_________CURRENT NEWS______________________________________________ 

#--- 2001: A DGN Odyssey ---# 

There is only a small Space Station, no Moon Base and certainly no 
Black Obelisks, but it IS 2001, and we're ready to advance our skill 
and knowledge in MicroStation CAD. Join us for a great new year of 
learning and advancement! 

#--- V8 Preview Tour: BENTLEY'S SNAFU ---# 

A few of you may have noticed that Bentley had their Minnesota 
location of the V8 Preview Tour shown as hosted by MMLC for the last 
several months, but it was the result of some miscommunication at 
Bentley (now THAT could never happen...) and there is no V8 Preview 
scheduled to roll through this area as of yet. We'll be among the 
first to tell you when it does happen, as we are as anxious to see it 
as the rest of you. BTW, the Beta release is tentatively set for the 
end of January. 

#--- A Rose by any other name... ---# 

At the 11/21 meeting, we voted for the top 5 new group names. Here are 
those names: 

o TC-TMC 
o MSP-TMC 
o Great Lakes TMC 
o MN-MUG 
o MMUG 

We'll vote for a final names at our January meeting, but If you have 
any opinions (or votes) on this issue, and can't make it to that 
meeting, please e-mail your response to mmlc_mail@yahoo.com (or one of 
the Officers) by Jan. 15th. 

#--- New Select Downloads ---# 

http://selectservices.bentley.com/downloads/web/index.htm 

It's easy to forget to check for the new goodies, here are some of the 
latest to download: 

o ProjectWise 03.01.02.06 Web Server Update 
o ActiveAsset Planner 
o ModelServer Imager 
o Descartes 7.1 for MicroStation/J 
o ViewSet 
o Material Manager 

_________FROM THE CHAIR____________________________________________ 

From the Chair: 

Over the last few months we have been talking about holding a 
MicroStation Forum here in Minnesota. We are working towards spring 
of 2001. Now that may seem like a long way out but in planning 
something like this for the first time it is really cutting it to the 
quick. We email this newsletter out to approximately 90-100 
MicroStation users and VAR personnel every month. We have been 
getting around 8-12 user's come to our monthly meeting regularly out 
of that. It is hard to invite venders or our VAR's to put on 
presentation to such a small group and frankly I don't blame them. 

With the possible renaming of our user group this month at our meeting 
I'm going to suggest that this year come May will be the last of our 
full user group monthly meetings. If we can get some of the SIG's 
(Special Interest Groups) started (such as (Transportation/Civil, 
Electrical/Mechanical, GIS and Architectural to name a few) we would 
let them meet monthly or how ever often they wanted to meet. The user 
group would in turn start putting on semi-annual forums. We could do 
one here in the twin cities and one out state. That can be determined 
at a later date. The chair of each of the SIG's would be part of the 
new board and help with letting us know what would be of interest to 
each of their groups. 

Here is where we need help form user that would really like to see 
Bentley and MicroStation grow in Minnesota. BE ON OUR BOARD!!! We 
will need approximately 7-9 users plus the SIG chairs on the new board 
if you as users would really like to see this happen please let us 
know. I know how busy we all are put here is a chance to grow in your 
own field and not have to travel to other parts of the US (most 
Employers don't or won't send us there anyway, due to the cost and time 
away from work). You really can make a difference and the time 
commitment won't be that great if we can get everyone to do just a 
small part. 

So that is my challenge to all of our users this new year. Please 
come and get involved. If not then in reality a new name will not due 
a dyeing user group any good. Right now we have a board that has done 
a good job of trying to keep thing going, but I know that with the 
number of users on the board now we could not pull off a forum that 
would be worth doing. We will NOT put on a forum if we can not do it 
right. So we need a lot of help from you. Please come be a part of 
what I feel is exciting and new. We already have information from 
other user groups that due a great job of putting on forums so we are 
not starting blind and dead in the water. The Iowa (IDDEA) user group 
has been so helpful and have really gone way be on what even Pam 
Schmitz and I could have imagined. 

One last note. There are a lot of users we are not reaching, if you 
know one of these individuals or Corporations that we have not reached 
yet please let us here from you. We are especially interested in 
finding someone we could contact at Excel Energy, Target Corp., 
Pillsbury and any of the counties that use MicroStation and could and 
would pass on information about our user group. Some of these 
corporations have hundreds of MicroStation users and we could really 
use your help in whom to contact. 

Thanks for taking the time to read this and a real big thank you if 
you can help in anyway keeping the user group growing. I hope to see 
you all on the 16th at the MTS headquarters in Eden Prairie. 

