Question on notes

You'll want to look into Session ID's (SID) or Component ID's (CID, essentially interchangeable). The note will be something like &model_name:5 for the component with Session ID = 5. To find the Session ID -- Tools -> Relations -> Show -> Session ID. Wish it were easier, like showing on the status bar, etc. but alas ...

How about as a parameter created through Relations where you can "show" it. A parameter I can put in the model tree and easily see it for each component. And so have a list of CIDs or SIDs.

David Janes

Thanks for the replies - that sounds pretty laborious so I will need to see how to make use of it, once I have put out several fires in the office. Admittedly I lit one of them myself....

Here's another one. I want a drawing to show the date and I want it to update from day to day because we constantly reissue it. I write a note with the parameter "&todays_date". Lo and behold, today's date shows up on the drawing. But if I try to edit the text "&todays_date" is no longer there; it is replaced by today's date, literally. That means tomorrow it will have the same date on it, but I want the parameter to remain so that it will always have today's date on it.

How do I get it to stay the same?

Sorry, Graham, no dice. &todays_date works, just as you observe. It takes a snapshot of the system date and replaces the parameter in the note with the date text. No dynamic, current system date. That's for those mickey mouse windoze systems. This is a high class Unuchs program, man. And so, it's doing exactly as it was supposed to do when it was invented in the 80s (and like a ton of stuff in Pro/e, forgotten about) which is where it has remained for the last almost 20 years.

Now, for the typical Pro/e workaround (Pro/e-PTC, the Great Black Hole of the Workaround Universe -- 'why solve a problem when you can "work around it!!!"): this note is part of a format, in a format table so it updates every time you change/replace the format; or, it is in a table that you've saved and place {possibly with a Mapkey [super-ultimate Pro/e wisdom]} each time you create a new drawing. In that case, it will place with the current date. Or you could do the equivalent: in Properties, you change the date text to &todays_date which will again capture the current date.

I can't apologize. I didn't invent and doggedly, stubbornly, inveterately, rigidly maintain this software in the primitive, backward state that it's in. You can thank the PTC board of directors who spend Pro/e's resources on buying new companies, using capital to suck up the "intellectual property" of others.

David Janes

As David has so eloquently stated, it's limited. And confusing. It's not a symbolic name, but a function to return a date string with one interface.

If you haven't looked at it you might check out plot_label (dtl option?).

So I'm stuck with it. Seems the only point of a one-off "todays_date" parameter is so the poor dumb draftsman doesn't have to go and look up the date and/or find the dash key on his keyboard.

You're right. ProE is stuck in its 80's Unix childhood, and all this Wildfire preselect I-can't-point-to-a-feature-on-the-screen-anymore- because-the-whole-model-strobes-cyan-at-me is just like a layer of paint on a house that really needs new foundations. Underneath it's still the same, and that has generally been pretty good, but adding another layer to it doesn't make it better when the fundamentals haven't changed along with the appearance.

Ah, but if I type "&model_name" it doesn't return a string, it maintains the letters "&model_name".

For example. I type in my note:

"&model_name &todays_date"

When I go back to edit it says:

"&model_name:1 14-Feb-07"

I take it the text ":1" that it adds is the session ID you mentioned. So it's a bit like arguing with your wife: you can say "but I did this and you responded that way, and over here I did this and you reacted that way..." but you can't win ;-)

I tried to find this in my dtl file but it doesn't appear in my options.

Uh huh. model_name is a symbolic name, like %model_name%. todays_date is a function, like todays_date(). Semantics, maybe?

Ya got that right. How would you like it to work if you had your druthers? Update the value on regen draft, update tables, file open, file save, plot, ... ? (rhetorical question. I think I understand why it was done the way it was, have no interest in arguing how it should be.)

Maybe in .pcf then? There's a "Label" (?) tick box in the plot dialog. Prints (from memory) username, drawing name and date in left border.

I remembered / rediscovered something, maybe better'n sid's for what you want to do.

If you look at Help -> Detail -> Setting Drawing Parameters -> System Parameters for Drawings there are some &:att_xxx listings. One of them is &:att_mdl (attribute model? attached model?)

So for a part with, for instance, a parameter partNumber (= rel_model_name), you can create a drawing leader note &partNumber:att_mdl that will show the model name of the part (edge or ?surface?) it's attached to.

&model_name:att_mdl no workie. Have to use the :sid / cid form to read the system(?) parameter.