Monthly Archives: April 2013

Bentley Custom Reports – e.g. BOM for custom electrical equipment

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The documentation in Bentley AutoPLANT is in the Program Files (x86)\Bentley\Plant v8i\Help directory and teases us enough to know Bentley is VERY configurable.

This is NOT a discussion of the Datamanager reports – I have not figured out how these fit in.

Here is how to deconstruct what the manuals START to tell us but do not finish

Report (.rpt) files

  • these are crystal report templates. They are NOT version 11 and prompt you to upgrade

How to add reports of your own.

  • the help button under the screen that opens when you access Raceways->Reports->Generate Reports (there are other ways to get there) inidcates that things are quite flexible
  • There are 2 files under the Reports or Config directory that these ‘new reports’ are writing to
    • RptTypes.ini which define your groups and which tables those groups are pulling froml
      • The first pulldown in the Equipment->Reports->Equipment List uses this file (re-open AutoPLANT/AutoCAD to see the changes)
    • Report.ini which lists all the reports and their details and which Crystal Reports template is being used (your .rpt files)
      • you do NOT need to re-open AutoPLANT/CAD to see changes
    • BOTH ARE REQUIRED. Currently on the system we have someone forgot to put the RptTypes.ini file in place so you CANNOT place your custom reports in your own custom folder as the RptTypes file resides on everyone’s local computer. Report.ini can be on the server common to everyone … %Network_Root%\Config directory
    • See below for an example of how they are connected

RptTypes.ini and Reports.ini examples

The RptTypes.ini file are the groups – the groups in the List in the Autoplant tool do NOT use this file – but this file sets up the groups and what tables are used to make the report

[dos]
[ELECDEPT1]
Description  = Electrical Cable Tray Report Type
TableType    = Piping
DBType       = ModelDB
[/dos]

The Reports.ini file lists all the reports, associates to an entry in RptTypes. If you place this at %NETWORK%\Config along with the RptTypes.ini file – it seems to work. However if you look at the lcoations on the local installed diretories on your computer, there are config files in metric,imperial and mmetric as well. On you local computer these files are at: %Program Files%\Bentley\Plant V8i\Reports and %Program Files%\Bentley\Plant V8i\Config\{imperial or mmetric or metric} respectively

[dos]
[Elec Equip BOM2]
TYPE            =ELECTRICAL
SCHEMA          =C:\Program Files (x86)\Bentley\Plant V8i\Reports\EqupListElecB1.rpt
DESCRIPTION     =Custom BOM for Electrical Department1
DRAWINGOUTPUT   =No

[Cable Tray MTO2]
Type             =ELECTRICAL
Schema           = C:\Program Files (x86)\Bentley\Plant V8i\Reports\Cable Tray MTO2.rpt
Description      = View, print or export to a file for a Cable Tray Specific MTO for ELB Electrical
DrawingOutput    = No
User_Methods     = CABLE_LENGTH_METHOD

[/dos]

Never include your email in an article – or anyone else’s email either if you can

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We often write email addresses into our email articles online whether it is our blog, comments or website pages we build. Web-bots (Robots) scour web pages and those that link to them 24/7 looking for email addresses and use them to spam us and others. That is the main reason.

Other reasons are if you put a link to your email and people click on it – what if they are hotmail or yahoo or gmail users? On a PC, it will by default start up Outlook Express (older computers) or Outlook which usually isn’t set up for these types of users. Mac will start up “Mail” which again might not be set up for our all-online friends. Will these customers figure it is not worth contacting you because it is too much hassle or they don’t have time right ow to log in to their online service? Having a link to a page/link called “Contact Us” instead of your email address allows seamless integration and natural navigation to people contacting you.

For the same reasons – do not include other people’s email addresses either (the ‘golden rule’ applies for you and your friends). Their spam count will go up as well.

So what do we do instead?

a) make a Contact Me or Contact Us page with an online form (continued below)

b) if you HAVE TO (like you should on your linked in summary) use me.at.mycompany.com or me – at – mycompany.com form of your email address. Yes, it can be simply scraped but using ~ or # or * as the symbols, it is less likely to get picked up

Make a contact me page on your website (all webpage makers, Joomla or WordPress have this pre-installed), and link to that. Always put a link with “Contact Us” which is the standard for almost all websites. For example, all my customers who fill their own content in online, all have been set up with a contact-us page. That is a form in which you can enter your information / email / request with all the reasons for your customers to contact you. If you have your local web-geek doing this for you or you are doing it yourself, please ensure (s)he puts a CAPTCHA on the page as well so the computer knows it is a human and not a computer. I have one on my site with random simple math the person has to do, others have a word phrase that has to be entered etc.

How do get the link to this Contact Us page to copy/paste in? The easy way is to open a new internet tab or window, click on the contact us link on that page and copy the link all the way from http to the end. Then paste it into your article using the link button. It is that simple. If you have WordPress or Joomla there is a search box – just type in “contact” (assuming your link/article has the word ‘contact’ in it) and wait … up it comes in the list. Click on it and you are linked.

Always test any pages that have links so you stay looking professional.

I am always looking out for your best interest – keep these things in mind and avoid a little less spam and a few more contacts from customers or friends.

iOS app image size matrix for projects. Track your sizes using this tool.

