. If you have installed Title Block Client for the first time, the sample cell library will be placed in the “%appdata%\Axiom\V10\TBMgr\” folder.

Demonstration Version

The demonstration version of Title Block Client works only on small files of 100 KB or less.

Tutorial #1 — Place a title block into a design file using Title Block Client

The “TBMgrV10.cel” cell library that is delivered with Title Block Client contains a title block cell called “ABC2” for a fictitious company named “ABC”. We will place that title block cell into a design file and enter some information into it.

Create a new blank design file for this sample run. Then load Title Block Client by selecting it from the “Axiom” pull-down menu at the top of your MicroStation window. You will see the first box.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Select “Place a title block.” and click the {Next} button.

You can use Title Block Administrator to create a database containing information in title blocks in a set of design files.

  1. Open the sample design file “…\Axiom\V10\tbadmin\sample\regular_cell.dgn”. This file contains a sample title block.
  2. The border, including title block information, is a single cell. Take a look at the various title block fields.
  3. In Title Block Administrator’s main box, click the {Select…} button to the right of the “Design Files:” field. The box that opens allows you to select a batch of files for processing. We will select the five files in the sample folder.
  4. After the {Select...} button is pressed, you will see “Choose Files to Process” box.
  5. Click the Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation icon in the top left corner. This will display the “Browse for Files” window:Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation
  6. Select the “Sample Files” folder.
  7. Select all files except the file TBRef.dgn.Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation
  8. Click {Open} to return to the “Choose Files to Process” box.
  9. Click {OK} to return to the Title Block Administrator main box.
    • Set the “Action:” drop-down menu to “Update database from selected design files.”Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation
    • Ensure that the “Models” field is set to “Active model”. This ensures that only your active models will be processed.
    • Click the {Start} button and, the update begins. At the end, you will see summary totals as in the image below.Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation
    • Click {Close}.
    • Now you can select {Display Report} to see a summary of what was done.
    • Open the Excel spreadsheet or Access database by pressing the {Edit Database} button to see what was added. It should look something like the table below.Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

You have now successfully updated a database with title block information from a set of files. Can you do the reverse and update these files from changes made to the database? See the next tutorial!

Tutorial #2 — Update selected design files from a database.

Changing some data in a title block in a single file is not difficult, but what happens when you want to make a global change to a large group of design files? You can use Title Block Administrator to make such changes.

Note: If you skipped Tutorial # 1, you should go back and do it now. Tutorial # 1 creates the title block database.

  • If you just completed Tutorial #1, your file list is still there as {Edited File List}. If not, use the {Edit List...} button to select all files in the tbadmin\sample folder.
  • Open database by clicking on the {Edit Database} button “...\Axiom\V10\TBMgr\TBMgr.xls” file. You will see all of your design files represented, one row per title block.
  • In the spreadsheet, scroll over to the right until you find the “Scale” column.Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation
  • Put a new value for “Scale” cell in the first row, and copy it down through all 5 rows.
  • Scroll over to the left until you find the “Total Sheets” column.Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation
  • Change the numbers in the “total sheets” column to “5”. (You can do this by putting ‘5’ in the two top cells, With the CTRL key held down, select the two cells, then pull down from the bottom right corner of the selected area.)Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation
  • Save and close the spreadsheet.
  • In MicroStation, change the “Action:” to “Update selected design files from database.” The main box should look like the image below with {Edited File List} in the “Design Files:” field.Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation
  • Now click {Start}, and the update begins. At the end, you will see summary totals.Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation
  • Click {OK} to those totals.
  • Open the various sample design files to see your changes.

Tutorial #3 — Create a title block template from an existing title block.

Putting your title blocks into a cell library is the setup step needed before using the Title Block Manager system on your design files.

You must tell Title Block Administrator the names of the fields in your title block. It is not difficult to do. We’ll practice with a sample title block that is delivered with Title Block Administrator.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

In the “...\TBAdmin\Templates\” folder, you will find a number of design files containing simple title blocks. Open “Practice.dgn”.

Practice.dgn contains a sample title block. You can see that some fields in the title block contain text elements that are field names surrounded by double dollar signs. These text elements will not appear in the cell when it is placed.

The field names that are between the double dollar signs will match the column headers in your database.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

For practice, you can type field names into the remaining three blank fields. Be sure to use the double dollar signs before and after the field names. You can use any names that you want.

For example:

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

These ‘$$’ text elements will not be visible after the cell is created. It does not matter if they overlap or overflow boundaries.

Also, if the text is left adjusted, as it is in these three fields, user data will be left adjusted to the first position of the text that you placed.

Notice the $${FILENAME /P}$$ in the last field at the bottom. The variable $${FILENAME /P}$$ will cause the full file path to appear automatically in the cell when it is placed.

Note: EDFs are supported in these fields. For more specifics on using EDFs see the section on “Tips for including EDFs” later in this guide.

Now you have a title block that can be made into a title block cell. That is all there is to it. The next step shows how to create the new cell.

Tutorial #4 — Add the title block template to a cell library.

Now let’s add the title block template in Practice.dgn to a cell library.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

  1. Open Title Block Administrator by selecting it from the “Axiom” pull down menu.
  2. Set the “Action:” drop-down menu to “Create a new TBMgr title block cell” as in the image above.
    • Then, click the {Start} button. You will see:Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation
    • The MicroStation “Element selection” tool is already activated. Drag your mouse over the title block template elements to select them. Then click {OK}.
    • Next you will need to define the cell origin with a data point.Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation
    • Enter a name for the cell and a description.Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation
    • Then click {OK}. In a moment you will see confirmation that your cell is in the cell library.
    • Click {OK}.

You have now created a title block cell containing field names that can be placed and updated with Title Block Client. Cells placed this way can also be used to interface with a database.

  1. To become proficient, you may try the following additional steps.
    • Try placing your new cell into a sample design file using Title Block Client.
    • Delete the sample TBMgr.xls database.
    • Run “Update database from selected design files.”

The program will build a new database file. Open titleblock.xls and you can see that the column titles in the database are your title block field names. By setting up your cell library correctly, you can populate the database with all of the fields you want and nothing extra.

Try making changes to the database and then update the design file from the database.

Tutorial #5 — Working with existing title block information

Using a Rule file defined by the user, Title Block Administrator will read your existing title block values and attach a Title Block Manager linkage to them automatically. Then, by using Title Block Administrator’s “Update database from selected design files” action, these linked values will be extracted and placed into an editable Excel spreadsheet or Access database which can be modified to update thousands of design files in batch. This tutorial will show you how to create a simple rule file and how to use this rule file to integrate your existing title blocks into the Title Block Manager system.

Rules act as a roadmap that allow Title Block Administrator to read your existing files and differentiate between elements within the title block and elements that are not.

The sample design files used in this tutorial have been designed to emulate a real world circumstance where the border reference file defines the location of title block elements within the master file.

Existing title block basics

Field Name (definition)

The “Field Name” is equivalent to a column header within the database. There will always be a one-to-one ratio of Values to Field Names. These are always user-defined.

Note: “Field Names” are equivalent to the text contained between the “$$” and “$$” characters when creating a conventional Title Block Manager title block cell.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Label

A “Label” is the static text within a title block. 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.

Value

The value is expressed within a title block usually as a specific integer or name. An example of which would be “John Smith” next to a “Label” of “Designer Name”.

  1. In MicroStation, open the following sample file”
    ...\Axiom\V10\TBAdmin\sample\TBMaster.dgn
    The master file TBMaster.dgn you will find the attached reference file TBRef.dgn. The white text elements belong to the reference file and the yellow text elements belong to the master file.Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation
  2. Select the Action “Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text.” Before {Start} can be pressed, an existing rule file must be defined and chosen.
  3. Click the {Edit Rules} button. An “Alert” window will appear, say that rule file doesn’t exist. Click {Yes} to create the new rule file.
  4. When the “Choose editing mode” box appears, select “Classic Mode” and click the {Continue} button
  5. The “Rule Editor” box will appear. ok
  6. Define the first Field Name by clicking the {Add} button.
  7. Type the name “Drawn by” in the Field Name field.
  8. Once a Field Name is defined, the next step is to specify its Label and Value attributes. Click the {Match} button. Once {Match} has been pushed, MicroStation’s status field will direct you to specify the Label element.
  9. Click on the “Label” element in your sample design file that says “Drawn by”. All of the Label Attributes will be filled in automatically.The MicroStation status field will now direct you to define the Value element. Click on the “Value” element that says “C. Brown”. All of the Value Attributes will be filled in automatically.Note: Field and Value Attributes help Title Block Administrator locate Fields and Values within a design file. Individual attributes can be disabled by unchecking the appropriate checkbox.Tip: If you are upgrading text within multiple design files, and the Value String that you are looking for varies in each design file, disable the “String” attribute.You have now successfully defined your first rule! Let’s move on to the next Field, “Sheet no:”.
  10. To define your next rule, click the {Add} button.
  11. Type the name “Sheet no.” in the Field Name field.
  12. Next, define the Label and Value attributes for the “Sheet no.” by following the steps outlined previously in steps 8–10.
  13. To ensure that Title Block Administrator will successfully find your Label and Value elements, click the {Test Rules} button.
  14. This report will confirm that Title Block Administrator found both of the defined Fields and Values.Congratulations! You have successfully created your first complete rule file!
  15. Close the Rule Editor box by clicking on the {Close} button, and save the current rule by pressing {Yes} when prompted to save the rule file.
  16. Next, within the Title Block Administrator main box. Ensure that the “Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text.” Action is selected.
  17. Press the {Start} button. After processing is completed, the “Processing” box will tell you it is complete and what was done.
  18. Press the {OK} button to close the “Processing” box.Now the Value elements located within TBMaster.dgn are ready to be processed using Title Block Manger’s “Update database from selected design files.” Action!

