Simple year macro

[rgardner]

Hi everyone, hope you are having a wonderful week so far.  I was setting up a new layout for a builder I am doing more and more work for and went to type in my ©2019 when I thought...  I wonder if there is a 4 digit year macro I can put in there so I don't have to change that every year on all my layouts???   I am new'sh to macros so still have a ton to learn.  I couldn't find it in the chief macros and I did search here on the forum but have not found it. 

 

Anyone know what it is?  TIA for all your continued help and support.  You guys are amazing!

[Chopsaw]

There are a lot of macro's that really should be a part of the software...   Maybe some day.

 

Give this a try: 

 

Copyright Year.json

[rgardner]

Just now, Chopsaw said:

There are a lot of macro's that really should be a part of the software...   Maybe some day.

 

Give this a try: 

 

Copyright Year.json

Thanks! 

[Joe_Carrick]

Macro "year"

• t = Time.new
• result = t.year 

returns the current year  --> 2019 as a numerical value

• result = result.to_s

returns a character string --> "2019"

 

This is pure Ruby and doesn't require anything else from Chief.

 

[rgardner]

4 minutes ago, Joe_Carrick said:

Macro "year"

• t = Time.new
• result = t.year 

returns the current year  --> 2019 as a numerical value

• result = result.to_s

returns a character string --> "2019"

 

I obviously am doing something wrong because it isn´t coming out right.  What would i need to paste in there exactly to make it work. I have been trying to watch videos to figure this out but I am obviously missing a step.

 

[Chopsaw]

Just as Joe posted in the simplest form.

 

[Chopsaw]

Using .strftime allows for multiple predefined configurations.

 

https://ruby-doc.org/stdlib-2.6.1/libdoc/date/rdoc/DateTime.html#method-i-strftime

[rgardner]

AWW I was missing the Evaluate - The referenced object part...  

 

THANK YOU BOTH!

 

I was thinking since it wasn't for a specific physical object that didn't need to be selected.  

[Joe_Carrick]

Referenced doesn't need to be.  None will work fine, but it does need to be Evaluated.

[rgardner]

1 hour ago, Joe_Carrick said:

Referenced doesn't need to be.  None will work fine, but it does need to be Evaluated.

Thanks for the clarification.  You are a rockstar!

[Joe_Carrick]

"Evaluated" simply means that the macro should be considered a "program" rather than just "text".  

[BrownTiger]

My understanding is that "non-evaluated" macro can use one or many evaluated macros and any global macros ... e.g. %client.name%.

While evaluated macro in CA can never execute another macro ( at least I have never been able to figure out how module_eval, or instance_eval can execute others )

 

Where it could be used: let say you have

labelCeiling macro none evaluated  macro that is defined:

%showCeilingsHeight%%collectRoomInformation%

 

 

[Alaskan_Son]

12 minutes ago, BrownTiger said:

My understanding is that "non-evaluated" macro can use one or many evaluated macros and any global macros ... e.g. %client.name%.

While evaluated macro in CA can never execute another macro ( at least I have never been able to figure out how module_eval, or instance_eval can execute others ) 

 

Where it could be used: let say you have

labelCeiling macro none evaluated  macro that is defined:

%showCeilingsHeight%%collectRoomInformation%

  

 

 

Think of it this way...

• Evaluated = "Hey Chief, I want you to send all this text over to Ruby to execute as code".  Text macros are a pure Chief construct and have nothing to do with Ruby unless the macro is set to evaluate, and even then, it's only the code execution that involves Ruby.
• Non-evaluated = "Hey Chief, I just want you to just use this as dumb text."
• Anything between % signs is pure Chief and has nothing whatsoever to do with Ruby.  Ruby only sees the text value of the two % signs along with the characters between them. 
• Chief sees %macro_name% onscreen in the plan and it spits out the results of whatever that macro is whether it be evaluated or not.

[Joe_Carrick]

33 minutes ago, BrownTiger said:

While evaluated macro in CA can never execute another macro ( at least I have never been able to figure out how module_eval, or instance_eval can execute others )

Within a custom evaluated macro just include another macro you want to use in quotes.  example:

• result = "%my_other_macro%"

Here's an example of how I use this technique to display the label differently depending on the layer_set name.

 

if obj.layer_set.include? "Legend"

  result = "%window_label_legend_X11%"

elsif obj.layer_set.include? "Wall Area Analysis Plan"

  result = "%wall_opening_areas%"

elsif obj.layer_set.include? "Wall Area Analysis Elevation"

  result = "%wall_opening_areas%"

elsif obj.layer_set.include? "Wall Area Analysis Plan" or obj.layer_set.include? "Wall Area Analysis Ref"

  result = "%wall_opening_areas%"

elsif obj.layer_set.include? "Framing"

  result = "%opening_header_label%"

elsif obj.layer_set.include? "Section" or obj.layer_set.include? "Elevation"

  result = obj.schedule_number + "\n" + obj.automatic_label + "\n" + obj.type_name

else

  result = obj.schedule_number + "\n" + obj.automatic_label + " " + obj.type_name

end

 

 

[Alaskan_Son]

...and don't forget you can also use evaluated macros as methods:

 

macro_a = 3 ----> 3

macro_b = 7 ----> 7

 

macro_c = macros.macro_a + macros.macro_b ----> 10

 

instead of being limited to...

macro_d = "%macro_a%" + "macro_b%" ----> 37

or a non evaluated version of the same...

macro_e = %macro_a%%macro_b% ----> 37

 

[Joe_Carrick]

14 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

...and don't forget you can also use macros as methods:

 

macro_a = 3 ----> 3

macro_b = 7 ----> 7

 

macro_c = macros.macro_a + macros.macro_b ----> 10

 

That's a cool method - I just wish any of these would work in the Ruby Console. 

[BrownTiger]

Cool I did not realized there was a "macros" object. Very cool.

I bet Ruby engine set to replace %object_properties% with macros.object_properties when it executes.  

[Alaskan_Son]

13 minutes ago, BrownTiger said:

Cool I did not realized there was a "macros" object. Very cool.

I bet Ruby engine set to replace %object_properties% with macros.object_properties when it executes.  

Not sure what you are trying to say.

[JiAngelo]

I've been wanting to automate my title block for years.  In addition to Joe's macro I added another that subtracts 1986 from the current year to give me a %years_open% value.

 

Thank you Joe for the answer and RGardner for asking the question!

 

[Alaskan_Son]

On 11/19/2019 at 5:35 PM, Joe_Carrick said:

Macro "year"

• t = Time.new
• result = t.year 

returns the current year  --> 2019 as a numerical value

• result = result.to_s

returns a character string --> "2019"

 

This is pure Ruby and doesn't require anything else from Chief.

 

 

FWIW, the extra line is actually unnecessary. 

 

Time.new.year

or

Time.now.year

 

both work just fine as well. 

 

[Joe_Carrick]

2 hours ago, Alaskan_Son said:

FWIW, the extra line is actually necessary. 

I think you meant "unnecessary".

 

But of course if you want to perform calculations it makes it easier to understand if you assign the value to a variable.

[Alaskan_Son]

15 minutes ago, Joe_Carrick said:

I think you meant "unnecessary".

Ya, that would make more sense wouldn’t it   Correction made.  Thank you.

 

15 minutes ago, Joe_Carrick said:

 

But of course if you want to perform calculations it makes it easier to understand if you assign the value to a variable.

 

Definitely.  Just throwing a side note out there is all.