DoorKeeper

DoorKeeper™ is an AddIn or App that adds functionality to Bentley Systems MicroStation^® CONNECT. It's a tool for architects, designers and planners.

When you tag a door cell, DoorKeeper looks for SmartText™ labels. Your door cell should contain SmartText placeholders, which DoorKeeper replaces with your data.

Annotation Cells with Nested SmartText™

A door cell should contain SmartText. Usually, the text in a cell is rotated with the cell. A consequence is that, if a cell is rotated a significant amount, the text may be difficult to read. DoorKeeper overcomes that problem by enabling rotating text. You can benefit from that technology by designing door cells with SmartText placeholders in a nested annotation cell. Here's the schematic structure of a cell having rotating nested annotation …

If the design of your cells follows the guidelines, then you can use the rotate command to rotate annotation independently of the door cell. The door cell and its annotation retain the same structure after rotation. That is, the SmartText remains part of the door cell.

SmartText™

SmartText is text that an application, such as DoorKeeper, can replace automatically. DoorKeeper uses SmartText in label templates that you design. SmartText is a placeholder: it is the name of a DoorKeeper property wrapped in special delimiter characters, such as a dollar sign. For example, here's the SmartText for DoorKeeper property Door ID …

$id$

For example, another DoorKeeper property is doorClass. In a door cell, place text $doorClass$ to instruct DoorKeeper to replace $doorClass$ with the value of that property in the door that you are tagging.

In the above examples, you can see SmartText in several places. One example is $id$. You put that SmartText where you want the ID to appear when you tag a door cell. Once the feature is tagged, DoorKeeper substitutes the actual value of the ID for the SmartText in your door cell. It continues substituting the actual value for each piece of SmartText it finds in your door cell. Finally, it updates the door cell to show the substituted values.

Rotate Annotation

Use DOOR TAG ROTATE command to rotate the annotation in a door cell. The Tool Settings box appears …

You have a choice of several rotation methods …

• No Rotation: aligns the annotation with its parent cell
• View: aligns the annotation the active view
• Active Angle: rotates the annotation by the active angle

Rationale

DoorKeeper annotation is embedded in a cell used for design …

Often, we need to rotate the cell. But, wouldn't it be nice if the annotation text were to remain unrotated? With DoorKeeper, you can do exactly that. Here's a door cell whose annotation has been rotated 30° …

Here's a door cell that has been rotated, and whose annotation has been counter-rotated to align with the view …

Cell Design for Rotated Annotation

A DoorKeeper cell whose annotation can be rotated is a nested structure. The top level is your graphic design (e.g. a door cell). It must contain a nested cell named something like Annotation-01. That nested cell contains the SmartText placeholders described above.

The cell library delivered with DoorKeeper provides nested cells. The annotation in those cells can be rotated using the rotate command.