Love Perry's Layout Box Labels

[mgabriel]

Bryce,
If we are able to set a default macro to the layout box label, it could be a user defined mactro or a CA macro. This would allow you the freedom to place whatever style you want to the label. The text style is controlled by the layer on which the label is placed.

[mgabriel]

Bryce,
If we are able to set a default macro to the layout box label, it could be a user defined mactro or a CA macro. This would allow you the freedom to place whatever style you want to the label. The text style is controlled by the layer on which the label is placed.

Sorry, style should be text.

[sutcac]

But with the macros, you can't go all CAPS, correct? I suppose I might be able to get past it, but I just like the all caps better.

[Joe Carrick]

But with the macros, you can't go all CAPS, correct? I suppose I might be able to get past it, but I just like the all caps better.

Bryce,

In the macro just add .upcase after the return value. It's that simple.
Of course you can't do that with Chief's Global Macros - but you can for any that you create. In the case of my Scale macro I didn't include the word "Scale" but if I had, I could have either made it all caps or I could have used scale.upcase as the last line (return value of the macro). What I actually did was include Scale: in the Box Label.

Look carefully at my pics - especially the Label dbx's. You can mix pure text and custom macros to get what you want.

[sutcac]

Cool, I will have a look at that. Thanks.

[Joe Carrick]

Some other Ruby methods for strings:

.capitalize - Capitalizes the string
.upcase - Converts the string to Upper Case
.downcase - Converts the string to Lower Case
.gsub(pattern,replacement - Replaces all occurrences of "pattern" with "replacement"
.reverse - Reversed the characters in the string

There are many more, but these I find most useful.

[sutcac]

Hmmmmm....I had a feeling delving into this macro thing was going to make my brain hurt. I tried to copy the macro syntax exactly as in your example but the user defined macro is greyed out when I try to add it to the layout box label and it looks like I have an evaluation error. Can you tell what I have wrong here? This is a user defined macro in the layout, correct? Not the plan?

[Joe Carrick]

Can you tell what I have wrong here? This is a user defined macro in the layout, correct? Not the plan?

Probably just an error in the definition. The context must be "Owner Object" and the text has to be exactly correct.

scale = box_scale.gsub(/ ft$/, "'-0\"")
scale = scale.gsub("in",'"')
scale

I'm attaching the macro - just import it to your layout (default layout is best way) but you would also need to import or copy it to any existing layouts where you want to use it.

[sutcac]

Thanks again, I just needed to cut and paste your text from the post here. It is hard to see some of the smaller characters correctly from the JPEG posted.

1. I use a RT with the %view.name% imbedded in it (in the Plan) itself for the Main portion of the Label.
2. I use another macro in the Layout (imbedded in the Label of the Layout Box) which is formatted to match the way I like the Scale to be displayed.

Still not getting the full control I would like. Seems to me placing the %viewname% in the plan makes it so if you send the plan to layout at a different scale than the floor plan (say a smaller scale roof plan, which I commonly do) then the drawing title is also smaller, and I want all my drawing titles to be the same size. The scale in the layout works fairly nicely but then my title "FIRST FLOOR PLAN" and the "SCALE: 1/4"=1'-0"" are at the same text size whereas I would prefer the scale portion to be smaller. Doesn't seem to be a way to do that so that it is all in the Layout Box Label so that they move and stay with the layout box independently of what happens in the plan.

Just the labels themselves are very helpful though.

[Joe Carrick]

Thanks again, I just needed to cut and paste your text from the post here. It is hard to see some of the smaller characters correctly from the JPEG posted.



Still not getting the full control I would like. Seems to me placing the %viewname% in the plan makes it so if you send the plan to layout at a different scale than the floor plan (say a smaller scale roof plan, which I commonly do) then the drawing title is also smaller, and I want all my drawing titles to be the same size. The scale in the layout works fairly nicely but then my title "FIRST FLOOR PLAN" and the "SCALE: 1/4"=1'-0"" are at the same text size whereas I would prefer the scale portion to be smaller. Doesn't seem to be a way to do that so that it is all in the Layout Box Label so that they move and stay with the layout box independently of what happens in the plan.

Just the labels themselves are very helpful though.

Unfortunately, LABELS are not RT so they can't be formatted to different sizes. That's why I use the %view.name% in the Plan. I think the only way to make all the View Names the same size in Layout would be to use more than one RT and have each on a different Layer and tie it to your Annosets/Layersets.

IOW, Use a RT Box with one size Text for the Floor Plan and another RT Box for the Roof Plan, etc. You can just Copy the RT Box and edit the text size and Layers for the various scales that you will send to Layout.

[sutcac]

Unfortunately, that seems more complicated and confusing than just using the label for the drawing title name and then just putting the scale in text and marquee selecting in layout if I want to move it, which is more or less what I have been doing.

But, thanks for your help, this thread definitely got me thinking a little more and gave me the impetus to really clean up my layout template and get at least a few things a little more automated.

[Doug Park]

Use text styles set up for the scale you want. You can set up a different text style for each layer set so you can have them scale differently when you send to layout.

[sutcac]

What might be nice is a rich text label.

[fangelo]

Revit has done this for years!!

[perryh]

Considering the cost of Revit, they better have.