Blockpad - Sections

Sections

Sections are used for organizing information or doing different kinds of calculations. Like frames, they are value containers.

There are three types of sections.

Section
Solver section
Step-by-step section

Section

Normal sections are used in a document to organize information and to contain values. Anything you can do in a report, you can do in a section.

Insert a section

While inside a report, select the insert tool.
Select Section.
Click OK.

Insert a section around text

Select the text.
Select the insert tool.
Select Section.
Click OK.

Change the name of a section:

Select the section by clicking on the label.
Open the properties window.
Under Object, click Name.
Type in the new name.
Press enter.

Hide sections

Sections can be conditionally hidden based on a formula. So, you can hide or show content based on calculated values. This applies to any kind of section.

Hide a section:

Select the section by clicking on the label.
Open the properties window.
Under Object, click Hide.
In the window that appears, enter a formula with a boolean result.
Press enter.

If the formula result is true, the section is hidden. If it's false, the section is shown.

A note on logical expressions:

To hide or show a section, you can simply type true or false, and it will hide or show, respectively.
You can also type in a simple test, like 1 < 0, 42 == 40+2, or 12*12 > 100.

A double equals sign (==) is used to test equality.

A practical use is to hide the section based on some value, like Section1.A_1 > 2 ft or Section1.A_1 > 4 ft.

Navigating sections

If a file has a lot of sections, especially hidden or nested sections, it can start to become difficult to navigate through them, but there are a few things you can do to make it easier.

First, the navigation tree helps by showing all of the sections in a file, and how they are nested in eachother. You can also just click on the section in the tree and you will jump to it in the file.

Another tool is View>Show All Sections in the toolbar, which makes all sections visible, including hidden sections. This way you can work on everything at once, without needing to toggle things on and off.

Lastly, it's always best practice to name a section based on it's contents or what it's doing. This way, you can better see which section is doing what, and references to the values inside become clearer (e.g. Beam1.Length vs Section1.Length).

Solver section

Solver sections are used to solve systems of equations. Check out the video to learn more.

Watch solver section video

Insert a solver section:

Select Insert Solver Section in the toolbar.

To use a solver section, type in equations with variable names using dynamic equations. The variable names will appear at the bottom of the section. Once there is complete information to solve for these variables, the solutions will appear on the bottom with the names. These variable names can then be referenced in formulas like normal value names in the report or another frame.

You can reference value names like normal inside of the solver section. They won't be treated as solver variable names.

Step-by-step section

In Blockpad, formulas are calculated in order of dependence, no matter the order they appear on the screen.

For example, although base1 and height1 are defined below Area1 in the page, they can still be used in the formula defining Area1. Area1 is calculated after base1, because Area1 depends on base1.

If you try to give the same name to two different values, you get an error if that name is referenced.

In a step-by-step section, calculations are done from top to bottom, not in order of dependency. So, values must be defined above where they are used, otherwise you will get an error.