Note Browser/Inspector/Power Editor

[josh]

Hi folks,
Based on the discussion here (viewtopic.php?t=2657 ), I’ve created a macro for exploring all the notes in a drawing.
This macro will list all note annotations in the drawing by sheet and view.
You can explore all the notes on all sheets of a drawing without actually activating the sheets.
You can select notes from the list on the form, or you can pick a note in the graphics area and hit “Get Selected Note”.
This macro will also list all notes on the sheet format. You can then edit those notes without editing the sheet format.
When you select a note, you can view and edit its name, see its object ID, and see all the actual text that’s stored in the note.
This includes the text of linked properties, all of the “SWML” that sets the formatting/paragraphs/bullets/symbols/etc. (See attached pic for example)
Directly editing the "SWML" will allow you do do some things that you can't do through the UI, such as custom delimiters on the number, putting borders in fractions, etc.
You can edit the note text and apply the change to the note in the drawing, even if that note is not on the currently active sheet.

If you have any feedback or suggestions for additional function, I may or may not be able to implement…

[josh]

Updated to show/edit hyperlinks.

[zwei]

I give it a quick try... a few comment

1. Can the sheet format note be separated from the drawing note?
2. Can the total number of note in a sheet/view be displayed?
3. Can the sheet and view info of the selected not be displayed on the info and content? (If you select a note, the info and content section is updated but if you select another sheet/view again, the info and content will not update until u select a different note...having the info of what we previously selected will be useful)
4. Textbox's Locked properties should be set to TRUE for GetText, TextAtIndex, FormatInfo as they are not meant to be change by user?

[josh]

Good suggestions... All are implemented in this version except:
Total number of notes in the "Sheets" box is not implemented because accessing the drawing sheet view of inactive sheets is not possible. When you select an inactive sheet in the Sheets box, the macro disables screen update, switches sheets, reads the views, then switches back to the original sheet. If I displayed note count per sheet in the Sheets box, I would have to activate every sheet which would be too much processing time for a large drawing for not much value. :-)

[mattpeneguy]

Good suggestions... All are implemented in this version except:
Total number of notes in the "Sheets" box is not implemented because accessing the drawing sheet view of inactive sheets is not possible. When you select an inactive sheet in the Sheets box, the macro disables screen update, switches sheets, reads the views, then switches back to the original sheet. If I displayed note count per sheet in the Sheets box, I would have to activate every sheet which would be too much processing time for a large drawing for not much value. :-)

Interesting. I didn't know how that worked. Looks like the programmers thought this part through in a way that works out. Makes sense that notes tied to views to be accessible without loading the views because it's just text information and takes very little resources to load into memory.

I was going to post that it would be great if you could extend this to change notes in a folder full of drawings without opening them. But, the drawing has to be loaded into memory to be able to access the notes. So, they have to be opened anyway. So, similarly for performance reasons, it makes little sense to pursue it.