Default Annotation Properties dialog

    Does anyone know of a way to specify a different
dialog (or at the very least, specify a different default page in the
standard dialog) for annotations in v14, without going through the
trouble of doing everything manually?  I'm using the annotations
automation manager in VB.NET, and I would like to use my own properties dialog for when a user edits the contents of an annotation. 


If that isn't doable, I would at least like to have the Text tab come
up (for the annotations that use it) so that the users (who only really
care about the text anway), won't always have to select the tab first before editing.


I like the convenience of the automation manager (and definitely don't
want to have to do everything using low-level commands), but it would be nice to have a custom dialog, if at all possible.

Thankee...

Ahh, that's what I was looking for.  I'm not sure what szMsg is,
but between your code and the sample low-level annotations demo that
came with the toolkit, I should be able to suss it out.  Thanks bunches!!!!

OK, as it turns out, this is a lot trickier than I first thought. 

I have made use of your above code to assign a new dialog to the object properties dialog
 type, and it shows up when I create or edit annotations (just by setting the type).

However, I have no idea how to get the annotation object's defaults into the dialog.  I have an AnnObject variable declared in the dialog, but I see no way from the above code to reference it to the current object being edited.  Could you elucidate somewhat on that?  And, for that matter, what exactly is szMsg, anyway? 

The low-level annotation sample project was useful in that it tells me what fields I need to grab from the AnnObject itself, but it doesn't show how to do it with the automation manager.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Also, is there any way to make the default object properties dialog (the one that comes with LEADTools) default to the Text tab instead of the first tab on the left?

Hi Maen,

Well, we're getting there!  The above example is great if I always have my users click a button to edit their annotation info, but what about intercepting the initial annotation creation event, or when they edit the annotation properties from the context menu? 

Thanks for your help! 

Heya,

I implemented the above, and while the annotation object DOES get updated after creating the annotation initially, I have the following problems:

1. The object properties dialog pops up twice when I create a new annotation.  Same thing if I use the "Show Properties" button in your sample project to edit an existing annotation, although I was able to get around that by comenting out the call to ShowProperties in the ObjectPropertiesDialogTest routine (automation.StartEditing seems to be enough to fire off the designer change.  Too bad there isn't a coresponding StopEditing method to tell it not to bring it up twice).
   
2. Clicking on an annotation when it is not selected also brings up the dialog.  Once the dialog is closed, the annotation follows the cursor (as if I were performing a move operation).
3. Getting to the object properties dialog from the context menu still does not update the annotation being edited.

Closer and closer...but not there yet!

Slainte!
-Mike