Entity Report

What it does

The command walks a set of entities, drops whatever fails the filters, and turns each surviving entity into a row, with one column per property you asked for. Then, if you want, it groups those rows and sums the numeric columns. Finally the table comes out as text, CSV, CapData (JSON) or an Excel workbook.

There is no project intelligence here: the command does not know what a marking, a chevron or a sign is. It knows CAD types (polyline, block, hatch…) and CAD properties (layer, linetype, area, attributes, XData). That is exactly why it covers what the project reports cannot — checking someone else's drawing, finding every block of a given name, summing areas per layer, extracting the XData of a family of entities.

The form is modeless: it hides while the reading happens and reappears afterwards, with the outcome written on its status line. So you can change one option and generate again without reopening anything.

Workflow

1. If you are going to use the Select input, you can select first and then call the command — an existing selection is reused.
2. Run CAPCAD_REPORT_ENTITY.
3. Choose the input (1, 2) and, for All, tick the spaces (37, 38).
4. Tick the entity types (11 to 22), using the four shortcut buttons (7 to 10) as a starting point.
5. Narrow it down with the layers filter (36) and, for blocks, the block name filter (33).
6. Tick the properties that become columns (23 to 28, 31, 32, 34, 35).
7. For a summary instead of the item-by-item list, fill in the Grouping frame (39 to 43).
8. Choose the output (3 to 6) and the number format (44).
9. Click Ok (45). The form hides, the reading runs, and it comes back with the outcome on the status line: N row(s) from M scanned. The same sentence is written to the command line.
10. Adjust and generate again as often as you need; Cancel (46) closes the window.

The command only reads the drawing. No output writes entities — not even the Excel one, which opens a new workbook and saves no file.

The form

The whole window. It has a single state: no option hides or reveals a frame.

About the capture. The screenshot is of a Portuguese session, because it is the numbered figure shared with the Portuguese edition. The layout and the control numbers are identical in English, and every control below is quoted as the English build shows it.

Input and Output

The grey label (tables…) beside Excel marks outputs — a native CAD table and a table drawn in model space — that are not available in this version; Reports have them.

Entities

The four buttons on the left are shortcuts that tick and untick the boxes in one go:

Properties

Each ticked box adds one or more columns.

The CAD Space column comes out always, whatever you tick.

Besides these, four groups of columns are added automatically depending on each entity's type — see Columns the report produces.

Blocks options and Entities options

Both filters use the same grammar:

• accepted separators: comma, semicolon and line break — so you can paste a whole spreadsheet column;
• wildcards: * (any stretch), ? (one character) and # (one digit);
• a mask matches the whole name, not a fragment: to find everything containing LFO, write *LFO*;
• case does not matter;
• one matching mask in the list is enough.

Space

Both boxes only apply to the All input (1). Unticking both makes Ok refuse, asking for at least one space.

Grouping

Filled in, this frame swaps the item-by-item list for a summary: one row per distinct combination of the key columns' values.

The three fields share one grammar: names separated by commas, each optionally quoted (which allows a comma inside a name) and optionally given an alias with as:

"Layer", "BlockName" as "Block"

The alias renames the column before grouping; from then on it is by the alias that the other fields must refer to it.

When you group, the result gains a qtd column with the number of rows in each group — the count the label References to count is named after.

Two combinations worth knowing:

• No grouping (39 empty) with Delete: nothing is grouped, but the columns listed in 43 are removed from the list. This is how you trim the table without summarising it.
• Grouping with Delete: the summary already comes down to the keys, the sums and qtd (nothing is preserved), and the list in 43 removes some of those too.

Footer

The red text under Ok is the status line: the validation refusals, Nothing selected., No matching entities (M scanned)., N row(s) from M scanned. or Report failed: <reason>.

Columns the report produces

Besides the columns switched on by the Properties boxes, each entity gets the columns that make sense for its type:

In the Excel output the header is coloured by family, so the sheet reads without a legend:

Remembered between sessions

Everything. On closing the window, every check box, every radio button, every text field and the number format are written to your user preferences and restored the next time it opens — the layer and block filters included.

The practical consequence: if the command "found nothing", check the filters before anything else. They may be left over from an earlier session.

Notes

• There are no result figures on this page. What the command produces depends entirely on the drawing you have open.
• On the Select input the CAD Space column always reads Model. Select entities on a layout and they are labelled as if they were in model space. With All, the label is correct.
• Ticking Closed and Open is not enough. The Polylines box (19) has to be ticked: it is the master switch, and the other two only choose which of them get through.
• The number column does not survive grouping. It is created before grouping; after the summary only the keys, the sums, qtd and whatever is on the Keep list remain.
• The block name filter filters nothing but blocks. Filling it in with Block (13) unticked has no effect at all; filling it in with other types ticked does not exclude them.
• The Excel output saves no file. It opens a new, visible workbook. Close Excel without saving and the report is lost — use CSV file when the intention is to archive.
• The Excel output needs Excel installed. Without it, the status line carries the automation failure; the other three outputs depend on nothing external.
• The Alignment data and GIS data boxes are not available in this version. They stay visible, marked (soon).
• CAPCAD_XDATA_CLEAN is this report's counterpart. It erases the XData that column 34 reveals — other applications' included.
• Not present in ARES Commander. On the other four CADs the form and the generator are the same.