Dave Dickson 

_________NEXT MONTH'S MEETING DATE/TIME/LOCATION___________________ 

DATE: January 16th, 2001 
TIME: 4:30 to 6:30 PM 
LOCATION: MTS Systems, Eden Prairie 
DIRECTIONS: Take 494 to State Highway 5 West (Chanhassen). At 
traffic lights, turn left onto Mitchell Road. Turn 
left onto Technology Drive at traffic lights. The 
MTS visitor entrance is the second MTS driveway 
on the left with the large MTS sign. 

The address is 14000 Technology Drive and the phone 
number for directions is 952-937-4000. 

Our next meeting is back out at MTS in E.P. , Mike Yoho is hosting and 
if we ask real nice, he may give tour of his most interesting facilities. 

We hope to see all of you there! Please feel free to contact any of us 
for further directions (if needed), to RSVP, or just show up. 
Everyone's welcome!!! 

Items on the Agenda: 

1. Name Change 
2. Officers 
3. SIGs 
4. 2001 MMLC (or whatever name) Forum 

_________MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING_______________________________ 

DATE: December 12th, 2000 
TIME: 5:00 to 7:00 PM 
LOCATION: T.G.I. Friday's (St. Louis Park) 
No minutes were taken, as we were too busy eating. To those who didn't 
come, we missed you, but there was more for the rest of <g>. 

_________TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES_____________________________ 

GEOPAK Survey - February 6th & 7th 
GEOPAK Criteria - February 8th & 9th 
Essential MicroStation January 23rd-25th 
Productive MicroStation Feb. 20th-22nd 
Essential MicroStation March 6th-8th 

Please note that these classes are being held in Minneapolis, MN. If 
you have any questions, please contact Lisa Christenson, Training 
Coordinator, The Itasca Group, toll free 888-299-8860 or by email 
lisa.christenson@itascagroup.com. 

_________MICROSTATION TIP OF THE MONTH_____________________________ 

Changing Logical Names 

Q. 
My question today is regarding how to change the logical name of a 
reference file in multiple design files. The logical name is the same in 
multiple design files and I need to change them all. Ie... WK2 needs to be 
Design, 2DH should be Basemap, etc... This needs to be done to 30 plus 
files. Any suggestions? 

A. 
"WK2" and "2DH" (2DP?) sound like wacky NYSDOT file naming conventions. Maybe 
they'll break the chains of DOS 8.3 file naming and bring back the sensible 
.DGN 
extension someday. 

Anyway, this is quite a common task (even on non-NYSDOT stuff) and can 
easily be 
done via a macro: 

Sub Main 
Dim refFile As MbeRefFile 
Dim iRef As Integer 
Dim refFileName As String 
Dim maxRefFiles As Integer 
Dim status as Long 
' store the maximum number of reference files value 
maxRefFiles = MbeRefFiles.maxRefFiles 
' initialize loop counters 
iRef = 1 
' for each reference file do 
Do While iRef > 0 And iRef <= maxRefFiles 
' set the refFile object variable to the current reference file object 
Set refFile = MbeRefFiles(iRef) 
' get the logical name of this reference file attachment 
refFileName = Ucase$(refFile.fileName) 

If Instr(refFileName,"BDCP") <> 0 Then 
refFile.logical = "BORDER" 
End If 
If Instr(refFileName,"I01H_2NY.DGN") <> 0 Then 
refFile.logical = "BASELINE" 
End If 
If Instr(refFileName,"I02H_2NY.DGN") <> 0 Then 
refFile.logical = "EDGES" 
End If 

' etc., etc., etc., 

status = refFile.saveSettings() 

iRef = iRef + 1 
Loop 
End Sub 

It may take some time to add in all the ref file and logical names, but you can 
always go back and add more later, then rerun the macro. 

HTH, 
Simon 

_________MMLC OFFICERS CONTACT INFORMATION_________________________ 

If you want to contact one of MMLC's current Officers: 

Chair: Dave Dickson ddickson@sehinc.com 
Vice Chair: Dean Sturgis dean.sturgis@dot.state.mn.us 
Secretary: Scott Ornat sornat@ci.minnetonka.mn.us 
Treasurer: Cindi Olichwier colichwier@srfconsulting.com 
Web Design: Pam Schmitz PSchmitz@HNTB.com 

_________MMLC INTERNET LOCATIONS___________________________________ 

Web-Mail address: mmlc_mail@yahoo.com 

The MMLC Website: http://www.soncom.com/schmitz 

The MMLC File Download Site: http://briefcase.yahoo.com/mmlc_mail 

-- 
MMLC