Mask file details

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Mask file details

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The ELSA390.MSK mask file in the \ELSA\I\ZV\MASKEN directory is a good example of a mask file. It also contains, in the form of comments, an extensive description of formats and possibilities.

 

The basic principle behind the mask file is that each line in the mask file corresponds to a field in the Drawing Manager, meaning a column in the survey, a field in the detailed view and in most cases an attribute in the title field.

 

Is is extremely important to note that the mask file is position dependent, meaning that the meaning of each character is interpreted from its position. To fill the space between columns, spaces are used. TABs are not allowed. If you enter TABs, the mask file wont work.

 

For each field you can control a number of factors such as maximum field length, title, connection to the title field, default value, and more.

 

The mask files may be multilingual, so that the behaviour changes depending on the language that is selected in cadett ELSA. The headings may for example be in English if you are using an English language setting and in Swedish if you us the Swedish language setting, which of course is both logical and practical.

 

Below, a number of other features are listed.

 

Support for user-defined file types such as Word and Excel documents can be activated in the mask file.

 

Multiple drawing frames for the same project can be defined and activated in the mask file, for example to support multiple sizes such as A3, A2 and A1.

 

Standard fields like file name and description can be redefined in the mask file, for example to adjust heading, maximum length or transfer of content to title field attributes.

 

The mask file can be either an ASCII or an ANSI text file. Which character set to use is specified in the gheading of the mask file.

 

A complete description is given in the sub-topics that are listed below.

 

Remarks

ASCII or ANSI

Multiple drawing frames in the same project

Field descriptive lines

Variables for default values

Support for user defined file types

Overriding default field settings