topic Re: Need help getting MY AC10 title right in Documentation

Need help getting MY AC10 title right

Anonymous — Fri, 19 May 2023 14:04:28 GMT

I have created a title block I like with a couple of objects and the text I require, but I am having 2 problems:
1) how do I make the title block "stretchy" to match the width of the drawing?
2) the title blocks I create always wind up overlapping the drawing meaning the bottom of the title block aligns with the bottom of the drawing. How do I make the top of the title block line up with the bottom of the drawing?

Re: Need help getting MY AC10 title right

David Larrew — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 21:35:08 GMT

You will need to make your "stretchy" adjustment with GDL.

Depending on your Object origin, you can script the orientation with GDL.

Basically, you will need to edit the GDL script to customize your Title.

If you would like some help, you could send me a copy of your Title Object for me to take a look at.

Re: Need help getting MY AC10 title right

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 21:51:23 GMT

How did you make the title? Did you draw it in plan and save as a library part or script it in GDL? (BTW this topic probably belongs over in the GDL forum.) There are some standard parameters in the title part subtype that allow you to fit the title automatically to the drawing, cell or layout. You can also make it stretchy by adding your own parameter (such as title_length) and putting in a dynamic hotspot for adjustment.

If you are not familiar with GDL scripting this might be a bit daunting place to start as there are some anomalies in the way these things behave, and (AFAIK) there is no documentation on the standard parameters.

BTW: If any one knows where I can find info on the default parameters I would love to know. It's not that I'm too lazy to look for myself, just too busy helping my clients with AC10.

Re: Need help getting MY AC10 title right

Stephen Dolbee — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 22:17:18 GMT

We created our title block years ago as a plotmaker drawing. What is the best for AC10? Should it be saved as a library part or what? If so, why?

Thanks,
Steve

Re: Need help getting MY AC10 title right

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 07:31:44 GMT

Stephen wrote:
We created our title block years ago as a plotmaker drawing. What is the best for AC10? Should it be saved as a library part or what? If so, why?

Thanks,
Steve

If you have converted the old PMK into a drawing title in PM9, then it will automatically be converted into a new title type library part when a file containing it is converted to AC10. But this still will not provide the stretchiness.

As David said, what you want has to be scripted in GDL. This is not terribly difficult, but there are some strange quirks in the title type parts. DO NOT attempt to edit one of the titles included with AC10. Even the one called "Simple Title" has about a thousand lines of code. I wrote one for a client in about 30 lines that does what they need. The difference is that the GS parts have to account for every possibility. I only had to make it serve their specific needs.

If you feel up to the challenge, try your hand at the GDL. I promise that you will run into some problems, but they can be quickly answered in the GDL forum.

If you haven't the time or inclination to try it yourself, you may want to hire out the coding. I am sure there are many here that could tackle it for you. (I would offer but I am far too swamped at the moment.)

Re: Need help getting MY AC10 title right

Anonymous — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 12:20:27 GMT

In preparation for another post I am doing on AC10 Titles, I came across this one.

Just a thought; not only should the object be scripted to be stretchy, the appropriately scaled scale bar should appear (wrt drawing scale!) - now there's one for the gdl gurus.

However I have to say here the titles that shipped with AC10 are miserable - I'd never use one on my projects! What about basic markers for a simple set of working drawings? - totally absent!

Re: Need help getting MY AC10 title right

owen — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 06:06:35 GMT

rwallis wrote:
However I have to say here the titles that shipped with AC10 are miserable - I'd never use one on my projects! What about basic markers for a simple set of working drawings? - totally absent!

So I finally get some time to look at Drawing Titles and i had heard they were a bit of a mess but I figured well at least our local distributor must know how they work. So i opened up one of the ones in the 'localized' library - TitleAus10 - as it looked closest to how we do drawing titles here (most other firms in Australia too i imagine).

Its completely auto-scripted with zero user-editable parameters!

Just like the ones AC created automatically when we migrated a v9 layout book. Nothing stretchy (well at least it doesnt distort) and it sits inside the drawing frame.

Localization ..

Further to that, there is a link to the AC 10 Library Guide in our localized Help menu ... it takes you to the Documentation for the Australian Library which has the NCS Drawing Title.gsm on pg.19 which again looks like what we want.

Now i don't know if our installation is buggered but very little of that stuff is in any libraries I can find that were installed off the localized install CD. Certainly not that object which, according to that document should be in the Australian localized library.

And anyway .. I thought the NCS library was US?

As Drawing Title objects are one of the new things we need to use in 10 I don't think it is unreasonable to expect the localized library to provide a drawing title object with functionality at least up to GS own library object standardsthat most firms here can use - there are not many different styles to chose from. What we were given anyone can do in 30 secs without any understanding of GDL .. File>Libraries and Objects>Save as Title Type.... IMO thats not acceptable library localization.

Re: Need help getting MY AC10 title right

Link — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 09:41:47 GMT

Localization ain't gonna help you here mate! It was buggered way before that!

No doubt about it, titles need improvement, looooots of improvement!

Cheers,
Link.

Re: Need help getting MY AC10 title right

owen — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 01:05:19 GMT

Link wrote:
Localization ain't gonna help you here mate! It was buggered way before that!

