About Adding Attribute Links and Text Templates

Attribute link text is a text that associatively reflects a value. Texts can have attribute links with PLM attributes as well as with other attributes that are not exposed as PLM entities (for example dimension from 3D data).

Important: If the text annotation and its associative parameter (attribute link or text template) are both in the same location and in the same representation, they are updated synchronously.

The following topics are discussed:

This page discusses:

Text Attribute Links and Text Templates
Text Attribute Links Update

Text Attribute Links and Text Templates

You can create an attribute link to a PLM attribute so that the text associatively reflects the value of the PLM attribute. In addition, you can instantiate a text containing link templates to PLM attributes so that the instantiated text associatively reflects the value of the PLM attributes.

If a view or a sheet contains not up-to-date text attribute links, it needs an update. Consequently, the Update command becomes available. Therefore, when you click Update, it updates the sheet, its views as well as the text attribute links in the view.

However, if you want to update only the text attribute links quickly, you can do so by right-clicking the attribute link and selecting Update Selection. If the link is up to date, the Update Selection command is not available in its context menu.

The following types of PLM attributes are supported:

PLM attributes of a reference (PLM Reference or PLM Representation Reference)
PLM attributes of an instance (PLM Instance or PLM Representation Instance)
PLM attributes of a port (PLM Port)
PLM attributes of a connection (PLM Connection)
PLM attributes of an extension (PLM Extension) are supported with the reference (PLM Reference) it extends

Important: All types of PLM attributes are supported. However string and binary types are supported under the following conditions:

The attribute max length must be defined.
The max length must be fewer than 512 characters.

If these conditions are not satisfied, a non-associative attribute link is created.

Attribute link texts and text template instantiations are associative to these PLM attributes. That is, attribute link texts and text template instantiations associatively reflect the value of a PLM attribute. As a result, the links created by the attribute link texts or text templates associative to the PLM attributes of the containing representation are taken into account by the PLM update.

In this case, if a PLM attribute contained in an attribute link or a text template is modified, the display of the link or the text template is synchronously visualized. However, the synchronous visualization is not automatic. It does not modify the model nor updates the data. It only updates the visualization of the text synchronously.

After modification of the pointed PLM attribute, the attribute link text display is altered because of the synchronous visualization.

After you click Update, the associative position of the pointed text is recalculated and the layout becomes up to date.

The Insert Attribute Link dialog box also lists context attributes available on the selected object type (such as drawing, sheet, and layout).

The dialog box has the capability of sorting the contents based on any column.

The columns that are empty are hidden automatically. To manage the columns, right-click a column and select Hide column, Show all columns, or Show column. These preferences are saved for next time usages.

When you isolate an annotation, all the links present on it including the global attribute and the context attribute are replaced by resolved string values.

Text Attribute Links Update

Whenever the attributes in the texts or tables are linked and are modified, their attribute links need to be updated. Consequently, you need to update the views that take into account the status of these texts. You can also right-click the texts or the tables and select Update Selection to update the attribute links quickly.

Note: The Update Selection is available from the context menu of one or several texts and tables in the following scenarios:

When at least one of the selected annotations or selected cells contains an attribute link or an instantiated link template points to an attribute of an object located outside of the drawing.
At least one of these annotations or table cells is not up to date.

If a text attribute link is included in a view or a sheet, any change in it has an impact on the following objects:

Sheets

Sheets are shown as not up to date in the following conditions:

If they contain at least one not up-to-date text
If they contain at least one not up-to-date table
Note: When a text with an attribute link in a table is modified, it impacts the table, its view, and its sheet. Therefore, when a view with table is updated, that table is also updated. When a table is updated, all the texts in the view are updated, provided:
Their background contains at least one not up-to-date text.
They contain at least one not up-to-date view.

In this case, the update status of the text is displayed on the sheet objects in the tree.

Drawings

Drawings are shown as not up to date if they contain at least one not up-to-date sheet.

The following figure depicts this scenario:

Notes:

When updating a sheet, all the views in the sheet are updated. When updating a view, all the annotations in the view are also updated. Then, when a text is updated, its attribute link is updated.
The tree displays the update status taking into account the update status of a text.

Important:

Since the sheet update status depends on the status of the text attribute link, the drawings more often require an update.
However, updating a view does not update the whole view but only required objects. For example, if a view is not up-to-date only because of a not up-to-date text attribute link, its update only updates the involved text (and its impacts if required).
You need to upgrade the views created in an earlier version to take into account the text attribute link update status.

PLM Update

The Update All icon is active if there is at least one not up-to-date drawing. Using this, you can update the drawing from the database, without opening it in the authoring session.