Multiple attribute edit

Hi,

Have been running some further test and think Im getting somewhere now. Thanks for the subtotal feature - very handy. I just wondered if you could help me with another issue. Im playing around with the autogenerate attributes and set on instance features. I have tried to multi select objects and I cant seem to edit attributes if I have more than one component / group selected.

I read this text '

If you select and right click on multiple instances or groups, you can set the values for all of them at once. In this case, the current value will not be displayed on the dialog.'

on this page

http://www.renderplus.com/wp2/wk/SpaceDesign_-_Set_on_Instance.php

But whenever I select more than one item the context menu and hover over SpaceDesign, there is no further menu displayed so Im not able to edit anything.

Can you advise please.

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Permalink Reply by Rich Hart on November 1, 2012 at 2:33pm

Edit Instance Attributes only works if there are "Instance" attributes defined..

If you check "On_Instance" for an attribute on the Define Attributes dialog (Show Al Settings) or on the Edit Attribute dialog, then the attributes that you assign are stored on the Instance, rather than on the component definition.

Only those "Instance attributes" can be set for the selection, so Edit Instance Attributes doesn't appear as a right-click if there are no such attributes defined.

Is that what you're seeing?

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Permalink Reply by Sam Morris on November 2, 2012 at 4:59am

Thanks Rich, I get it now. I hadn't checked the 'edit on instances' box - doh!

I wonder if you can advise on something further to this query. Sorry for asking lots of questions but I want to be sure that SpaceDesign can do what we need it to before i change our working process to integrate it. Im very impressed by the ease and speed with which attributes can be edited and think this could be a great solution for our company. I have been running lots of test and now have a fairly good report set up for what we do. We have a large library of around 1000 components and I need to be sure before I change them all - its a bit of a mammoth task. I very much appreciate how quickly you have been responding to all my queries and hope you can help with this.

I have been trying to use the attribute $iname to enable me to search in outliner for components who's instance name i I have changed. Ive added a jpg to show this. Searching for parts is a fairly essential part of what I do as we use standard components and then amend them (re-laminate, re-paint, etc) to do what we need to do.

We may have 10 of the same component in a model but I would like to be able to add a note to change 4 of them (on 4 i type a note into $iname in entity info dialogue, and the other 6 make no change). I'd like to be able to add notes to components in a model and then output a report - which SpaceDesign does very nicely - however I can't search for them. I have been using $iname because if i change a component name (not definition name) then I can search for these items in outliner, multi-select them and then change their attributes all in one go. Eg. I can search for 'Relaminate' and change it to 'Relaminate in red'.

Is there any way that I can search for, select and edit components by typing in an attributes that I have changed with space design

is there any way that $iname can be edited in SpaceDesigns edit attributes dialogue

can $iname reference an editable attribute so that if I change a SpaceDesign attribute $iname references it and updates. At the moment, I think I would have to go through the entire model component by component (for me this could be up to 400 different components) and right click every one to change it with out being able to search.

Long story short - a search function would be amazing or some way of being able to change the $iname in one of SpaceDesigns editable attributes so that outliner can be used to search / display notes.

Sorry for the long winded email but I hope this makes sense and is something that you could help me with. Ive attached a jpeg to show how I would like to name items and then use outliner to search for them.

Again - any help and advice much appreciated. If you have any alternative suggestions for how this could work then please let me know.

Thanks

Sam

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Permalink Reply by Sam Morris on November 2, 2012 at 5:11am

Changed the images ...

Attachments:

Search.JPG, 174 KB
Filter.JPG, 149 KB

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Permalink Reply by Render Plus on November 3, 2012 at 6:24am

We have had very little interest in "per instance" attributes - even though we think they are very valuable for cases where you want to track location, serial number, inventory, etc. - so we haven't done much with it yet.

Based on your comments we will add the following:

1. $iname with be a read/write setting - If you change it on an instance we will update the SketchUp Component name by instance.

2 We will create a Wizard to select components by Attribute values - using wildcards such as "Finance*" - and using both instance attributes and definition attributes. After entering the criteria - you can either just select the instances - or select them and launch the Instance Attribibute Editor.

3. The instance Attribute Editor will have a check-box next to each attribute for whether you want to change it. If you change the value of the attribute on the Edit Wizard the box will automaticall check.
We are trying to solve the problem where you have multiple instance attributues - e.g. $iname, cost and weight - load the editor and only want to change one (or more) of the attributes - but not all.

We will try to get these changes released next week.