Topic: Need Issue date to update when printing

[ELOQUINTET]

we have a button which we press on each layout to show the current date (the issue date) when we send out a drawing. I am trying to find a way to check to see if the attribute has been updated and if not update it when plotting or publishing. I recall trying to do this with fields a long time ago but the problem was we wanted the issue date retained but it updated when we printed a revised set. any ideas of a better way of doing this? here is the macro:

^C^CZOOM;EXTENTS;_.TEXTEVAL 1 _-ATTEDIT _Y *;ISS_DATE *;_C (GETVAR "EXTMIN") (GETVAR "EXTMAX"); _V _R (TODAY) ;_N _-ATTEDIT _Y *;UP_DATE *;_C (GETVAR "EXTMIN") (GETVAR "EXTMAX"); _V _R (UPTODAY) ;_N;z;p;

[craigr]

In LT there is a command called 'revdate'.

If the full version has it, would that do the trick? You could add the 'revdate' command to the front of the button's commands.

Or am I misunderstanding what you are after?

craigr

[Guest]

There's a PLOTDATE field (not to be confused with the DATE field).  I believe this is supposed to update ONLY when a draiwng is plotted - I haven't verified it yet.

[Keith™]

We do something very similar, except we automagically update the issue date whenever the drawings are plotted. Our plotting routine calls a lisp that updates the date before plotting.

[craigr]

So, simply for my curiosity, IS there a 'revdate' command in the full version of AutoCad?

craigr

[ELOQUINTET]

i was actually thinking about this in bed last night (scary) and i think i need to explain it a little better. getting the date to update when the drawing is plotted is not a problem the plot date field works perfectly for this. the trick is when the drawing comes back for revision and the revised drawing is printed we don't want the issue date modified. the drawing will then have a revision date attached to it and the "original" issue date will remain intact. what i was thinking of last night is that if we could have a routine which we could run across multiple drawings with multiple layouts that would look for the plot date field and explode it which would convert it to text that would preserve the date. basically now we have to do it for each layout tab and it sucks so i'm trying to find a solution. i hope it makes more sense now, anymore ideas?

[Keith™]

Ok, ours is simple ... we have several spots on the title block available for revision dates and the original issue date. We don't differentiate between the two types for our date program. What we do is determine first if there are any revision fields that should be updated, if there are, it updates the revision field and leaves the original issue date alone. If there are no revision dates, the issue date is updated to reflect the plot date.

You have a couple of items that you need to figure out how to automate.
Q. How do I tell if it is a revision or a first issue?
A. Search the drawing for any revision dates, if there are any, then it must be a revision, otherwise it "might" be the first revision.

Q. If it is the first revision how can I tell the difference?
A. If the Issue date is not current, then it must be a revision.

Q. If I find revision dates, how do I tell if it should be updated or another date added?
A. If the latest revision date is not the current date, then you should add an additional date and make it the current date.

Q. What happens if I plot the drawing today for review and it updates the date, but the plans are not being released until tomorrow?
A. Design a setting in your plotting routine that allows you to specify if a new date field should be added automatically or if the latest available date should be updated to reflect the current date. This way you could override the addition of a new date field if the date of the latest revision is not the current date.

[craigr]

We have one spot on our title block that is the date of the initial release of the dwg.

Every time the dwg has be modified in any way, the 'revdate' command must be given.

When a dwg has been modified & leaves our office, the Rev number is changed also.

There are many times that our dwgs are re-printed, changing the date every time it is printed would totally confuse us.

That being said, a few of our guys don't use the 'revdate' command when they modify their dwgs, so I have added the 'revdate' command to their 'save' button. My thought is that if they haven't modified the dwg, there is no reason to hit the 'save' button.

craigr

[ELOQUINTET]

basically we have blocks for each revision that we do which also have buttons similar to this to update the date. what i do is insert it on the first page update the date then use the copyb routine to copy it to the rest. this isn't the best setup either but i don't do revisions as often so it's not as big of a deal right now. i happen to be sending out a huge set of drawings right now that's why it's annoying me at the moment. you have a good thought keith it could look for the first revision block on each layout tab and if it wasn't present it would continue to update the date and once it was present it would not. do you think you could share your date program with me it sounds along the lines of what i need or at least it will be a good start? o yeah by the way craig there is no revdate command in 2006. thanks for all the help guys