Danijel Kovac

Bottom left corner of the Background Title Block smartframe has the page number field inserted. I'd like to change it to show the page name (eg: wire pull chart) and under it show the page type & number eg: 3 plan view pages each numbered PV1, PV2, PV3 etc. Wire Pull pages to show WPC1, WPC2, etc. I've seen some really good examples of what people are doing with D-tools, and I'd like to incorporate some of those ideas into my drawings;
Is this possible?

NareshN

Hi,

Before doing this please take a backup of DT Annotations.vss in the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\D-Tools\SI5\Visualizations\Stencils folder. If any problem you can revert to this backup file.

The way to do this is to edit the "Smart Frame L-scape" master shape in DT Annotations.vs. Follow these steps -

1. Open your stencil tree (D-Tools | View | Display Stencil Tree) and right click the "DT Annotations" and click "Display Docked Stencil".

2. The DT Annotations stencil should now be open in read only mode. Right click the stencil tab and select "Edit Stencil" to start editing the stencil.
title block1.JPG

3. Double click the "Smart Frame L-scape" to edit this master shape. This will open a new Visio window with the master shape in edit mode.

4. The Master shape you see is a grouped shape. A grouped shape is a a number of child shapes combined into one shape. You need to select the child shapes within the grouped parent shape to change the child shape properties.
The master shape by default does not let you select child shapes. To change this you change a value in the "Shape Sheet" of the master shape. Select the master shape (the main shape on edit master window) and click "Window" | "Show ShapeSheet". Change the property called "SelectMode" in "Group Properties from 0 to 1 as shown below.
title block2.JPG
This change allows you to select child shapes within the parent shape.
Close the Shape Sheet window and return to the window which is editing the master shape.

5. Select the child shape you want to change. You want to change the child shape which shows the page number to show the page name. Select the shape which says "0" in bottom right (this is the one which shows page number). Now select Insert | Field from the menu (after the correct child shape has been selected). You will see a "Field" dialog where you insert a number of built in Visio fields into a shape. In this dialog change the textbox to show the PageName as follows: -
title block3.JPG

6. To show the page type and number there is no built in formula to do this. You will have to type this on each page in a Visio textbox.

7. Before saving the master make sure to open the shape sheet for the main shape and set the SelectMode back to 0 to prevent child shapes from being selected.

7. Now save and close the Master shape. Save DT Annotations.vss (right click stencil tab and click Save).

8. In your Visio templates go to the Background Title Block page and delete the Title Shape there and replace with the updated "Smart Frame L-scape" from DT Annotations.vss. This will update the Title Block on all pages.

Danijel Kovac

Thanks Naresh, As it turns out, the page name feild is already available so I didn't have to go to the trouble of what you described. As for the page type, like you said; manually put it on each page and be done with it! tnx again!