Reporting: Different elements for different kinds of characteristics?

[[No...]]

Can I use different formatting (or an entirely different kind) of elements depending on certain conditions, like the kind of chracteristic?

Examples:
Say I want to display a tolerance bar for all normal dimensions, but a grid diagram instead for all GD&T characteristics.
Or I want to have a grid with positive counting direction here and one with negative counting somewhere else.
Is this possible and how would I do that?

[[No...]]

Let me try a different approach:
Is one of the following possible in PiWeb Designer?

A) use of variables in the "characteristic attribute" property of a row template
B) suppression of non-text elements (like a tolerance bar) depending on the value of a variable

[[Ri...]]

This is possible using a Protocol Table. They are advanced characteristic tables that allow you to create rows based on characteristic attributes like characteristic type.

[[No...]]

I think I'm already using protocol tables, as I'm currently editing the Zeiss 'StandardProtocol'
I know that I can set a selection attribute like this:
But is it possible to use variables, wildcards or regular expressions in these fields?
For example, I might want to set the characteristic attribute to "Nominal Value". But how much sense does that make if I'm unable to define a range of values? Or am I?

What I try to achieve is one row template that is used for positive nominals and one for negative nominals.
Or, alternatively, I'd like to suppress certain text and graphic elements within the same template (like a tolerance bar) depending on whether the nominal is positive or negative.

[[Ri...]]

Oh, I see. I haven't tried that with protocol. My first try would be to use an inspection plan filter.
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[[No...]]

Ah, now I understand what this is doing!
Until now I didn't understand that part of the manual and had ignored inspection plan filters.

I think filters might do what I want, but some new problems popped up. If I put a filter on a row template, the filtered characteristics become (almost) invisible on the report, but still occupy space on the page. Some elements in the row template are only greyed out, but still visible:
Now all that wouldn't matter if I made one template for positive and one for negative values, but I can't. If I insert a second "Default" row template, PiWeb automatically sets it to "Detailed" and I can't change that. When I tried to make a third one out of pure curiosity, PiWeb Designer crashed 😱

Later I'll try and see what happens if I put the filter on a group of elements inside the same row template, but right now I have some other work to do.

Update:
I tried to put the filter on a group of report elements, but same result: Some of the filtered elements still show up in the report. It looks like PiWeb treats filtered characteristics as having no measurement value. That's why the traffic light symbol in the picture above was still visible. I got rid of it with modified format settings (show a transparent symbol), but this is not possible with elements like tolerance bars or grid diagrams. They always show up empty. So I'm almost back where I began, only the problem has changed.

[[Ri...]]

You can "hide" attributes by putting a variable text element on top of them and using conditionals. Put a text element on top of the tolerance bar, make it a variable for nominal value, make the text and background transparent, add a condition for less than zero and make the background white for that condition.

This isn't a true solution, but I think I'm stumped for the moment. I'll have to think about this one. 😕

[[No...]]

Isn't it funny how the solution of seemingly simple problems tends to get more and more complex with every obstacle you overcome? 😃
But I like this kind of "hacks". If only PiWeb's editing environment would make it easier to maintain them.

[[Ri...]]

I hope, in time we will "unlock" more possibilities, like using wildcards in the Protocol. It is funny how deep the rabbit hole can get once you start doing these advanced tasks, but I think it's kind of fun too. 🙂

[[No...]]

I'm almost there, but I found out that I also need a filter for 'nominal = 0'.
In fact one should be 'nominal >= 0' and the other 'nominal < 0'.

But there is no '<=' in the list and all entries in the criteria list seem to be connected by 'AND'.
So how can I either make a '<=' entry or use 'OR' instead of 'AND'?

[[Ri...]]

I would think, it would work to do:
Nominal >-0.000001
Nominal<0
As long as the number of decimal places was more than the decimal place setting there shouldn't be a value between (-0.000001 and 0.)
But it might not, if the protocol sees overlap between a detailed and default template. Might be worth a try.