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Status Future consideration
Workspace OpenPlant Modeler
Created by Guest
Created on Nov 6, 2020

Place Custom Component from Cell

The "Place From cell" command in the "Custom" Component Gallery of OPM opens up a cell file selection dialog. The tool can be used to place custom component cells which have OPM intelligent cell models. The tool has a keyin command behind it which is "mechaddin place cell dsc=Piping". The user has a bunch of cell libraries that he has created as per the Component cell type which contains the size specific models. e..g the BallValve.cel contains the models for Ball Valves with sizes starting from 0.5INCH to 4 INCH. He has files like BallValve.cel GateValve.cel ButterFlyValve.cel etc. What he wants is to create separate icons for these component types which would place these cells in the dgn as per the icon type. e.g. Place Ball Valve icon should automatically select the Cell library for the Ball Valves and so on. I tried setting the cell library using the RC=BallValve.cel keyin and then use the "Place Component from Cell" command but it doesnt auto select the BallValve.cel file. The user doesnt want the designer to manually select the cell files because it is error prone and lengthy. We should allow to provide an argument to the keyin "mechaddin place cell dsc=Piping" which would take cell library as an input. e.g. "mechaddin place cell dsc="Piping" ballValve.cel" This would save a lot of clicks for the user. For DEV... I checked the mechaddin.cpp file which as following function. void MechAddIn::PlaceCell ( System::String^ unparsed // = ) The unparsed string in the above function argument is being parsed to decide which discipline we are in e.g. Piping, Equipment etc. We should be able to parse this argument further to get the cell file name if it is provided by the user. This wouldnt change the existing workflow for other users and would give an additional flexibility to users like this one.