Hi folks. First time poster here. My company uses a mix of AutoCAD 2010 and 2009. We have what I thought would be a widespread need, but I can't find a parallel case anywhere. to wit:
Our drawings use the same information several times. For instance, our product (pressure vessels) design pressure is in a table of design parameters. The same pressure is used in an operations limits table. The same information is shown on the ASME nameplate. The same information is often on a special customer-required nameplate.
There are about 50 of these variables that can change one way or another. If the variable changes value, trying to keep track of all the instances of that variable can be a pain in a crowded drawing and they can fall out of synch... much to my embarassment when the AI busts me.
I'd like to have a way to register these variables in the drawing and then call them out as fields in the title block, the design parameter table, et cetera. One location, one value, many references to it = no synchronization problems. I have tried to use the drawing custom properties and it does work, but the interface is quite.... clunky, especially when the custom prop count gets above 10 or so.
Is there an eloquent way of doing the same job as custom properties?
I can do Excel-style VBA but have never attempted AutoCAD VBA. I undertand they are quite dissimilar. I'm not sure that's the way I should go, anyway. I've also tried having a block with invisible attributes, but the object ID changes from drawing to drawing.
Thanks for any input you can offer.