DigiPara Blog

New Liftdesigner Region Kit - Traditional Chinese (CH TW)

Liftdesigner now also supports traditional Chinese drawing messages.

After selecting the corresponding language Id in the Drawing Language toolbar in Liftdesigner, the drawing messages will be displayed in traditional Chinese (CH TW).

The traditional Chinese region kit module will be part of the next Liftdesigner update, but can also be downloaded separately via the below link:

http://www.digipara.com\download\library\LD5_RegionKit_Chinese_Taiwan.zip

Installation instructions:

IMPORTANT: This region kit update requires at least Liftdesigner version 5.3 or a higher version.

The zip file contains one file with the extension ".ldm". This ldm-file must be copied into the "Masterpath\data\Manufacturer" directory of your Liftdesigner installation. In most cases a file with the same name already existists in this directory. Please replace the existing file, with the more recent, downloaded file.

Typically the MasterPath-directory is located at:
C:\Program Files\Digipara\LD50\MasterPath\data\Manufacturer

Afterwards, Liftdesigner must be restarted, in order to import the new region kit library information into the program.

Adding a Sheet Constant with translations

Normally in Liftdesigner you can add Sheet Constants depending on rules. You can combine this feature with a translation message to create a constant that has translations. This can be extremely useful for drawing title blocks.

In the example we will see how we can do this for a constant called "PistonSide" that shows where the piston is positioned in the shaft.

First create appropriate LD  Drawing Messages and translations for each piston position. In our example this is rear, left and right.

Then create 3 sheet constants that correspond to the 3 sides. Name all 3 of them "PistonSide". This can be done since only one constant will be true each time, depending on the piston position.

 

   

In the SHCSTITEM_RULE column, put LDS("") & "External$(""MSGGRP3200.MSG00"")", changing the numbers to correspond with your drawing message. Then in the SHCSTITEM_CONDITION, use the piston side LD("Shaft0.Car.Frame.WALL")=2 as a rule for the constant.

To use this constant in a dwg title block, we must remember that constants are stored in Sheet.Storage. and the title block is a viewframe in a sheet. However, since we never know in advance the sheet index, you have to reference the constant in a relative way.

The sheet is the parent of the viewframe, so we use Me.Parent. to reference it. To use the constant we created, use this reference External$("Me.Parent.Storage.PistonSide")

This way you can have only one title block for every piston position and every language. The same trick can be applied to the counterweight side for traction elevators.

 

 

Choosing a Sheet/Viewframe by name

Sometimes it is usefull to do specific tasks (i.e. add an overwrite, move an annotative text) in a particular sheet/viewframe.  However there is no built-in function in the API to bring back a sheet/viewframe by name.

The following VB.NET snippet brings back a specific sheet by name:

[code]

Private Function BringSheet(ByRef Name As String) As LDX.LDXSheet
        For Each ldSheet As LDX.LDXSheet In Me.m_ldDoc.Sheets
            If ldSheet.ZB_DESC = Name Then
                BringSheet = ldSheet
                Return BringSheet
            End If
        Next
        BringSheet = Nothing
        Return BringSheet
    End Function

[/code]

The following VB.NET snippet brings back a specific viewframe on a specific sheet by name:

 

Private Function BringViewFrame(ByRef SheetName As String, ByRef ViewFrameName As String) As LDX.LDXSheetFrame
        For Each ldSheet As LDX.LDXSheet In Me.m_ldDoc.Sheets
            If ldSheet.ZB_DESC = SheetName Then
                For Each ldSheetFrame As LDX.LDXSheetFrame In ldSheet
                    If ldSheetFrame.DeveloperName = ViewFrameName Then
                        BringViewFrame = ldSheetFrame
                        Return BringViewFrame
                    End If
                Next
            End If
        Next
        BringViewFrame = Nothing
        Return BringViewFrame
    End Function

"Annotative" Text is not displayed in Autocad

Within LIFTdesigner 5.4 we have upgraded the DWG libraries to Support DWG 2010 format.Together with this change a client had a problem to export text to Autocad. Even if the export format is DWG 2007 format, that text is not displayed in Autocad.

The reason is that the text is marked as "Annotative". For any reason Autocad rejects blocks with annotative texts inside. Setting the option "Annotativ" to "No" fixes the problem. This problem may also occur within existing DWG files, that worked properly in 5.3.

Solution: Update the existing source DWG files.