-
Coinciding with the acquisition of VIA Development, Nate joined Autodesk in March of 2003 after a decade stint as an entrepreneur following a two-decade stint as a controls engineer and software applications developer at Owens-Corning. Nate is now the lead product architect for AutoCAD Electrical. He loves this stuff.
-
Wildcard Filtering in Reports
November 28, 2006 06:34 AMby Nate HoltI am in Vegas this week and it seems like an appropriate time to talk about wild cards. Just in the last 24 hours I know of two instances where this has happened: users asked about filtering AutoCAD Electrical reports based upon wild-carded INST and/or LOC location code assignments.
For example, let's say I've marked all of the customer-supplied schematic components and existing equipment with a LOC code of "CUST". Now it's simple to get a quick report... let's say a BOM report of just the customer-supplied items. I just start the report, enter CUST in the "LOC" edit box, and hit OK.
But let's say I want a report of all components that are NOT customer supplied. Hmm.
I have two choices. I can either enter into the LOC edit box ALL of the used location codes separated by commas, or, use the AutoCAD "tilde" wildcard character and enter just "~CUST" into the LOC edit box. This prefix means "not CUST". In other words, my report shows everything but with CUST items filtered out. Cool.
Here is a list of all of the AutoLisp-supported wild-card characters (pulled from the normal Visual Lisp help):
Let's say we want a BOM report of all components in PNL2 and any operator station with an OPSTA2 location prefix. Enter this string into the LOC location edit box::
PNL2,OPSTA2*
Finally, there's this odd situation. Let's say I've marked some of my location codes with an embedded # character, like "PNL#4" or "MCC#1". Since the # character is itself a wild card character, I need to use the reverse quote character like this in order for the # character to be read "literally" instead of as a wild-card character:
PNL`#4,MCC`#1
This gives me a report of all items in PNL#4 and MCC#1. Pretty neat.
-
AutoCAD Electrical - beta
November 13, 2006 02:55 PMby Nate HoltThe AutoCAD Electrical team would like to invite existing AutoCAD Electrical users to participate in the Beta Program for an upcoming release of AutoCAD Electrical, code named "Niagara". The goal of the Beta Program is to give you a preview of what's coming and to test the new release. Our ultimate objective is to collect
and review your feedback on the new release.
To enroll in the Niagara Beta please go to: http://myfeedback.autodesk.com and select Sign up from the Active Zone Menu. You will then be asked to fill out a profile. Please use Niagara in the Beta Code field (at the top of the sign up page) and select "AutoCAD Electrical" as your product of interest. You will be emailed a password for the general site once the beta team has reviewed and approved your application.
If you are already a member of the MyFeedback Beta portal (http://myfeedback.autodesk.com) you do NOT need to sign up, instead login to the beta portal and click on the User button found at the top of the page. Please add Niagara in the Beta Code field and click Save at the bottom of your user profile. If you have forgotten your password, you can click on the Forgot Your Password link under Login menu and an email will be sent to you with your password or send an email request to myfeedback@autodesk.com.
When you logon you will be able to see all the zones you are added to - initially this may be none. When you are added to a new zone you will be emailed a notice and the new project will appear on your MyFeedback portal
page when logged in. The process of adding participants to zones is not automatic and requests are reviewed periodically during business hours and some betas may not be active or require a slight wait until the start date.
We look forward to your participation and feedback in this Beta Program!
If you have any questions please email myfeedback@autodesk.com.