How to begin with your own files

Congratulations! You have completed the Quick Start for Title Block Administrator. You can use it immediately to put your project files into a database.

Then begin creating title block cells from your existing title blocks. Once these are in use, all title block information will be in your control.

If you have any questions or need any help, please email Support@AxiomInt.com.

Chapter 5 — Using Title Block Administrator

The Title Block Administrator main box

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Primary functions of Title Block Administrator

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

The primary functions of Title Block Administrator are defined in detail in the following chapters.

Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text.

Use this function to attach a Title Block Manager linkage to your existing title block value elements.

Upgrade text within a single file or multiple files at the same time.

Remove TBMgr linkage from text elements.

Use this function to remove linkage data from existing Title Block Manager title block text elements.

Update database from selected design files.

Use this function to put title block information into a database. If you have one title block per design file, the program will create one record per design file. Otherwise, it will create one database record for each title block.

Update the database from a single file or from a group of files.

Update an existing database or create a new one if the specified database file does not exist.

Update selected design files from database.

You can make global changes to title block information in design files using the “Update selected design files from database.” function. Make changes to title block information for one or more design files in a database. Then run this function to put your data into the design files.

Create a new title block cell.

Select “Create a new title block cell.” to create a title block template cell from a formatted title block in a design file. Use this function to put all of your title blocks into a cell library.

Note: Cells created by this function contain non-displaying field names for updating a database.

Designers will use Title Block Client, a small companion program that simplifies selecting and placing these cells into design files. Title Block Client also allows modifying fields easily while maintaining position and symbology of variable fields.

Upgrade existing TBMgr title block cells.

Use this when you need to change something about your existing Title Block Manager title block cells such as adding a new title block data entry field or changing the title block’s geometry.

This tool is basically a highly customized cell replacement tool that will transfer your title block values from Title Block Manager fields in the original cells to fields of the same names in your replacement Title Block Manager cells.

Only Title Block Manager cells will be replaced.

This tool will only replace Title Block Manager cells. That is, it will ignore cells that do not contain any text elements containing Title Block Manager fields.

Use this tool if you want to add new fields to your existing title block cells.

You may use replacement title block cells that contain additional Title Block Manager fields. In fact, this is a good reason to use this tool.

Be sure to use Title Block Manager cells as the replacement cells.

Be sure to replace your existing title block cells with Title Block Manager cells. Otherwise there will be nowhere for the existing title block field values to be transferred to in the new cells and you’ll lose all your title block field data.

Be sure your replacement cells have all the Title Block Manager fields you need.

Be sure to replace your existing title block cells with like cells. You risk losing your existing title block field values if your replacement cell does not contain a Title Block Manager field of the same name.

No change to existing cell names

No matter what cell you use as a replacement, it will be placed with the same name as the cell it is replacing. This way each existing title block cell’s connection with an existing Title Block Manager database record is maintained.

For general cell replacement, use Global File Changer.

If you would like to do general cell replacement across any number of design files (not Title Block Manager cells) please see the Replace Cells command in Axiom’s Global File Changer.

Disable specific Title Block Administrator functions

Selected actions from the main Title Block Administrator box can be disabled. Setting the configuration variable TBADMIN_DISABLE allows CAD managers to restrict actions to specific machines or operators. The TBADMIN_DISABLE configuration variable accepts a comma-delimited list of keywords. Each keyword disables a specific action as described in the following table:

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Other menus and buttons on the main box

The File menu

The “File” menu contains only “Exit”. “Exit” unloads the application.

The Settings menu

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Title Block Administrator contains settings allowing you to define the types of title block cells you want to process.

You will find more information about specific settings later in this guide.

The Title Block Administrator settings may be saved and reloaded at a later time using the settings menu. Settings are saved as .ini files. .INI stands for initialization. These files contain configuration data that is used by Title Block Administrator to save and retrieve information about your preferences and operating environment. The .ini files can be edited with any text editor.

When you save settings without specifying a settings file name, the settings are saved in the TBADMIN.INI file. This file is loaded when Title Block Administrator starts up. If this file does not exist, Title Block Administrator creates one using the factory default settings.

Load Settings...

When Title Block Administrator is started up, the settings from the TBADMIN.INI file are loaded. Use the “Load Settings” option to load settings from other .ini files that have been previously saved.

Use the TBADMIN.INI file to hold your default settings.

Save Settings

Use “Save Settings” to save all currently selected options into the active settings file.

Save Settings As…

Use “Save Settings As...” to save your current selections with a filename of your choice.

Save Settings on Exit

Off by default. Use this to save your changes to Title Block Administrator’s settings automatically on exit. You won’t be prompted.

Restore Factory Defaults...

This restores all settings to their factory default state.

Settings file:

The “Settings file:” line displays the name of the currently loaded .ini file. If you select “Save Settings”, your current settings will be saved to this filename.

Change Settings

Title Block Administrator contains settings allowing you to define the types of title block cells you want to process.

The Help menu

Help | Contents...

The “Contents” option of the Help menu opens the online Users’ Guide.

Help | About...

The Help | About function displays an informational box which shows the current version, the license type, and copyright information for Title Block Administrator.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Select the models you wish to process with this option. The default value for this is “Active model.”

Design Files

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Tell Title Block Administrator which design files you want to process here.

Tabbing out of this field while it is blank will cause it to default to the active design file name.

You can use the {Select...} button to select an individual file or a list of files to be processed. For detailed information on the “Choose Files to Process” box that will appear, see “Choose Files to Process” section of this guide.

Database

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

When you open Title Block Administrator, the file name in this field is the database path and name defined as the default database.

You can modify that selection here on the main box.

You can type in another name or browse to find another database. If the database does not exist, but the path is good, then the database will be created.

The relevant database sheet name is always “Title Blocks”. If the database exists but contains no sheet named “Title Blocks”, the sheet will be created.

Otherwise, the program will update the existing “Title Blocks” sheet.

To change the default database name, modify the name of the spreadsheet contained in this field.

Note: Database selection is available for the two actions that use database linkage. When you select the action to “Create a new TBMgr title block cell.”, this field changes to ‘Cell library’. See below.

Rule Files

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

You will only see the “Rule File” field if the “Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text,” action is selected.

You can type in another name or click {Select...} to browse to and select an existing rule file or files. If the rule file does not exist, but the path is valid, then the rule file will be created.

Clicking the {Select...} button will display the “Choose files to process” box. Please see the instructions in chapter 15 of this guide for details.

Field Names

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

The “Field Names” field will only display when the “Remove TBMgr linkage from text elements” action is selected.

Please see the “Remove TBMgr linkage from text elements” chapter for more details.

Cell Library

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

You will only see the “Cell Library:” field when you have selected “Action:” and chosen “Create a new TBMgr title block cell.”

The ‘Cell Library:’ field contains the name of the active cell library taken from the appropriate configuration variable.

The configuration variable TBMGR_CELL_LIB may be set in order to specify the full path of the cell library containing title block cells to be used when the active file either a 2D or 3D file.

You can type in the name of a different cell library or use the {Select...} button to browse for one.

Report File

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

For the database processes this field is a log file to record the progress of the process and any errors encountered. It may be viewed with {Display Report}.

When you change process modes this field is updated with the default report name for the new process.

If the file already exists it will be overwritten when you click {Start}.

{Start}

Click {Start} to begin the action selected in the pull down menu above.

{Display Report}

After processing, you can display a report of the activity by clicking the {Display Report} button.

{Edit Database}

This button will open the database after the database is created using “Update database from selected design files.” If the database does not exist, this button will be disabled.

{Edit Rules}

This button will open the Rule Editor box. This button is only visible when the Action “Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text” is selected.

{Close}

The {Close} button simply unloads the application, just like the File | Exit pull down menu command.

Focus Item Description

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

The Focus Item Description describes the item in focus within the current box.

Chapter 6 — Settings

General

Here you can control some general Title Block Administrator settings.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Update views during processing (maintains MicroStation Manager thumbnails).

Turning this option on will maintain your design file thumbnails in the MicroStation Manager screen. Title Block Manager, with this option turned on, will perform an “Update View” command on the file during processing, maintaining your thumbnails.

Use custom table/worksheet name

This lets you define what Excel worksheet or Access table name will be created, updated and read from by Title Block Administrator. The default name, if you do not change it here, is “Title Blocks”.

