Order of prompts in drawing.

[dgoodland]

Is there a way to control the order that a user is prompted for Parameters at drawing creation?

Promps like: &Approved_by, Approved_date

Currently the promps (for more then the 2 above) get asked in some random order.

Thank you.

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[TomD.inPDX]

I don't know about the order, but filling these variables in relations in the part or assembly file before creating the drawing or inserting the format is much easier.

I suspect the order they follow is the order in which they, or the tables they are used in were created. The variable may well follow the tables order when it is used. Never thought about any logic it may follow.

[Patriot_1776]

Bad habits from AutoCAD?

[dgoodland]

More like - in a new company and the have an existing format that I am to update...

it promps for all kids of fields, but they are in a very random order. I would rather it asked the users in order - makes it so much easier to fill them in.

[Patriot_1776]

I remember in A/C you picked the "attributes" in the order you wanted them to prompt, not sure about the way to do it in Pro/E or if it's even possible.....

[dgoodland]

Well, I know it's not sorted Alpha/Numeric...

[dgoodland · Accepted solution]

I do hate when things that should be there and are not are called "Intented functionality".... any way.

From PTC:

It is not possible to set a specific order for prompts for format parameters as per current functionality of Creo Elements/Pro 5.0.

The order of the prompts for format parameter values is controlled by 2 factors:

1. 1. The order of table creation and
2. 2. The order of cell creation inside of a table

If a format has three tables, all of the parameters inside of the first table created on the format will be prompted for first, followed by all of the parameters inside of the second table created, and then all of the parameters inside of the third table created.

If a table has multiple rows and/or columns, then the parameters inside that table will be prompted for in the order of cell creation. If a table was created as #Ascending and #Leftward, the parameters in the bottom row will be prompted for first, from right to left. The parameter inside successive rows will then be prompted for, from right to left.

(answer to "does inserting columns and rows impact the order" is coming)

[dgoodland]

If you insert a parameter into a table, it will be promted in the mentioned above...

So if it was Param1, Param2... and you inserted Param3 between them, you get : Param1, Param3, Param2

[dgoodland]

(I hope it's okay I marked my own stuff correct and helpfull - just trying to make the answers I got easier to find)

[TomD.inPDX]

Of course you can

We appreciate having the full story. It is working just as I suspected it would. Your detail from the CS case makes it very clear.

Unfortunately, one cannot create formats so prompts would be in a logical order (database logical rather than geographical).

The work-around or course is to use the relations dialog (I'm assuming this would be in the part and assembly level only). There you can not only provide the entry order, but you can also add comments for how data should be entered. I find this very useful.

Since I contract for different clients, I set these up in a text file and copy paste directly in relations:

/* COMPANY A FORMAT RELATIONS

/*

&dwgtitle = "-"

&dwgnumber = "-"

&session = "-"

/*

/* two lines for MATERIAL

/*

&materialone = "-"

&materialtwo = " "

/*

/* two lines for FINISH

/*

&finishone = "-"

&finishtwo = " "

/*

&dwgscale = "-"

...

/*

/* upper case names ~12 charachters

/* date format MM/DD/YY

/*

&drafter = "-"

&dftdate = "-"

&checker = "-"

&chkdate = "-"

&engineer = "-"

&engdate = "-"

...