Multiple Visibilites of Same Attribute

I have a block, dynamic, attached... that basically makes a side view and a front view of the same piece of equipment. In the front view, there are three pieces of information... Make, Model, and System Designation.

 

I would REALLY like for the system Designation to also appear in the side view of the block... like a field. I don't know much about fields... but from what I understand, you can't put one within a block.

 

Is there any way to duplicate this information without having to make it a seperate attribute and enter it twice?

CD RACK.dwg

fields are REALLY useful for some things, and a pain for others. ATTRIBUTES are a pain as the field references set information but an attribute can change. The fields can get confused.

 

Another thing that ATTRIBUTEs struggle with is visibility. Single attributes are not too bad but switching multiple attribute is prone to frustration BUT do you need your system designation to be hidden? Can't you just position it so that it remains constantly visible irrespective of what geometry is being shown?

 

If you can't position it correctly for both visibilities you can assign a point parameter to it and reposition it although you may (counter intuitively) have to LOCK the position of the attribute.

But I need it to be in both places at once. We will be viewporting the two views seperately, but next to each other... so it needs to show up in both places.

Fields will do what you want, but

ATTRIBUTES are a pain as the field references set information but an attribute can change. The fields can get confused.

and this will come into play as you copy the attributed block around the drawing. You could give it a try, I would make the copy MTEXT and use fields to mimic the attributes value.

 

Then again maybe I am confused by what you need.

 

My best guess would be a LISP to do this effectively.

I know a good CAD Manager in the area looking for work that might solve the problem for you.

I read your comments re' applying fields to mimic attribute value and wonder if this could apply to the following issue;

I'm searching for a way to populate the text in multiple blocks with text extracted from the dwg title sheet attributes.

The title sheet includes text attributes describing values A, B, C etc; So I'm hoping to type this text only once per layout and see it inserted into several other blocks on same layout only.

Any thoughts on how this could be simplified ?

Edited May 1, 2011 by milldew
privacy

milldew, you may want to remove your email address or post it in a non-link format (me at yahoo dot com) so it is not picked up by spammers.

 

Before I mentioned MTEXT, but you may also want look into RTEXT.

It's my understanding that blocks can't have fields of their own attributes. Someone wrote a lisp that'll do it for me, but then when you move the block, the text stays behind. I need to be able to move them together.

 

If you run the lisp I included... (make sure the dwg is in your support path, too), you'll see what I'm talking about. The command is RU once you load it.

 

This seems like one of the simpler things I've asked of CAD, and I can't make it do it!

CD RACK.dwg

test3.lsp

Do the attributes have to move in the side view, or can they stay in that same row like you have them now?

It needs to be in the side view. Basically there are going to be 10 or 20 of these blocks stacked on top of each other, and the front and side view are going to be viewported separately. So there has to be a marker that sits in the side view.

Sounds like it should just be two visibility states, make the attributes Visible in both.

Wait... what I'm asking is if it's possible to fill in ONE attribute and have it appear in two places within a block simultaneously. I don't understand what visibility states has to do with it.

I would say no.