Don’t report files successfully processed.

By default the “Update selected design file from database” function reports on all files that are processed. Checking this option will suppress the listing of the design files that are successfully updated. Files that are read only or those files which are not updated successfully generate an error or warning message that will be listed in the report file.

Title Block Format

This category allows you to control the element types processed with Title Block Administrator. By default, all items are checked except “Process Tags”.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Process Title Block Manager shared cells.

Enabling this option will allow Title Block Administrator to process title blocks placed as shared cells.

Process Title Block Manager regular cells.

Enabling this option will allow Title Block Administrator to process title blocks placed as regular cells.

Process Title Block Manager simple elements.

Enabling this option will allow Title Block Administrator to process title blocks placed as simple elements.

Process tags.

For more information on tag processing see the Chapter 10 “Tag Management”.

TIP: At least one of the above check boxes must be enabled in order to run Title Block Administrator.

Process Sheet properties.

This lets you control the string values of sheet models’ “Sheet Name” and “Sheet Number” properties with Title Block Administrator.

Turn this on to make Title Block Manager extract the “Sheet Name” and “Sheet Number” text values from every DGN sheet model run through the “Update database from selected design files.” action into the database. Once these values are in the database, running “Update selected design files from database” with this option still turned on will cause changes made to these fields’ text values in the database to be pushed into the processed DGN sheet models’ properties.

When source design file is on a network drive

When a source design file is on a network drive and the action is “Update database from selection design files”, Title Block Administrator can save paths in the database as either drive-letter style or as UNCs.

  • Save mapped drive letter
  • Save UNC

Spreadsheet

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

This option allows you to specify a template if you want a customized layout for your spreadsheets. All formatting specified in your template will be copied into every new spreadsheet that you create using the “Update database from selected design files” action. Define fonts, text color, text justification, text style (bold, underline, italics), word wrapping, background color and cell boundaries.

Note: The only thing which cannot be pre-defined is cell value format. Tttle Block Administrator always use string format for any type of data.

Resize worksheet columns to fit values:

This setting is off by default. Enabling this setting will automatically change the width of columns to fit the longest value when the database is updated from design files. This will also cause hidden columns to redisplay.

Use template file

Enable this checkbox if you wish to utilize the template feature. Then specify the spreadsheet you wish to use as your database template.

How to create a Title Block Manager spreadsheet template

Templates are created using an Excel spreadsheet. This feature is particularly useful if you want your column headers in a particular order. The formatting for a template must follow the following guidelines:

  1. Every template’s first six columns must contain these column headers (in this order and spelled exactly like this): Design File Path, Model Name, TBlockID, ID of Tagged Element, File Dimension and Last File Update.Note: Column headers after the first six can be arranged in any order you wish. And after your new spreadsheet is created from this template, you may change the sequence of these first six columns.
  2. Cell and text colors used in the template will be applied to the resulting spreadsheet.
  3. Row arrangement is not permitted.
  4. The name of the worksheet must be “Title Blocks”.
  5. The first row is used to pre-define formatting of spreadsheet header and order of columns.
  6. The second row is used to pre-define formatting of data in each column.

Rule Editor

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Classic Mode

Selecting this radio button will default the Rule Editor to “Classic Mode”.

Wizard Mode

Selecting this radio button will default the Rule Editor to “Wizard Mode”.

Don’t display welcome screen.

Don’t display welcome screen. Enabling this option will prevent the display of the “Choose editing mode” box.

Show “Modify Value location” page.

When creating or editing rules with Rule Wizard, if you’d like the opportunity to tweak each rule’s value location calculations, leave this on.

Chapter 7 — The Title Block Manager Cell Library

Title Block Cells

You convert your own title block format to title block cells using the {Create a new TBMgr title block cell.} action in Title Block Administrator. The library cells that you create with this function contain some non-displaying information including field names for matching to database columns.

Select an existing cell library in which to place your title block template cells.

Note: You can use any cell library. Title Block Administrator and Title Block Client will recognize their own cells and not confuse them with other cells.

The path to cell libraries to be used for 2D files and 3D files may optionally be defined in a configuration variable named:
TBMGR_CELL_LIB

If you decide to use it, you will need to create that variable if it doesn’t already exist.

The Rule Editor box

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

After clicking the {Edit Rules...} button, you will see the Rule Editor box.

Rule Editor “File” menu

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

New

Select “New” to create a new rule file.

Load...

Select “Load...” to load an existing rule file.

Save

Select “Save” to save your current rule file.

Save As...

Select “Save As...” to save your current settings into a new rule file.

Field Name List

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Field Name

Enter a new Field Name in the blank field after pressing the {Add} button.

Add

Click the {Add} button to create a new Field Name.

Remove

Click {Remove} to delete the selected Field in the Field Name list.

Up

Move the selected Field up one position in the list.

Down

Move the selected Field down one position in the list.

Attributes

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Attributes allow Title Block Administrator find specified labels and values within a design file.

Disabling any of the checkboxes will exclude that particular attribute when Title Block Administrator is searching for a Label or Value.

Note: If you are upgrading text within multiple design files, and the Value String that you are looking for varies in each design file, disable the “String” attribute.

All Label and Value Attributes within the Rule Editor box support ranges of values. Ranges are separated by a hyphen. For example “5-7” includes 5, 6 and 7.

String, Level and Style ranges

Within these three fields the following comma-delimited strings are supported:

  1. A list of quoted case-sensitive strings. Examples are “Designer”, “Sheet”.
    • A list of wildcards in parentheses. Examples are (Design*), (She*).
    • A comma-separated list of regular expressions, each in angle brackets. For example: <Design*>, <She*>

Color, Weight, Angle, Chars, Width and Height ranges

Within these six fields a simple comma-delimited list as well as ranges specified with a hyphen are supported. Examples are “4,6,7” or “4-24”.

Label Attributes

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Value Attributes

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Note: If you are upgrading text within multiple design files, and the number of characters that you are looking for varies in each design file, disable the “Chars” Value attribute.

Value Location (Relative to Label)

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

This portion of the box defines the distance between the Label and its respective Value.

X Distance

Distances calculated on the X-axis are calculated from the Left Center point of the label text to the Left Center point of the value. This distance can be calculated in terms of Characters or Master Units.

Note: If you are attempting to upgrade existing text in multiple files that have varying scales, it is imperative that you measure the distances between fields and values using the “Characters” option. This will prevent a situation where the Master Unit distance will not allow Title Block Administrator from finding all of the values in your files.

Note: Character distance is measured by taking the total length of the Label string and dividing it by the total number of characters in the string. This defines the “average character length”. Once this average is defined, Title Block Administrator uses this length to measure between the label and the value.

Y Distance

Distances calculated on the Y-axis are calculated from the Center Bottom of the label element to the Center Bottom of the value element. This distance can be calculated in terms of Characters or Master Units.

Tolerance Visualization Button

Press the Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation button to see and even modify the current rule’s value location calculation visually. After pressing this, float your mouse over a MicroStation view window. A rectangle will appear at the currently defined offset from a matched Label element found in your current model. This rectangle will have arrows on each of its sides which you can use to make the Label element search area larger or smaller in each direction — up, down, left or right.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Tolerance

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

The “Location Tolerance” slider appears when you press {Match} in the Rule Editor box. It is used to fill the "+/-" fields in the “Rule Editor” window when you have “Locate Value based on:” set to “Its justification point”.

When the {Match} button is pressed, and the label and value elements are identified, the program measures the distance between selected label and value elements. Multiply this distance by the percentage and this is the result presented in the "+/-" fields for each axis.

Note: When using the Rule Wizard to create or edit rules, the Tolerance is hard-coded at 20%. If you want to use a different Tolerance, use Classic Mode to create or edit those rules.

Locate Value based on:

The choices here are

  • Any part of the element (the default)
  • Its justification point

In a tie:

When more than one element could be the Value element you want to match (in the right position relative to Label element and matches all specified Value Attributes), this option tells Title Block Administrator what to do. The choices are

  • Value element most overlapped by search range wins (the default)
  • Value element closest to Label wins
  • Value element farthest from Label wins

Command Buttons

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

{Match}

The {Match} feature is designed to automatically fill in every Label and Value attribute as well as the Value Distance fields within the Rule Editor box.

Please refer to this document’s Quick Start for a comprehensive explanation of how to use the {Match} button.

{Test Rule}

Use this to test the currently active rule against the active model.

{Test All Rules}

Use this to test all the rules in the current rule file against the active model.
After pressing the {Test Against Active File} button Title Block Administrator generates a report detailing all of the Labels and Values found within the active file.

{Close}

The {Close} button will close the Rule Editor box. If you have unsaved changes to your active rule file, you will be prompted to save them.

The “Wizard Mode” Rule Editor box

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

The “Wizard Mode” option gives you complete descriptions of each step in the rule making process.

The {Add} button

Use the {Add} button to add a new rule to your rule file.

The {Edit} button

Use the {Edit} button to edit your rules once they have been created.

The {Remove} button

Use the {Remove} button to delete a rule from your rule file.

