RlxBlk - Replace / Redefine blocks , visibility states , preview and link attributes

[rlx]

Hi,

 

 

Written a tool for replacing (updating) blocks. Had some spare time untill my boss recently used the W-word again (work , yak!)

 

 

Anywayz , its a prototype so I'm not sure its stable and safe yet because I only did some lab testing. I hope it will be usefull. Not sure if I will be able to work on it further any time soon because I still have a few ideas and wishes.

 

 

gr. Rlx

RlxBlk manual.doc

RlxBlk.lsp

RlxBlk.dcl

Edited June 28, 2017 by rlx

[halam]

Ontzettend gaaf Rlx !!

Translated: OMG !!

[Lee Mac]

Wow Rlx - I can see that a lot of time & effort has been invested in the program, well done.

[halam]

..one on idea for improvement that comes in mind..

Please add transperancy 'bylayer' or 'byblock' to make it even better in 3d use.

(transparency 'byblock' is "my horse on a stick" as Van Gaal would put it)

 

Definitely gonna try it out later

[rlx]

Ontzettend gaaf Rlx !!

Translated: OMG !!

 

 

Always nice to hear my work is appreciated :-) If and when I have the time I will have a look @ your doorschijn dinges (transparency)

 

 

gr. Rlx

[rlx]

Wow Rlx

 

 

Thanx Lee , coming from you this is a big compliment :-) Hope you don't mind taking apart your blockpreview routine because it was too complex for my braincell to get it all at once ;-) and I spent lots of time looking at your examples on the trans command and dictionary's. It will never be my thingy but at least I got the basics enough to be able to use it for the preview of nested blocks.

 

 

gr.R.

[Grrr]

Impressive work, Rlx!

 

You make some magical things with these dialogs, so I'm collecting your programs as examples to inspect.

[rlx]

Impressive work, Rlx!

 

You make some magical things with these dialogs, so I'm collecting your programs as examples to inspect.

 

Thank you Grrr, still think there's lots of room for improvement / optimizing but as long as its got the job done I'm happy :-). And part of the credit should go to Lee , dont think I could have done it without his blockpreview routine I found somewhere on the net.

 

gr. Rlx

[rlx]

..one on idea for improvement that comes in mind..

Please add transperancy 'bylayer' or 'byblock' to make it even better in 3d use.

(transparency 'byblock' is "my horse on a stick" as Van Gaal would put it)

 

Definitely gonna try it out later

 

 

The ink is still dry so to speak but this version should be able to do your wish... haven't done much testing yet.

 

 

 

 

gr. Rlx

 

 

I've updated the code in post #1 with transparancy option and cleaned up the filter dialog

RlxBlk.dcl

RlxBlk.lsp

Edited July 12, 2017 by rlx

[MarcinR]

Rlx this looks truly amazing, but I end up with this message immediately after running command RLXBLK:

 

 

Can you help me understand what am I dooing wrong?

 

thx

[rlx]

Must admit haven't done anything with this program for a long time , mainly because me , myself & I and my colleagues rarely used it and its a little 'hard to drive' because I went a little over the top with all the options. Problem you're having is probably dcl file isn't in your search / support path so add the folder that holds both lisp and dcl to your support path.

Have been working on what was supposed to be a lighter version (a work in progress) but have so much work that there are just not enough hours in my day's. I will add this lighter version too,  which was originally only meant to be no more than a fancy redefine command like insert blk=c:/mypath/blk but it still need a few finishing touches and I'm not sure how far I've gotten with this one.

 

 

RlxBlockSync.lsp

[masterfal]

On 12/9/2020 at 8:08 PM, rlx said:

Must admit haven't done anything with this program for a long time , mainly because me , myself & I and my colleagues rarely used it and its a little 'hard to drive' because I went a little over the top with all the options. Problem you're having is probably dcl file isn't in your search / support path so add the folder that holds both lisp and dcl to your support path.

Have been working on what was supposed to be a lighter version (a work in progress) but have so much work that there are just not enough hours in my day's. I will add this lighter version too,  which was originally only meant to be no more than a fancy redefine command like insert blk=c:/mypath/blk but it still need a few finishing touches and I'm not sure how far I've gotten with this one.

 

 

RlxBlockSync.lsp 169.04 kB · 4 downloads

 

this is so cool!

for some reason though it doesn't show my dynamic blocks updated, even though they are updated (i've tried regen'ing). normal blocks are updating fine its just the dynamic ones doing strange things.

for example say i have a dynamic block which contains red objects and in a certain drawing those object have been changed to yellow. after running your routine the objects are still yellow but then if i go into the block i can see the objects are actually red to match original block as they should be. then if i exit they show up as yellow again and i can't get it to show correctly unless i modify something inside the dynamic block first. hope that makes sense..