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This is for a personal project a friend and I are doing – there are soooo many iterations of graphics that we need because we want things to look crisp. The intent for the table below to be copy& pasted and a column exists next to each resolution for a check mark to put beside each completed task. Keeping track of all this was almost a nightmare – I know this is specific to our project, but I trust this is useful for you too – copy and paste away.

Please see naming conventions for this project at the end of this article.

Rotation iPhone 3″ iPhone Retina 3″ iPhone 5 (4″) iPad/ Mini * iPadRetina*
Cover Portrait Lscp 90 deg R 480×320 960×640 640×1156 768 x 1004 1536 x 2008
Cover LandScape landscape 1024 x 748 2048 x 1496
Guts/Main Page landscape 480×320 980×640 1136×640 1024×768 2048×1536
buttons/segmented Controls landscape 52 x 44 104 x 88 104 x 88 52 x 44 104 x 88
default camera image landscape same as guts same as guts same as guts same as guts same as guts
ring and check image 300 x 300 300 x 300 300 x 300 300 x 300 300 x 300
appIcon 72 x 72px 144 x 144px 144 x 144px 72 x 72px 144 x 144px
iTunesArtwork n/a 512 x 512 1024 x 1024 1024 x 1024 512 x 512 1024 x 1024
iPhone: settings/spotlight n/a 29 x 29 58 x 58
iPad: settings** n/a 29 x 29 58 x 58
iPad:spotlight n/a 50 x 50 100 x100

NOTE: iPads and iPhones do NOT have the same aspect ratios – so you graphics will be stretched and interpolated by the device’s software/hardware.

Links

Naming Conventions used in this project

All retina images MUST be names @2x at the end for this project. So myImage.png would be myImage@2x.png for this project. For the 4″ retina screen please put -568h@2x at the end.

iPad main page images “page05_ipad.png” and “page05_ipad@2x.png” seems to be close to what you have now.
iPad masks: “page05_ipad_Pic_Insert.png” and “page05_ipad_Pic_Insert@2x.png”

iPhone main pages: “page03_480x320.png”,”page03_480x320@2x.png” and “page03_480x320-568h@2x.png”

iPhone masks: “page03_pic_insert_480x320.png”, “page03_pic_insert_480x320@2x.png” and “page03_pic_insert_480x320-568h@2x.png”

Cover pages for this project should be named like you have done the others, but lets call it Cover WWWxHHH.png, Cover WWWxHHH@2x.png and Cover WWWxHHH-568@2x.png . Cover pages MUST be rotated 90 degrees Right (clockwise)

There are 2 folders that these are dumped in “SmallImages” (iPhone) and “LargeImages” (iPad)

Rotation iPhone 3″ iPhone Retina 3″ iPhone 5 (4″) iPad/ Mini * iPadRetina*
Cover Portrait Lscp 90 deg R Cover iPhone Cover iPhone@2x Cover iPhone-568h@2x Cover iPad90 Cover iPad90@2x
Cover LandScape landscape Cover iPad Cover iPad@2x
Guts/Main Page landscape page03_iPhone page03_iPhone@2x page03_iPhone-568h@2x page03_ipad page03_ipad@2x
Guts Masks page03_pic_insert_iPhone page03_pic_insert_iPhone@2x page03_pic_insert_iPhone-568h@2x page03_ipad_Pic_Insert page03_ipad_Pic_Insert@2x
last main Page
buttons/segmented Controls landscape
   – book book_icon book_icon@2x n/a n/a n/a
   – camera camera_icon 100 x 88 n/a n/a n/a
   – take pic 50 x 44 100 x 88 n/a n/a n/a
   – lock LockIconClosed LockIconClosed@2x n/a n/a n/a
   – correct incorrect_ipad incorrect_ipad@2x n/a n/a n/a
   – incorect incorrect_ipad incorrect_ipad@2x n/a n/a n/a
default camera image landscape Insert_Instructions_iphone Insert_Instructions_iphone@2x Insert_Instructions_iphone-568h@2x Insert_Instructions_ipad Insert_Instructions_ipad@2x
ring and check image correct_green_iphone correct_green_iphone@2x n/a n/a n/a
appIcon Icon.png Icon@2x.png n/a Icon-72.png Icon-72@2x.png
iTunesArtwork n/a iTunesArtwork iTunesArtwork@2x n/a n/a n/a
iPhone: settings/spotlight n/a Icon-Small.png Icon-Small@2x.png
iPad: settings** n/a Icon-Small.png Icon-Small@2x.png
iPad:spotlight n/a Icon-Small-50.png Icon-Small-50@2x.png
orange text means I don’t have a nice name yet
Put iPhone images in a directory called SmallImages and iPad images in a directory called LargeImages

Notes

* Copy/Paste from apple: For iPad launch images, do not include the status bar region. Create launch images of these sizes (most iPad apps should supply a launch image for each orientation)

** Apple trims off 1px (low res) or 2px (retina) on each side for drop shadow

NOTE: Mathematically – always reduce your graphics 50% or more – never resize up and never resize between 50% and 99%. There are mathematical reasons for this … it is called aliasing. Apple does a good job at re-rendering graphics, by why not do our designs with a little understanding while we are about it 🙂