The {Up} and {Down} buttons

Use the {Up} and {Down} buttons to move the position of your rules inside the rule file.

The {Test Rules} button

Use the {Test Rules} button to test your rules using your Labels and Values in the active file.

The {Close} button

Use the {Close} button to close the “Rule Editor” box.

Chapter 8 — Action: Update database from selected design files.

Database updates

Do you want to know what is in title blocks of some group of design files? You can generate a full report using Title Block Administrator.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Use the “Update database from selected design files.” function to create and update an Excel spreadsheet or Access database with information from design files. The program creates a single row for each title block in a design file and a column for each uniquely named title block field.

When you run “Update database from selected design files”, some data is automatically stored in the database for each file. You will always see full file name, the name of the title block cell if one is in the file, the file dimension and the last modification date of the file. See the example below.

Following this data, you will see a column for each fieldname in the title block filled with any data that exists in that field. These columns are created automatically.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Tip: You can move columns in Excel or Access to reorganize your data, and the new positions will be maintained, but column A and B should not be moved.

Procedure

Select the “Action:” “Update database from selected design files.”

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Use {Select...} to select design files to use for creating or updating a database.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Check database name

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Check the database name in the “Database:” field. This field defaults to ...\TBMgr\TBMgr.xls. You can type in another database name or use {Select} to change to another database file.

Then click {Start}.

Once you click {OK} to the database name, the update occurs automatically. At the end, the “Processing” box will give you a summary of what was done.

View a report

Click the {Display Report} button to see a detailed report of what was done.

Chapter 9 — Action: Update selected design files from database.

Updating design files from the database

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Perhaps you want to make a change to title block information in many design files. You can do this easily with Title Block Administrator.

Tip: You should usually update the database from design files before making changes to the database. That way you will see the current data and will know whether you want to modify it.

When you run “Update selected design files from database”, any changes that you make to the title block fields in the database will be made to the design files with one exception:

File-related variables cannot be changed. Filename and file path fields that were defined as $${filename}$$ and $${filename /p}$$ can not be changed with this function.

MicroStation text elements can be converted to text nodes (multi-line text elements) during the update procedure. Use the “|” symbol to denote a new line in the Excel field or press {Alt-Enter} to insert a new line in the field in Excel. Changing “My Example” to “My|Example” directs Title Block Administrator to convert the MicroStation text element (type 17) to a text node (type 7) that spans 2 lines. The change to the MicroStation elements will not take affect until your design files’ text nodes are updated from the database.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Procedure

Select the Action “Update selected design files from database.”

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Select design files to update

Use {Select...} to select the design files that you want to update from the database.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Check database name

Check the database name in the “Database:” field. This field defaults to “...\TBMgr\TBMgr.xls”. You can type in another database name or use {Select} to change to another database file.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Then click {Start}.

The function will pass all of the selected design files and update their title block information. At the end, the “Processing” box will give you a summary of what was done.

View a report

Click the {Display Report} button to see a detailed report of what was done.

Chapter 10 — Action: Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text.

Recognize your existing title block information in a batch.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

The “Upgrade” process in a nutshell

When you set up an “upgrade” rule, we store relative positions of Label and Value elements to one another. When the Upgrade... process is then run, we first find the Label element for the current upgrade rule, then we look for its corresponding Value element where we expect it to be (where it was when the rule was created). When editing or creating an upgrade rule, that Value element search area is indicated by a rectangle with four arrows on it. You can move or resize this search area interactively using the arrows.

During the Upgrade... process, a Value element matches if any part of it overlaps the rectangle (provided it also matches other Value element attributes stored in your rule, of course.)

Our solution does not depend on element coordinates, does not depend on drawing scale and does not depend on DGN file resolution settings.

Linking existing text

After a Rule file has been created, the “Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text” action will attach a linkage to your existing title block text. Once this link is established, use Title Block Administrator’s “Update database from selected design files” action to extract the linked text into an Excel spreadsheet or Access database.

Existing title block basics

Definitions

Field Name: The “Field Name” is equivalent to a column header within the database. These are always user-defined.

Note: “Field Names” are also the same as the text contained between the “$$ $$”when creating a conventional Title Block Manager title block cell with the “Create a new TBMgr title block cell.” action.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Label: A “Label” is the static text within a title block. Examples of “Labels” are “Designer, Drafter, and Title”. The locations of Labels in conjunction with Label attributes help Title Block Administrator find “Values”.

Value: The value is expressed within a title block usually as a specific integer or name. An example of which would be “John Smith” next to a “Label” of “Designer Name”.

Creating a Rule File

As defined in the Quick Start section of this document, creating a Rule file is essential prior to using the “Upgrade text to TBMgr title blocks” action.

A rule file acts like a template, defining the approximate location of each Label and each Value in an existing title block. There should be a one to one ratio of rule files to the types of title blocks that you are processing.

To define a rule file click on the {Edit Rules…} button.

Chapter 11 — Action: Remove TBMgr linkage from text elements

Remove Title Block Manager linkage information from your title blocks.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Removing linkages

Linkages that were attached to title block text elements using Title Block Administrator’s “Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text” action can be removed using this action.

Field Names:

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Field names must be specified in the “Field Names” field. A comma-delimited list of multiple field names may be used. An asterisk means “process all Title Block Manager fields.)

What’s a “field name”?

Field Name – The “Field Name” is equivalent to a column header within the database. There will always be a one to one ratio of values to field names in the database. Field names are user defined.

Field names as displayed in the “Rule Editor” box

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

{Select...}

Click the {Select...} button to open the “Select fields to remove” window.

Select fields to remove

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Field names entered in this window must remain one to a line. Separate each field name by clicking the {Enter} key.

{From Element}

The {From Element} button will automatically extract the field name from a Title Block Manager title block text element and place it into the “Select fields to remove” window.

Click {From Element} then data point on the Title Block Manager title block text element you wish to extract the field name from. Its field name will be placed in the list.

{Close}

The {Close} button closes this box.

Chapter 12 — Action: Create a new TBMgr title block cell.

Getting started from an existing system

The title blocks that you use with Title Block Administrator are of your own design.

Probably you already have title blocks either in a cell library or in seed files or reference files. You can use them to create title block cells in three steps.

To create a title block cell, you first prepare a template in a design file. Then you run the function to “Create a new TBMgr title block cell.” from the template.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

The purpose of creating the template is to define field names for variable information that will be hidden in the cell but will be valuable for interfacing with a database.

Later, any time that the cell is placed or its contents in a design file are modified, Title Block Client will use those field names to prompt users to enter data into the title block. When you create or update a database, Title Block Administrator uses the hidden field names to match title block information with database columns.

Step 1: Set up a template for the cell.

Start by putting one title block in a blank design file. Make sure the variable fields are blank. If your title block is a cell, drop association on the elements.

Once you have your existing title block format in a design file, set your active symbology to the symbology that you want the user title block text to have.

Next you can define the fields that the user will fill in when creating and modifying the design file. These are the variable fields. You give each of them a field name that will later match up with a column header in a database.

Type a field name in each area that you will want the users to update such as drawing title, designer name, date modified, etc. You type in the field name with double dollar signs before and after. (Example: $$Modified by$$). Also, see the blue text in the simple example below.

These field names will be hidden in the created cell. When the cell is placed, these areas will appear blank.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Tips for placing field names:

  1. Use the symbology that you want the cell to display in these areas when the user modifies it.
  2. If using left justification, place the text to the left. If using center, place it in the center of the available area.
  3. Do not use text nodes. Define each line separately.
  4. Do not use the same field name more than once in a single title block.
  5. Since the field name is non-displayable, you can make it as long as you want and overlap borders and other elements without problem.
  6. See the section on automatic field updates below to set up fields that update automatically with file name, file path or configuration variable contents.
  7. After setting up the file, you can highlight the validly coded variable fields to verify your setup. See the “Settings” section below for instruction on doing this.Tip: Different title block cells can use the same field name for similar fields. For example, the field for the designer name can be called “Designer”. When users fill in these fields, even though they use different title block cells, the data will appear in the same database column. That means that you will have a single database column for designer regardless of which title block cell is in the design file.

Tips for including EDF’s

Title block cells will support EDF’s. See the example below.

Tip: You can also look at the sample template CellEDF.dgn that was used to create the sample title block cell that contains EDFs.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

  1. Create the title block with blank EDF’s of the correct size.
  2. Modify the EDF’s by placing field names within double dollar signs on the EDF’s. For example:
    Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation
  3. When field name is longer than the EDF, use the “Fill in an enter data field” tool to fill in as many positions as are available.
    Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation
  4. Notice that EDF’s are indicated by “<<” and “>>”. You can use the “Edit Text” tool to type in the rest of the field name outside the “>>” as in the example below.
    Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation
  5. If you have a single element that contains blanks between EDFs, it could be entered as in the example below.
    Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Step 2: Create a new TBMgr title block cell.

Select “Action:” “Create a new TBMgr title block cell.

Check the cell library name to ensure that you are creating the new cell in the correct library.

