Date problem, please help

It sounds as if you know the answer already. You have to change every computer in the Windows setting to the Windows Date/Time to show

2005-06-21. We use the same date codeing and we have all (2) of our CAD stations set to have the 2005-06-21 date code and it works fine.

KM

Well, that only works for the computers that CREATE the drawing. If you save the drawing, and open it on another computer that doesnt have that date format setting in the system settings, the date WILL change from how you had it on your computer.

Why does SolidWorks do this? I can understand this when you first enter the date, but this format shouldnt change by just opening the document.

The problem is, we have 20+ people who view SolidWorks drawings. Only about 8 actually create them.

Also, if I send it out for a quote, it wouldnt make sense to have to tell them to change their Windows settings so the date will display correctly.

Am I the only one that has this problem ? :)

The action makes sense to me in that the user sees a date formatted per his choice. I don't know exactly what your macro does to stuff in the date, but how about changing it to grab today's date, convert it to text, put it in the desired order, and then stuff that value into the note.

WT

That is starting to sound a little more complicated. What about setting the "viewers" to read only access to the drives of your drawings. We changed to the long date code for manufacturers overseas. We did make sure their date code was the same as ours. Anyone else we send prints to either gets it via Edrawings or PDF so it makes it easier for us.

KM

That sounds like it would work. If its in text format, than the windows setting wouldnt matter.

Do you have such a macro to do this? Im not sure how to get a macro to convert the date to text, and put it in the desired order :)

In your macro, set a variable for the date to the type of String, such as: Dim strDate as String

Then down in your code do something like: strDate = Date

This will assign the current date value to the variable as a string, which you can then assign to your date field as you currently are. If you still need help, post your macro code where you are currently assigning the current date.

WT

Oops, I forgot to rearrange it. Use the substring function to grab a piece of it and then paste it back together.

WT

Thanks WT,

Here is my code. Somehow, I think your first post didnt go thru.

Dim swApp As Object Dim DrawingDoc As Object Sub main() Set swApp = CreateObject("SldWorks.Application") Set DrawingDoc = swApp.ActiveDoc retval = DrawingDoc.DeleteCustomInfo("DATE") retval = DrawingDoc.AddCustomInfo("DATE", "Date", Str(Date)) DrawingDoc.EditRebuild End Sub

Sorry for the delay - quite busy.

It looks like it should work with a couple things. Change the AddCustomInfo line to:

retval = DrawingDoc.AddCustomInfo("DATE", "Text", Str(Date))

This sets the type of the property to text, rather than a date property. The date string that you paste back in then will be in the format of your current Windows setting, which should be as you want it, and the property in the file should not change since it's text, and not a date.

Now, the other issue. The DeleteCustomInfo function is case sensitive, as in if the file has a property called "Date" then the delete will fail, and you won't be able to write the new one in. So, if your drawings are all the same - ok. If not, you will have to either delete it manually, or run a routine that looks through all the properties to see if one exists that is the same as "DATE" only with different case.

WT

That works. Thanks. I would be nice if the macro could change the date to the proper format, rather than getting everyone to change their windows date/time setting. I noticed the date format also changes in a number of other programs, which could give us a headache later on.

Do know of a way to have a custom property in a particular cell of the new revision table added in SW 2004? If I edit text in the cell, and link to a custom property, the custom property doesnt show up, only $PRP:"Released_Date"

Reason I need this in a cell, is we start off at Rev 0. When adding a Rev to the rev table, it starts at Rev 1. So we had to manually add a row, so we could have a Rev 0.