 

[rlx]

Bottom right in the main dialog is a button called setup. It has option redefine block. Maybe this helps. I have only a few dynamic blocks at work and therefore little experience. Made a few blocks with visibility states , just for fun & testing, but our cad 'guru' still uses symbols on network that are at least 30 years old and he doesn't like paperspace and true colors. I wonder if he even knows about visibility states. So can't really say without example. But dynamic blocks can be difficult to handle. I made this app for one (big) job a couple of years ago and once done never looked at it again so I'm a little rusty...

[masterfal]

theres no setup option on the rlxblksync one i was using.. there is on the original but i found this newer one works a bit better. but anyway i did try that out before but just does the same thing and does show the dynamic block updated.

i've attached an example dwg with a dynamic block inside. wblock it and then go into it and change colour or something and then exit and run the routine to try update back to the wblock version. it looks like it didn't work but if you go into the block it should look like the wblock version. but then exit and it reverts back to the new changed version. makes no sense.

(by the way i don't think its anything to do with your routine thats making this happen. theres something funny with how autocad is reading these blocks i think..)

 

 

 

EXAMPLE-.dwg

 

Edited December 18, 2020 by masterfal

[rlx]

Ah, you're talking about the Sync routine , that's different. This one (probably) doesn't handle visibility states at the moment. I have transplanted some code from RlxBlk into the Sync version but not finished / tested it because I just don't have the time at this moment. Also , this would only work in lisp/dbx mode where routine would read all props & values from (renamed) original block , deleted it , insert new block , copy back props & values. This can't done by a normal / core script alone. I have to come back on this.

 

had a look and it seems with dynamic block you have to reset the block. Added reset to a couple of places in attached version. Maybe it works...haven't tested it yet

RlxBlockSync.lsp

Edited December 18, 2020 by rlx
update

[MarcinR]

On 12/9/2020 at 12:08 PM, rlx said:

Must admit haven't done anything with this program for a long time , mainly because me , myself & I and my colleagues rarely used it and its a little 'hard to drive' because I went a little over the top with all the options. Problem you're having is probably dcl file isn't in your search / support path so add the folder that holds both lisp and dcl to your support path.

Have been working on what was supposed to be a lighter version (a work in progress) but have so much work that there are just not enough hours in my day's. I will add this lighter version too,  which was originally only meant to be no more than a fancy redefine command like insert blk=c:/mypath/blk but it still need a few finishing touches and I'm not sure how far I've gotten with this one.

 

 

RlxBlockSync.lsp 169.04 kB · 9 downloads

 

Hi,

Many htanks for all your input on this topic so far. Following your initial advise I managed to run the program.

 

Unfortunately I was not successful with the expected outcome. I was not able to replace any blocks using external files. 

Below you can see screenshots of example I created to test the routine. There are 2x files with one standard block with the same name ('block1') but different geometry. This is as basic as it can be.

In step 1 the program seems running and I can select the files/bocks/properties etc.

 

After pressing ok, there is no reaction and block1 geometry is not updating. 

In addition, there are various error messges in the command line field when I was testing various dynamic blocks with parameters/actions assigned.

 

Where is the secret to make all this click......

[rlx]

If I remember correctly using dbx the source drawing should be closed , think I never updated RlxBlk to handle both source and target opened at the same time but his should be easy to fix. Another problem was the filter option , default setting wasn't always working as it should and had to make sure to clear props used to select blocks. I sometimes needed option to only update blocks on a certain layer or sometimes with a specific angle etc.

 

I believe rest of the week every evening there is Darts on tv and the couch patato next to me , sorry I mean my lovely wife likes to watch this (so does my dad when he visits) and I #$ hate it. I rather want to listen to my Bryston / Magnepan stereo  but I can't ...!@#$ Darts! Anyways, maybe spent my time better trying to have a look at the code again. Both apps , rlxblk/blocksync were never created with dynamic blocks high on my priority list , only needed visibility states a couple of times so RlxBlk won't handle any other dynamic prop.

 

update : had a little test run last night and had no problems , program did what it was suppost to do (making sure source was closed and properties to find were cleared)

 

Edited December 30, 2020 by rlx

[Andrew86]

Hello 

Can I Get this? the link says its no longer available

[Cad64]

41 minutes ago, Andrew86 said:

Hello 

Can I Get this? the link says its no longer available

I just checked all the links in this thread and they all appear to be working.

[BIGAL]