Then, start the function to create a new title block cell by clicking the {Start} button.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

You will be prompted to select the elements to include in the title block cell, and the MicroStation “Element Selection” tool activates. You now can drag your cursor over all of the title block elements.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Click {OK} when you are satisfied that all elements are selected.

Next you are prompted to define the cell origin with a data point.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Tip: If you plan to eventually replace existing cells with your new cells, you will want to give the new title block cells the same origin as the existing ones.

After defining the cell origin, click {OK}.

Now you simply have to give the cell a name and description.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

When you click the {OK} button, you accomplish the final step of Title Block Manager title block cell creation.

File-related variables

File related variables in title blocks relate to the design file and cannot be modified by the user. These variable fields also contain axiom signature and field name.

To automatically insert the name of the design file into the title block, use the format
$${FILENAME}$$

To automatically insert the full file path into the title block, use the format
$${FILENAME /p}$$

Note, that curly braces are used, not left and right parentheses.

File related variables are updated automatically when any user modifies title block information with Title Block Client. For example, you save fileA.dgn as fileB.dgn. When you use Title Block Client to modify title block information in FileB.dgn such as to enter a designer name or data, the file name field updates automatically.

It is also possible for Title Block Administrator to update these values (for example, if you had copied a title block to a new DGN file or if you renamed or moved the existing DGN file), but you must add the argument “/UPDATE” or “/U” inside the braces before creating your Title Block Manager title block cell. The update will occur when running the “Update database from selected design files” and the “Update selected design files from database” actions. There must be a record in the database for that title block for Title Block Administrator to update such variables during an “Update selected design files from database”.

Tip: After creating new files from a seed file containing the title block cell, select all of the new files in the “Design Files:” field and perform the function, “Update database from selected design files.” All file related variables will update to correct values.

Model-related variables (sheet models only)

Title Block Administrator and Title Block Client support a DGN file sheet model’s “Sheet Number” property (XM and later) and “Sheet Name” property (V8i and later). Note that this has nothing to do with design models as only sheet models have one or both of these properties.

If you want the model’s sheet model’s Sheet Number or Sheet Name properties to be reflected in a text element in your Title Block Manager title block, create a text element containing one of the following strings and include them when creating the cell with Title Block Manager’s “Create a new TBMgr title block cell.” feature:

  • $${SHEET_NUMBER}$$
  • $${SHEET_NAME}$$

You can also add a parameter of “/UPDATE” (abbreviated “/U”) to either one if you want them to be updated by Title Block Administrator whenever its “Update selected design files from database” action is performed on a sheet model containing a title block with one of these special text elements in it. If you leave out the “/UPDATE” or “/U” parameter when creating the Title Block Manager title block cell, only Title Block Administrator’s “Update selected design files from database.” action is impacted and there is no impact on TBClient. For example:

  • $${SHEET_NUMBER /UPDATE}$$
  • $${SHEET_NAME /U}$$

When placing a title block with Title Block Client into a DGN file’s sheet model, any Title Block Manager cells which were created with these special text elements in them will have that sheet model’s number or name inserted in them automatically by Title Block Client.

If you’ve defined the MicroStation configuration variable TBMGR_ADDITIONAL_FIELDS as described above and run Title Block Administrator’s “Update database from selected design files.” action, it will create two new columns in your database (names will be different for Access MDB and Excel XLS files):

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Title Block Administrator will fill any processed sheet model’s corresponding property values in those fields when you run its “Update database from selected design files.” action. Then you can modify those values in your database (XLS or MDB file) and then use the “Update selected design files.” action to push those changes from the database into your DGN files’ sheet model properties. And, if you defined those with the “/UPDATE” or “/U” parameters when you created the title block cell with Title Block Administrator, these text elements will also be updated with the values from the database during the “Update selected design files from database.” operation.

MicroStation configuration variables

Do you have fixed data that you want to put in the title block when it is first placed? You can put this data into a title block from any configuration variable. These text elements also contain axiom signature and field name.

To send data to a title block from a configuration variable, you can code that configuration variable name in the field using parenthesis in the following format:
$$(MY_VARIABLE)$$

These variables differ from the file related variables in that they will not be updated automatically after they are placed, however the contents of these fields can be modified using Title Block Client or Title Block Administrator.

Configuration variables for use with Title Block Client

Three optional variables can be used by Title Block Client for help with placing and modifying the title block.

TBCLIENT_INI

This variable allows the tbclient.ini settings file to be specified. It must contain a complete path and file name to the settings file. The tbadmin.ini cannot share a folder with tbclient.ini.

TBLOCK_TYPE

Allows fixing the type of title block placement. Valid values are:

  • shared cell
  • regular cell
  • simple elements

When this variable is not defined, the program offers all three options at the time the cell is placed.

TBLOCK_LOCKED

Allows you to place locked title block elements. When a title block is placed “locked” it can only be updated via the Title Block Manager system. Valid values are “1” or “yes” both of which activate locking.

Configuration variables for use with Title Block Administrator

TBADMIN_INI

You can tailor your settings and save them in different locations and with different names.

You can use a configuration variable, TBADMIN_INI, to point to your saved settings. TBADMIN_INI can contain simply a directory path pointing to a directory containing tbadmin.ini or it can contain the full file spec of your settings file.

Examples:
c:\MyAxiomSettings\
c:\settings\tbclient\project123.ini

Tip: Users running tbadmin.ma from a server may find it useful to set up TBADMIN_INI, to save personal settings on a local drive.

If you do not define the TBADMIN_INI configuration variable, Title Block Administrator will look for the last settings file that was used and load it if it can find it. When it finds no settings file, it loads the factory default settings.

TBMGR_EDF_ALLOW_EXTENDED_TEXT

When your title block cell contains enter data fields (EDFs), longer text will normally be truncated to the position of the last EDF. Creating this configuration variable will allow placement of any length of text regardless of EDF length. Give it a value of “1” or “yes”.

TBMGR_EDF_ALLOW_EXTENDED_EDF

When your title block cell contains enter data fields (EDFs), longer text will normally be truncated to the position of the last EDF. Creating this configuration variable will automatically create additional data fields to accommodate any length of text regardless of EDF length. Give it a value of “1” or “yes”.

TBMGR_DATABASE

In Title Block Administrator, this defines the full file specification of the database to be used. It disables the option to select another database in the Title Block Administrator box.

TBMGR_LINE_SPACING

Create this variable to define the line spacing to be used when a single line text element is converted to a multi-line text node. This configuration variable is not used when updating a title block field that is already a text node.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Chapter 13 — Action: Upgrade existing TBMgr title block cells.

Overview

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Let’s say you have an existing job that is almost complete, now someone tells you that you need to have a control number in your title blocks. You create a new title block cell that includes the new control number. Using the “Upgrade existing TBMgr title block cells” feature, you can update the current title block cell while preserving all the existing data in the title block. The title block cell retains it original name while inheriting the new title block value from the new cell. Updating the database from design files will add a new column to the existing database for each new field added to the cell.

Procedure

  1. Select the Action “Upgrade existing TBMgr title block cells.”
    Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation
  2. Select the Button “Define cells”
    Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation
  3. Define the cell library, existing cell name and new cell that contains the updated title block in the “Define cells to update” box. If the title block contains multiple cells wildcards may be used. Cell types and the option to copy enter data fields can be selected if desired.
    Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation
  4. Click the {Test Rules} button to display a report file that lists the number of fields that can be copied to the new updated title block cell. It will list by name, the fields that cannot be copied.
  5. Close the report and make any needed modifications to the “Define cells to update” box. When complete, click the {Close} button and return to the main Title Block Administrator box. Then, click the {Start} button to execute the update command.

Chapter 14 — Tag Management

Tag basics

The tag management functionality of Title Block Administrator will process any title block elements containing tags which use displayed tag values as field names.

A simple example:

Tag set named “TITLE” contains 3 tags.
Tag name is “Drawing number”
Tag name is “Designer”
Tag name is “Date checked”

This tag set can be placed multiple times within a design file. Each placement is unique due to the element which the tag set is attached.

The tag set “TITLE” is attached to a line element in the design file.

The tag values for each tag are as follows:

“Drawing number” = 43
“Designer” = T. Jones
“Date checked” = April 2, 2004

The tag set “TITLE” tag is placed on a different element within the same design file

The values in these tags are:
“Drawing number” = 43
“Designer” = B. Smith
“Date checked” = February 4, 2004

These two instances of tag set TITLE are distinguished by the association ID of the element that they are attached to. You can find it in the MicroStation “Analyze” box as in the image below.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Title Block Administrator defines this field within the database as, “ID of Tagged Element”. It appears as a column within the spreadsheet that differentiates one instance of this tag set from another.

Reporting tag data in the database

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Title Block Administrator will collect tag data and output it to an Excel spreadsheet or Access database. Enable this option by checking the “Process tags” check box in the “Title Block Format” settings category.

Process Tags

In order to process tags, you must select this option.

