Allow for mapkeys to go into and edit Drawing notes

[jwagh]

With the old Drawing note system, a mapkey can use the EDIT > PROPERTIES command to edit a note. However, with the new Creo 3 system, the only way to go back into a note is to click on it. That action can not be reproduced with a mapkey. Therefore, any changes to a note can not be done (unless you try running trail files).

[RaphaelCNascime]

This is an interesting request. On-screen note editing is an example of one of those "modern" UIs and workflows that users are asking for on the one hand, but which by their nature might preclude an ability to automate some action by a mapkey. I'm not opposed to bringing back a dialog that can be used for editing notes, but I'd like to understand the use case a little better just to be sure that providing some kind of dialog is indeed the best solution. It might be that some other kind of solution would also support the use case in a better way.

Can you please provide an example of the use case for automating note edits using a mapkey?

[jwagh]

Sure. I created a mapkey that can change the Angular or Linear Tolerance of a model by:

1. Creating an empty drawing
2. Creating a note
3. Adding one of the tolerance fields to the note
4. Editing the Field value

My original plan was to edit the note again and replace the previous tolerance field with a new one to edit, which was the method I used in Wildfire 5.0. Now, I create a new note for each tolerance field, since I can't edit the old ones.

[RaphaelCNascime]

Interesting... This is probably not the best example because it is really a workaround for another problem, which is that there is no UI to allow changing the default tolerance value of a model.

If we provided a UI to edit the default tolerance values (which we would like to do when we get a chance) would that eliminate the need to edit a note with a mapkey?

I suspect that there are still other use cases, right?

[jwagh]

You are correct for all statements above. The mapkey was a workaround for another limitation. However, there are use cases, that this requested functionality may help.

For example, we have about 50 mapkeys that import different notes into drawings, depending on what the drawing is for (different materials, etc). However, there have been requests to make our process more robust without just adding another mapkey that imports another text file. For instance, if we can have mapkeys that build upon a note.

For instance, instead of mapkeys that imports notes:

Material A Finish A

Material A Finish B

Material A Finish C

Material B Finish A

Material B Finish B

Material B Finish C

We can have a mapkey that appends to the main note:

Mapkey that Adds Material A

Mapkey that Adds Material B

Mapkey that Adds Finish A

Mapkey that Adds Finish B

Mapkey that Adds Finish C

This reduces the mapkeys we need and is more robust.The user then just has to add the note number and maybe reorder the items in the note. However, the verbage and any fields will already be approved

I'm sure there are other use cases as well.

[RaphaelCNascime]

That makes sense to me. This is a better example.

Thanks!

[RaphaelCNascime]

Creo 3.0 M100 was recently released to the downloads page on PTC.com and in this build we've re-introduced the Note Properties dialog that used to be available in prior releases.

You can still edit notes via the on-screen text editing mechanism, but now if you have a note selected, you can Right-Click and access Properties from the menu to open the dialog.

I hope this helps with the mapkeys as well as some of the other reasons why people were asking for this dialog to be re-introduced.

I'm going to mark this Idea as Current Functionality to indicate that the request has been fulfilled.

[jwagh]

Perfect! Thank you!