Yep .. i guess thats one of my points - it should. I think apart from graphically the standard AC titles do everything we want. The guys responsible for localization should be able to modify GS objects where required to meet local standards without losing functionality where it is required.

Having said that it looks like the titles have set a new GS standard for user unfriendliness .. quite an achievement! I'm certainly no GDL whiz but if you guys are having difficulty with them i can't really expect the local distributors to have it any easier.

I have created one but it does exactly what we need - very few parameters, certainly nothing like the stuff GS has written. But it does what we need it to. Still it requires GDL - File>Libraries and Objects>Save as Title Type is a bunch of crap IMHO

Re: Need help getting MY AC10 title right

owen — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 00:03:57 GMT

I've done a bit more work on our drawing title to get it to automatically adjust its size based on the text content and ran into problems with generating string lengths from autotext - it doesnt work. I know why though and it makes sense.

LiHigh pointed out to me here that there are a number of new AC subtype parameters which can replace autotext and i can see these are a far superior solution than autotext.

However these parameters which are integral to Drawing Titles are NOT automatically created when selecting a Drawing Title subtype - this is apparently a stuff up on GS behalf

I am still wading through the links and documentation he and Frank pointed me to but am yet to find where these are documented. I still can't see anything in the library docs about any functions relating to the new layouting environment in AC10. Its infuriating.

Like Mathew i would be very interested to see some documentation on the various Object Subtypes and all their related default AC parameters. However i'm afraid it doesn't exist. The standard of library documentation really is pathetic.

Re: Need help getting MY AC10 title right

Link — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 07:36:02 GMT

FWIW I got this official reply from GS on setting the stretchiness of titles and their position relative to the drawing:

1) how do I make the title block "stretchy" to match the width of the drawing?
It is not so simple, please see the attached sample object (Example Drawing Title.gsm). In the 2D script at "Draw Your own Drawing Title below this" comment can you write the shape of the Drawing Title.
In custom scripts you can use "titleWidth" GDL variable to set the width of the title.

This sample object demonstrates:
- alignment to a Drawing, Grid, Layout
- automatic streching to Drawing/Grid/Layout width
- setting vertical position

To get Autostrech you have to know the following GDL parameters:
- "AC_TitleFitMode" : indicates the alignment of the object (Drawing, Grid, or Layout)
- "AC_ManualPosition" indicates if the user moved the Drawing Title object manually from the drawing ("Move sub-element" editing method on the Pet palette)
- “AC_DrawingRect”, “AC_GridRect”, and “AC_LayoutRect” indicates the upper-right and upper-left corner position, of the Drawing/Grid/Layout to the Drawing, and the bounding box rotation angle of the Drawing/Grid/Layout.

Using this data the object is capable to compute the width.

2) the title blocks I create always wind up overlapping the drawing meaning the bottom of the title block aligns with the bottom of the drawing. How do I make the top of the title block line up with the bottom of the drawing?

In the 2D script you have to offset the coordinate system vertically using ADD2 GDL command. The offset amount is equal to the height of the Drawing Title.
The "Example Drawing Title" object uses "titleOffset" variable.

Cheers,
Link.

Re: Need help getting MY AC10 title right

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 09:02:18 GMT

Thanks for the tips, I have been trying to adjust my title block to a working format (still not successful, but I am a GDL novice) i will try fix my size problem with an updated understanding of these parameters. I still need more help dealing with the CALL command. I am using it for the graphic scale, but in my title block my "called" scale is in 1:1 rather than the drawings scale, I would greatly appreciate the requirement to get a "CALL"ed scale to match the drawings scale.

Re: Need help getting MY AC10 title right

owen — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 01:09:21 GMT

great work Link

Scott,

There are a bunch of new AC parameters available to get information about the drawing and layout the title is attached to - check out the list at the very top of the object script Link posted. You need to add these parameters to your objects parameters list (think you need to make sure your object is a Drawing Title subtype) as they are not created automatically by AC. They should return all the drawing/layout information you need to use inside your script (e.g AC_DrawingScale returns the placed drawings scale and AC_OriginalDrawingScale returns the placed drawings original scale in the event it has been rescaled on the layout).

Re: Need help getting MY AC10 title right

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 00:41:09 GMT

Thank you everyone for all your help, I finally have a title block that does everything I wanted it to do. I did have a lot of trouble with incorporating a graphic scale that would change with the drawing, so for anyone else having touble with this: by copying the line:

CALL "Graphic_Sc_NCS_drawTit" PARAMETERS gs_cont_pen=17, gs_t.........

from the ncs title block (and making the parameter adjustments you need) the graphic scale should work. For some reason I could never make my graphic scale respond to the drawing, and i could not find the "Graphic_Sc_NCS_drawTit" to see how this object accomplished that task.

There are still some fine tuning I would like to do, and would appreciate any tips you folks out there could offer. The most important parameter that I would like to incorporate would be some drawing type intelligence. I want the north arrow to automatically be show or hidden according to the drawing type, in something of this manner:

IF drawingtype = plan view GOSUB (North arrow subset)
ELSE ....

Next I would like the default selection would not have uniform pen selected. I am pretty sure this is not something scripted into the GDL, but I have not been able to figure out where this default can be set.

Last and least, I would like to have the position of the north arrow be related to the width of the drawing title, do automatically adjust the location based on the length of the text.