Select tag sets to process

This field allows you to select the names of the tag sets that you want to process. Specific tag sets can be typed within the field and separated by a comma or via the ”Enter tag set names” box that opens by clicking on the {List...} button.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Wildcards

You can use wildcards in the list of tag set names. By default an asterisk (*) is placed in the “Select tag sets to process” field, in order to process all tag sets present in the design files that you wish to process.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Chapter 15 — Choose Files to Process

Using Axiom’s “Choose Files to Process” box

Use Axiom’s “Choose Files to Process” box to create a list of files to process. Here is an empty list (no files chosen yet):

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Tip: You can find balloon help for almost any dialog item by holding your mouse over it.

Adding files to the list

There are four ways to add files to the list:

  • By browsing for them with the “Browse for files” button Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation.
  • By searching for them with the “Search for files” button Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation, which brings up the “Search for Files” box.
  • By dragging and dropping them from Windows Explorer into the “Files to Process” list. You can open a Windows Explorer window using the Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStationbutton.
  • By importing an existing ASCII text file with files listed in it using “File | Import File List…”

File and Edit menus

Most of the options in the “File” and “Edit” menus are duplicated along the button bar or on the right-click menu in the “Files to Process” list.

Browse for files Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Click on this button or press {Ctrl+O} to open the “Browse for Files” box:

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Select one or more files and press {Open} to add them to your list of files to process.

Search for files Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Click on this button or press {Ctrl+F} to open the “Search for Files” box (with its “Basic” tab activated):

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Search in:

Choose the folder you want to search for files in. Click the “Choose a folder to search” button Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation to browse to the folder you want to search.

Include subfolders.

Enable this if you want to search for files in subfolders too.

Search for files using:

Use this to restrict your search to files with certain names or extensions. Most users search by file extension, such as “*.dgn”.

Search for files by date:

Choose files to process based on their modification date. You can choose to search for files that were last changed before or after a specific date and time.

{Search Now}

Once you have made your file search choices, click {Search Now} to perform the search. When the search is done, you will see a count of the number of files found. Press {Add Files} to add the files to your list of files to process.

{Add Files}

After searching for files, press this button to add the found files to your list of files to process.

{Close}

Press this button to close the “Search for Files” box.

Search for Files: Advanced tab

If you want to search for files in more than one folder at a time, click on the “Advanced” tab of the “Search for Files” box (not pictured here).

Here you can choose any number of folders to search by checking them on in the folder tree.

Drag-and-drop files from Windows Explorer Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Click this button or press {Ctrl+E} to open a Windows Explorer window from which you can drag and drop files or entire folders into your “Files to Process” list.

Dragging a folder into the list adds the files in that folder to the list, not the folders themselves.

Tip: You can drag files into your list from any Windows Explorer window, not just a Windows Explorer window opened by this button.

Dragging folders (not files) into the list

Dragging folders into the list is different than dragging files. Dragging files is direct — the files go right into your list. But since folders could include files you don’t want to process, dragging folders initiates a search of those folders. You can then fine-tune the search by adding or removing folders, choosing which types of files to include and limiting the search by file modification dates.

Once you’ve made your search choices, click {Search Now} to begin the search. When that’s done, click {Add Files} to add the found files to the list of files to process.

Tip: When dragging both files and folders into your list simultaneously, the files still get added to your list immediately and a search is initiated for the folders, as usual.

Remove selected files Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Press this button to remove the selected files from the list.

Remove all files Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Press this button to remove every file from your list.

Warning: This will clear your entire list of files. Use it with care.

Remove missing files

This removes any files from the list that cannot be found. This is available only from the Edit menu — there is no dedicated button for it.

Save list to file Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Press this button or {Ctrl+S} if you want to save the currently displayed list of files to a text file that you can reuse in the future.

Tip: Import a previously saved file list using the “Import File List...” choice on the File menu or by simply dragging one or more of these .LST files into the list of files to process from Windows Explorer.

Files to Process

The object of this entire box is to put files in the “Files to Process” list.

Right-clicking on the list

Right-click anywhere in the list to see this context-sensitive menu of available actions:

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Selecting files in the list

You might want to select one or more files in the list so you can remove them. There are multiple ways to select multiple files in the list.

Using {Shift-left-click}

You can select multiple adjacent files in the list by first left-clicking on the first file then holding down the {Shift} key while left-clicking on the last file in the series.

Using {Ctrl-left-click}

You can select multiple files arbitrarily by holding down the {Ctrl} while left-clicking on each one.

Removing files from the list

There are several ways to remove files from the list:

  1. Select one or more files and click the {Remove selected files} Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation button.
  2. Select one or more files and right-click on one of them, then choose a removal option from the menu which appears.
  3. Select one or more files and press the {Delete} key on your keyboard.
  4. Click the {Remove all files} Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation button.

Version

Right-click on the title bar and choose “About Axiom File List Processor” to bring up a box containing version information which is useful if you are calling Axiom for support.

{OK}

Once you have chosen all the files you want to process, press {OK} to close the “Choose Files to Process” box.

{Cancel}

If you change your mind, press {Cancel} and any changes you made to your list of files to process will be discarded.

Advanced Commands

The “Choose Files to Process” box is extremely powerful and easy to use. However, for those users who want more raw power, it is possible to create a list of files to process without even picking up your mouse.

Instead of opening the “Choose Files to Process” box, you can type wildcards and other special commands directly in the file specification field in the main dialog box of the host program (for example, FileFixer’s “Which Files:” field.)

Using these commands, your list of files to process will be created automatically when you start processing. Or you can open the “Choose Files to Process” box to view and edit your list of files before you begin processing them.

This table describes the most popular of these advanced commands.

Title Block Client User's Guide on Axiom's Title Block Manager for MicroStation

Chapter 16 — Regular Expressions

What are Regular Expressions?

“Regular Expressions” are part of a powerful string matching language which originated many years ago with UNIX.
When you need more flexibility than the familiar “*” wildcard provides, Regular Expressions might be the answer.

Axiom Regular Expressions

A simple regular expression is also a sub-string search. The provided string is searched for an occurrence of the sub-string(s) specified by the regular expression.

Regular expression syntax supports several characters with special meanings. These are described below. All other characters are seen as literals to be matched in the target string. The special characters are:

A period (“.”) matches any alphanumeric character.

An asterisk (“*”) repeats any number of the last pattern, including zero repetitions. For example, “test*” matches any string that contains “tes” followed by any number of “t”s (including none). Note that “tes”, “testtt”, and “tesh” would all match.

Note: In a regular expression, an asterisk (“*”) behaves differently from the familiar use of an asterisk in DOS wildcards. In a regular expression, an asterisk matches zero occurrences of a pattern. For example, “A*” will match “A” or “BBB”, or “” (empty string -- zero repetitions of “A”.

Square brackets (“[ ]”) specify a limited range or variety of given characters. For example, “^[abcd0123]” matches strings that begin with any one of the specified characters (“abcd0123”).

A caret (“^”) matches the beginning of the string. For example, “^#include”” matches any string that begins with “#include”.

When a caret appears as the first character after a left square bracket, it reverses the meaning of the search. For example, “[^A-Z]$” matches any string that does not end with a capital letter.

If a caret appears anywhere but at the start of a regular expression, it will be interpreted as a literal character. For example, “This^” matches any string that contains the substring “This^”, treating the caret as a literal. More properly this expression would be written as “This\^”.

A dollar sign (“$”) matches the end of the string. For example, “}$”matches any string that ends with a close brace.
If a dollar sign appears anywhere but at the end of a regular expression, it will be interpreted as a literal character.
A hyphen (“-”) denotes a range of characters in [ ] ranges. “[A-Z0-9]$” matches any string that ends with a capital letter or a digit.

A backslash (“\”) removes the special characteristics of a character. “\$” matches a dollar sign.

Repetitions. A regular expression may also check for limited repetition of a one-character regular expression primitive (as above). It can check that a particular pattern repeats X times, X or more times, or at least X times and no more than Y times.

The formats are:

  • P\{X\} Matches exactly X repetitions of P
  • P\{X,\} Matches at least X repetitions of P
  • P\{X,Y\} Matches any number of repetitions of P, between X and Y inclusive. X and Y must be non-negative integers less than 256. Whenever a choice exists, as many occurrences will be matched as possible.

Additional information and examples about regular expressions are widespread in most bookstores and on the Internet.

Chapter 17 — Frequently Asked Questions

Can I modify cell contents without using Title Block Client?

Yes. You could drop association on the cell and then modify your text using MicroStation’s text editor. This text, even after it is dropped, contains the special Title Block Manager linkage that allows Title Block Administrator to extract the data.

Do Title Block Manager title blocks have to be cells?

No. When you place a title block cell using Title Block Client, you have the option to place the title block as a shared cell, a regular cell or as simple elements in the design file.

Note: If you place title blocks as simple text elements, users can easily replace them using the MicroStation “Place Text” tool. In this case, database connectivity will be lost.

Can I create variable fields that do not display?

Yes. At the time you create the title block cell, if you define the field name as a construction element, it will display only when “View Attributes” option for construction elements is selected.

Can I have the same title block field display in more than one place?

