When one Tag-ID isn't enough

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  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.

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  When one Tag-ID isn't enough
  February 2, 2007, 12:12 AM Nate Holt

  Let's say that you design coordinated drive systems. You've built up a nice big schematic library symbol for the variable speed drive itself but it's so big and busy that it makes it hard to find its tag-ID text. Plus, you really need to have the tag-ID show up a couple more times on the symbol. Not just for the main tag-ID but a few more strategically placed on the drawing. You'd like a piece of attribute text that you can move to the bottom of the drawing as a label for DIP-switch settings. Maybe another one that you can position near a power setting jumper detail.
  
  But most important thing you want is this, you want all three of these attribute text values to update together when you first pop in the symbol and also, later on, if you edit the tag-ID or if you re-tag your project drawing set.
  
  Not a problem. Several approaches, one would be to create some dummy "child" components.
  
  The COPYTAG Method
  
  But here's a cool alternative... add a couple COPYTAG attributes to your symbol and, bingo, you're good to go. Here's how it works...
  
  Let's just use this simple example symbol below. It's a "parent" symbol because it carries the AutoCAD Electrical attribute TAG1. It carries other normal attributes for wire connections, descriptions, terminal pins, and ratings to be pulled into various reports.
  
  
  
  But it has two extra attributes at the bottom... COPYTAG01 and COPYTAG02. These are the extra ones we've added to carry a copy of the assignment that ends up on the main tag-ID attribute TAG1. When AutoCAD Electrical pushes a value out to the TAG1 attribute, it will also update any COPYTAG* attributes it also finds on the symbol.
  
  The %T Parameter
  
  But wait, there's more... note the strange parameter held in the "Prompt" field of each attribute definition:
  
  
  
  
  
  You can define a character string of text to output to the attribute. The calculated tag-ID will pop in at the point where you've embedded the %T parameter.
  
  So, here's our symbol just after AcadE inserts it into a drawing:
  
  
  
  The COPYTAG* attributes will follow the main tag-ID at the top. Now just grip each one (or use AcadE's move attribute tool) and move down to the bottom of your drawing, just above the dip switch and power settings info. Again, they'll auto-update, no matter where you move them to on your schematic. Pretty neat. If you don't want any extra text with the copies, just leave the "Prompt" attribute definition value blank.
  
  
  
  
  
  

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