Yes. Create fields with duplicate field names. You will get a warning when you create the cell, and an option to cancel or continue. You should continue and create the cell. Title Block Administrator will create only one database column for fields of the same name. When you update the design file from the database, the same information goes into all duplicate-named fields.

[] But which of the set of duplicate-named fields has its data pulled when updating database from DGN?

Chapter 18 — Troubleshooting

Blank “TBlockID” field in database

This happens when that title block in that model of that DGN is part of a shared cell. Since every shared cell instance reflects the data from a common shared cell definition and there can only be one shared cell definition of that name in that model, we don’t need to store an element number in the TBlockID field for that particular title block.

Chapter 19 — We’ll Make (Almost) Any Enhancements You Want

We welcome your suggestions.

Title Block Administrator is a very powerful program. Nonetheless, we realize that you, a skilled and creative MicroStation user, will think of ways in which it can be improved. We invite you to tell us your ideas.

For ten years we’ve listened to you, the skilled MicroStation professional, and have implemented the features you’ve requested. Every widely acclaimed product we’ve ever developed, including FileFixer, evolved in this manner.

We’d like to make Title Block Administrator perform every function you could ever imagine such a product being able to do. We intend to make you such a satisfied Title Block Administrator customer that you can’t wait for the next user group meeting so you can tell your friends and associates how much you like Title Block Administrator and how strongly you recommend it.

Your suggestions on how to improve Title Block Administrator are most welcome. You may email your suggestions to Support@AxiomInt.com, or call us.

Chapter 20 — New Features and Fixes

Version 10.1a — xx January 2021

New: Added support for MicroStation CONNECT Update 5 through Update 15.

Fixed: Your Title Block Administrator job will no longer be interrupted by workset membership warnings from MicroStation.

Fixed: Various minor user interface improvements.

Changed: Title Block Administrator now uses a PDF-format user’s guide (“TBAdmin.pdf”), instead of a Windows help file (“TBAdmin.chm”).

Version 8.14b — 10 September 2021

New

When ProjectWise Explorer’s MicroStation integration is detected, we now send the key-in “TITLE BLOCK UPDATEDMS” automatically when a ProjectWise-stored DGN is opened. If your tag-based title blocks are integrated with ProjectWise’s title block database, this key-in will push your DGN’s connected title block values up to the ProjectWise database. This way you can use Title Block Manager’s “database” (spreadsheet) to modify title block values, push them into your DGNs, and then those modified values get pushed into your ProjectWise title block database.

Version 8.14a — Limited Release

Various production-ready versions of 8.14a were delivered to clients while we continued to add things to the 8.14a project. So 8.14a doesn’t really have a single release date.

New

During “Update database from selected design files” we now add a green fill color for every field (cell) which was found in your source DGN file. Any non-filled (white) cell in your database indicates a field which was not found in that source DGN file.

Tip: This green color is informational only — there’s no need for you to add, remove or change cell fill color as it will be ignored during “Update selected design files from database”.

“Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text” process now supports rotated text.

Fixed various bugs.

Version 10.0a — 4 November 2016

New: This is the first release of Title Block Administrator for MicroStation CONNECT Edition (V10)!

Version 8.13i — 20 October 2016

Fixed: In the “Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text” action, magnifying glass buttons and fields’ “MU” suffix labels are now disabled when their related text fields are disabled.

Improved: When creating rules for the “Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text” action, the “Style:” fields will be automatically un-checked by default, since these have such limited value in identifying text elements.

Version 8.13h — 6 September 2016

Improved: Increased size of allowed paths in “Design Files:” and other fields from 128 to 255 characters.

Note: The “Database:” field is limited to 217 characters due to a limitation in Microsoft Excel itself.

Fixed: Default output location for the title block cell library was changed to a location writeable in default installations of Windows 10:

%appdata%\Axiom\V8\TBMgr\TBMgrV8.cel

Version 8.13g — 12 August 2016

This is a compatibility release for use with Title Block Client 8.13g.

Version 8.13f — 10 June 2016

Fixed: Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text: After doing a “Save As…” on the current text upgrade rules file, pushing {Start} would use the previous rules file until Title Block Administrator was re-started.

Version 8.13e — 28 April 2016

Fixed a case where a DGN file could be incorrectly reported as read-only when updating its title block from the Title Block Manager database.

Version 8.13d — 11 March 2016

Added a check to the “Process Sheet properties” option so that if it is missing some of its required files (func*.ma), it writes a message to the report about it. Previously, it would not have been clear what the problem was if these files were missing.

Version 8.13c — 12 February 2016

Fixed: ProjectWise support was broken for tag-based title blocks. (It was working fine for text-based title blocks.)

New: If a processed DGN was already checked out from ProjectWise, Title Block Administrator will now leave it checked out, rather than checking it back in after processing it.

Version 8.13b — 8 January 2016

This release contains user interface improvements (clarified wording) throughout the “Rule Wizard” boxes of the “Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text.” action.

Title Block Administrator’s Rule Wizard should now be a little easier to understand for new users.

Version 8.13a — 25 September 2015

New: Added support for Windows 10!

New: To prevent files from being quietly redirected to the “VirtualStore” folders of Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8, Title Block Administrator and its installer have new default locations for the following files:

License files (“axiom.lic”) now get installed to “%programdata%\Axiom\”.Settings files (“<product>.ini” and “settings.dat”) now default to “%appdata%\Axiom\V8\<product>\”.
Database/spreadsheets now default to “%appdata%\Axiom\V8\TBMgr\”.
Rules files (“*.rul”) now default to “%appdata%\Axiom\V8\TBMgr\”.
Report and log files (*.rep, *.log) now default to “%appdata%\Axiom\V8\<product>\”.

Version 8.12d — 1 September 2015

Fixed a bug found in-house that could prevent the program from running. This is a recommended upgrade for all users.

Version 8.12c — 31 July 2015

Note: All the changes in this version relate to the “Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text” action.

Fixed: The “Angle” field didn’t work. Using {Match}, it would contain the wrong angle. And any value in the field would be incorrectly applied when searching for rotated text elements.

Fixed: It was not possible to interactively resize value element search boundaries in a rotated Top view.

Improved: Title Block Administrator now ignores elements set to “Invisible” when searching for label or value text elements.

Version 8.12b — 7 May 2015

Improved: Reorganized some of Title Block Administrator’s settings categories to make it easier to use.

Improved: Added description of the current Title Block Administrator action to the progress box.

Fixed: Help | About was not working in Title Block Administrator for PowerDraft.

Version 8.12a — 10 April 2015

New: Title Block Manager now allows you to have multiple title block cells of the same name in one model. Previously, each such cell had to have a unique cell name (which Title Block Client could create for you if it was used to place the cells.) Now the cells can have the same name and Title Block Manager will be able to update the database from them or update them from the database. Note that this refers to cells containing Title Block Manager “smart” text elements. Title Block Manager already supported multiple duplicate-named title block cells based on tag elements in a single model.
Improvements to “Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text” action

New: You can now limit an “upgrade” rule to text elements in a cell — or to text elements in a cell with a specific cell name.

New: When creating or editing “upgrade” rules, it is now possible to drag the entire Value element target rectangle. Previously, it was only possible to move these by dragging each of their sides independently.

Version 8.11c — 29 August 2014

Fixed: Fixed a case where updating a text-based title block from the database wouldn’t work if the DGN was stored in ProjectWise. Tag-based title blocks did not have this problem.

Version 8.11b — 20 June 2014

Improved: In the “Remove TBMgr linkage from text elements.” action, the list of field names to remove now supports 1023 characters. Previously it supported only 127 characters.

Improved: Some balloon help text in the Rule Editor box.

Changed: Renamed the configuration variable TBMGR_DISALBE to TBADMIN_DISABLE as it applies to Title Block Administrator but not to Title Block Client.

Version 8.11a — 16 May 2014

General improvements

New: Added support for XLSX, XLSM and DOCX files. For maximum compatibility with any Microsoft Excel version users may have, the default database extension remains XLS, rather than XLSX, for now.

New: PowerDraft! Title Block Administrator for PowerDraft V8i is now available. It is possible that all PowerDraft V8 versions will work well, but they are not certified. Previously, there was no Title Block Administrator for PowerDraft.

New: Updated Axiom licensing system.

New: The MicroStation configuration variable TBADMIN_INI now supports references to MicroStation configuration variables and Windows environment variables in its definition.

New: It is now possible to use Title Block Administrator to modify sheet models’ Sheet Name and Sheet Number properties alone, even if you aren’t using any of Title Block Manager’s own title block fields. Previously, these sheet model properties were supported but you had to have a title block with tag elements or at least one Title Block Manager text element.

New: Made various subtle user interface improvements.

Fixed: Made various bug fixes.

Improvements to “Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text.”

New: “Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text” now lets you interactively edit the Value element search area for each rule. Previously, this was a tedious process of trial and error with no visual feedback — now it is a visual process that results in instant feedback. No more trial and error!

New: Previously, rules had to locate the lower-left corner of a candidate Value element. Now Value elements are matched if any part of the element is inside the rule’s search area, not just the lower-left corner of the Value element. This does not require any change to existing rules. However, rules created with this version of TBAdmin will automatically be created with better target search ranges optimized for the new method (encompassing the entire Value element used for the rule creation process), so re-creating your rules should improve them considerably.

New: Added a new Value element location method — locate rules by finding their justification point.

New: Added a new option to choose what to do when multiple candidate Value elements are encountered.

Version 8.10d — 2 December 2011

New: Added support for honoring enter-data field (EDF) justification when filling in EDFs from the database. Note that the justification of EDFs is not the same as the justification of the text element containing those EDFs.

Fixed: “Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text.” rule creation would crash when attempting to choose a text node in a reference file as a “Label” element.

Changed: When updating design files from the database, Title Block Administrator will no longer unnecessarily update text elements that don’t have any modifications to be made to them.

Version 8.10c — 20 May 2011

Fixed: In some rare cases, fields in the DGNs would not be updated from the database.

Version 8.10b — 15 April 2011

Restored: Restored the ability to modify Title Block Manager title block configuration variable text field values with Title Block Client and Title Block Administrator. This ability was lost in 8.10a.

Version 8.10a — 18 March 2011

New: MicroStation XM added the sheet model property “Sheet Number” and V8i added the sheet model property “Sheet Name”. We added support for these properties. You can now display them in your title blocks, keep them updated in your title blocks and modify them — the reflections in your title blocks and the actual sheet model properties themselves — in batch!

New: Added support for user-defined worksheet names (Excel XLS files) and table names (Access MDB files). Previously, the name was static. This not only allows users to customize the names to their taste, which is nice, it also makes it possible to create one database (XLS or MDB file) with multiple worksheets/tables in it. (One run of “Update database from selected design files.” will only create or update one worksheet/table at a time, as always. Likewise, a single run of “Update selected design files from database.” will still only use one worksheet/table as a source.)

Fixed: References to MicroStation configuration variables in Title Block Manager title blocks were not being populated with the value of their configuration variables when placed with Title Block Client. The format of these configuration variables (which is relevant only during the creation of title block cells with Title Block Administrator, is $$(variable)$$ where “variable” is the name of the variable you want reflected.

Version 8.9c — 24 September 2010

Fixed: Fields were not being populated properly when switching between settings files with File | Load Settings…

Fixed: Added checks for disallowed characters to text entry fields in the main box.

Version 8.9b — 27 August 2010

New: Made it possible to change the column position of the first six columns in the Title Block Manager database (columns A through F in XLS “database” files). These columns can now be in any column position in the database (XLS or MDB). The six control columns are

Design File Path
Model Name
TBlockID
ID of Tagged Element
File Dimension
Last File Update

New: Added support for a new configuration variable named “TBMGR_PRESERVE_TEXT_NODES”. If defined and set to “1” or “TRUE”, Title Block Administrator will have this special behavior when running “Update selected design files from database: If updating a text node and the new text is only one line (no need for a text node), the text in the DGN file will be left in a text node. Normally, the text node would be removed in this case as there was no need for it. This was added to help a particular customer but may be useful to others.

Changed: Merged the “Files to process:” and “Files processed:” counters in the progress box into one line named “Files processed:”.

Fixed: Fixed a case where running “Update selected design files from database” could harm Enter Data Fields (EDFs).

Fixed: The configuration variable “TBMGR_CELL_LIB” did not support spaces in the path defined in it. Now it does.

Version 8.9a — 19 March 2010

New: Added support for DGN files stored in ProjectWise.

New: Added a “Save Settings on Exit” choice to the “Settings” menu.

Changed: Title Block Administrator is now delivered with a .CHM file instead of a .HLP file.

Changed: Improved the order of items on the “Action:” option button and added separator lines to group related actions.

Fixed: When MicroStation’s “Look and Feel” preference “Use Windows File Open Dialogs” was enabled, the {Select…} buttons for Title Block Administrator’s Database:” and “Report File:” fields would bring up unsuitable dialog boxes.

Version 8.8a — 24 July 2009

New: Added support for MicroStation V8i.

Version 8.7b — 2 January 2009

Fixed: Pressing the {Esc} key will now stop Title Block Administrator during batch processing.

Fixed: Fixed a problem that caused invalid elements to be created in the title block cell.

Fixed: Fixed an issue causing tags not to be extracted from design files.

Fixed: Fixed a case in which cell creation would fail.

Version 8.7a — 15 February 2008

New! Added text node support!

Title Block Administrator now detects and handles text nodes when upgrading design file text to Title Block Manager text.

When updating design files from the database, Title Block Administrator now allows you to convert text elements to text nodes and vice versa.

Other Improvements

We improved the report file summary and added the option to report files only when they are not successfully processed.

Added the keywords “ERROR” and “WARNING” to reports to make it easier to locate problem files in long reports.

Added the ability to update the database even when design files are read-only.

Fixed a problem creating title block cells under MicroStation V8 XM.

Added option to turn off resizing of columns in Excel. This allows you to:

Keep hidden cells hidden when updating the spreadsheet from design files.

Keep user-defined Excel column widths intact when updating the database from design files.

Version 8.6f — 28 September 2007

Added the ability to disable any of the choices on the Action option button. Added the new configuration variable TBMGR_DISABLE for this purpose.

Version 8.6e — 20 July 2007

Added the ability to upgrade an existing Title Block Manager title block cell by replacing it with a new Title Block Manager title block cell. The existing Title Block Manager field data is preserved.

Added a new MicroStation configuration variable TBMGR_DATABASE for defining a specific database to use with Title Block Administrator. When this variable is defined, the database designated by this variable cannot be changed from Title Block Administrator’s user interface.

Edited some error and information messages for clarity.

Version 8.6d — 27 April 2007

Handled a problem for one customer where Title Block Administrator incorrectly identified some files as read-only.

Refined the user interface to increase usability.

Version 8.6c — 23 March 2007

Users can now select multiple rule files for upgrading different types of title blocks. Click the {Select...} button in the “Rule Files” field to use Axiom’s “Choose Files to Process” box to select multiple rule files.

Thumbnail pictures in the MicroStation Manager can now be maintained by turning on the setting “Update views during processing (maintains MicroStation Manager thumbnails).”

Added support for rotated title block text to “Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text.” This was accomplished by making coordinates label-relative.

Version 8.6b — 16 February 2007

Fixed a problem with Label-to-Value element offsets calculated by the Rule Wizard.

Now Title Block Administrator remembers the last INI file saved via “Save As…” the next time it is loaded.

Help | About was not working in MicroStation XM.

Version 8.6a — 26 January 2007

A Rule Wizard has been added to facilitate the creation of rules prior to running “Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text” action. The Rule Wizard gives users complete descriptions of each step in the rule creation process, making it easier to understand.

Standardized the “Settings File…” box that displays if you close Title Block Client without saving any changed settings.

Version 8.5b — 20 July 2006

Users can now cancel Title Block Administrator processing by pressing the {Esc} button.
In order to speed up processing, previous versions of Title Block Administrator closed view windows during processing if the MicroStation preference “Save settings on exit” was turned on. Title Block Administrator now uses another approach which doesn't turn views off but instead blocks all output to view windows during processing.

Title Block Administrator for V8 now allows users to create cells with cell names longer than six characters.
Updated the “Your settings have changed…” box that prompts user to save settings when closing Title Block Administrator.

Various minor bug fixes.

Version 8.5a — 17 February 2006

Added the “Remove TBMgr linkages from text elements.” action. Added the ability for users to format their Excel spreadsheet as they please.

Also added the “Template” settings category so users can specify a pre-formatted spreadsheet for Title Block Administrator to use to create new .XLS Title Block Manager databases. This way new .XLS Title Block Manager databases will be “born” with the user-defined formatting already applied.

Version 8.4a — 27 October 2005

The tool used to create a list of design files to process has undergone a dramatic improvement — it has been completely rewritten. Its user interface is easier to use than ever and it now supports drag and drop of files from Windows Explorer. It is also faster at searching for files to process.

When creating or modifying a title block, all field names utilizing enter data fields will now retain their justification.

Enhanced support of UNC paths.

The name of the table created in Access now matches the name of the worksheet created in Excel: “Title Blocks”. The name of the Access table was previously “TB”.

Version 8.3a — 26 August 2005

Added support for Microsoft Access databases. Title Block Administrator now supports Microsoft Access databases and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

Version 8.2a — 24 June 2005

Title Block Administrator is now up to 10 times faster than previous versions.

Version 8.1a — 10 February 2005

A major new feature has been added with which users can automatically upgrade their existing title block text into smart Title Block Manager title blocks. This new feature is called “Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text.” and is available from the main box.

The “Upgrade existing text to TBMgr text.” action makes this the most significant version of Title Block Administrator since its initial public release.

Version 8.0b — 28 September 2004

Title Block Administrator has been modified to ignore tag sets attached to shared cell definitions.

Version 8.0a — 16 August 2004

First release of Title Block Manager for V8.

This release includes all of the features of Title Block Administrator 1.3a as well as added V8 specific functionality.

This version has been certified for MicroStation 08.00.04.01, 08.01.02.15 and 08.05.00.57.