Solid Edge ST7 SDK
Working with Sections and Sheets
Programmer's Guide > Solid Edge > Environments > Draft > Working with Sections and Sheets

The structure of Draft documents differs significantly from other Solid Edge document types. From the DraftDocument object, you access the Sheets collection and then the individual Sheet objects. The Sheets collection contains both working sheets and background sheets.

In addition, DraftDocument supports a Sections object. The Sections object is a collection of Section objects that group Sheets by the characteristics of the data they contain. As users create drawings interactively, data from these drawings is automatically placed in one of three Section objects:

Sections are a part of the graphical interface, although they are not immediately apparent. When the interactive user selects View > Background Sheet, Solid Edge internally changes to the Backgrounds section and displays its sheets. Similarly, the View > Working Sheet command allows you to modify the sheets that are in the Sections1 section. When a DrawingView is added, a new sheet is added to the DrawingViews section.

However, it is not possible through the graphical interface to create and manipulate sections directly. Although it is possible through automation to create new Sections, it is not a supported workflow. Although the same information is available on the Sheets collection that is a child of the DraftDocument object, within Sections, the information is separated by its functional characteristics.

See Handling 'Application is Busy' and 'Call was Rejected By Callee' errors for information regarding the use of OleMessageFilter.
Sections and Sheets in Visual Basic .NET
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Imports SolidEdgeDraft
Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices

Module Program
    <STAThread()> _
    Sub Main()
        Dim objApplication As SolidEdgeFramework.Application = Nothing
        Dim objDocuments As SolidEdgeFramework.Documents = Nothing
        Dim objDraft As SolidEdgeDraft.DraftDocument = Nothing
        Dim objSections As SolidEdgeDraft.Sections = Nothing
        Dim objSection As SolidEdgeDraft.Section = Nothing
        Dim objSectionSheets As SolidEdgeDraft.SectionSheets = Nothing
        Dim objSheets As SolidEdgeDraft.Sheets = Nothing
        Dim objSheet As SolidEdgeDraft.Sheet = Nothing
        Dim strFormat1 As String = "Section = {0}"
        Dim strFormat2 As String = "Sheet = {0}"

        Try
            OleMessageFilter.Register()

            ' Connect to a running instance of Solid Edge
            objApplication = Marshal.GetActiveObject("SolidEdge.Application")

            ' Get a reference to the documents collection
            objDocuments = objApplication.Documents

            ' Add a Draft document      
            objDraft = objDocuments.Add("SolidEdge.DraftDocument")

            ' Get a reference to the sections collection
            objSections = objDraft.Sections

            ' Loop through the sections
            ' igWorkingSection, igBackgroundSection & ig2dModelSection
            For Each objSection In objSections
                ' Output the section type
                Console.WriteLine( _
                  String.Format(strFormat1, objSection.Type.ToString()))

                ' Get a reference to the section sheets collection
                objSectionSheets = objSection.Sheets


                ' Loop through the sheets
                For Each objSheet In objSectionSheets
                    ' Output the sheet name
                    Console.WriteLine(String.Format(strFormat2, objSheet.Name))
                Next
            Next

            ' Access the igWorkingSection directly
            objSection = objSections.WorkingSection

            ' Access the igBackgroundSection directly
            objSection = objSections.BackgroundSection

            ' Get a reference to the sheets collection
            objSheets = objDraft.Sheets

            ' Add a new sheet
            objSheet = objSheets.AddSheet( _
              "Sheet2", SheetSectionTypeConstants.igWorkingSection)

            ' Make the newly added sheet active
            objSheet.Activate()

        Catch ex As Exception
            Console.WriteLine(ex.Message)
        Finally
            OleMessageFilter.Revoke()
        End Try
    End Sub
End Module
Sections and Sheets in C#
Copy Code 
using SolidEdgeDraft;
using System;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

namespace SolidEdge.SDK
{
    class Program
    {
        [STAThread]
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            SolidEdgeFramework.Application application = null;
            SolidEdgeFramework.Documents documents = null;
            SolidEdgeDraft.DraftDocument draft = null;
            SolidEdgeDraft.Sections sections = null;
            SolidEdgeDraft.Section section = null;
            SolidEdgeDraft.SectionSheets sectionSheets = null;
            SolidEdgeDraft.Sheets sheets = null;
            SolidEdgeDraft.Sheet sheet = null;
            string format1 = "Section = {0}";
            string format2 = "Sheet = {0}";

            try
            {
                OleMessageFilter.Register();

                // Connect to a running instance of Solid Edge
                application = (SolidEdgeFramework.Application)
                  Marshal.GetActiveObject("SolidEdge.Application");

                // Get a reference to the documents collection
                documents = application.Documents;

                // Add a Draft document
                draft = (SolidEdgeDraft.DraftDocument)
                  documents.Add("SolidEdge.DraftDocument", Missing.Value);

                // Get a reference to the sections collection
                sections = draft.Sections;

                // Loop through the sections
                // igWorkingSection, igBackgroundSection & ig2dModelSection
                for (int i = 1; i <= sections.Count; i++)
                {
                    section = sections.Item(i);

                    // Get a reference to the section sheets collection
                    sectionSheets = section.Sheets;

                    // Output the section type
                    Console.WriteLine(String.Format(format1, section.Type.ToString()));

                    // Loop through the sheets
                    for (int j = 1; j <= sectionSheets.Count; j++)
                    {
                        sheet = sectionSheets.Item(j);

                        // Output the sheet name
                        Console.WriteLine(String.Format(format2, sheet.Name));
                    }
                }

                // Access the igWorkingSection directly
                section = sections.WorkingSection;

                // Access the igBackgroundSection directly
                section = sections.BackgroundSection;

                // Get a reference to the sheets collection
                sheets = draft.Sheets;

                // Add a new sheet
                sheet = sheets.AddSheet(
                  "Sheet2",
                  SheetSectionTypeConstants.igWorkingSection,
                  Missing.Value,
                  Missing.Value);

                // Make the newly added sheet active
                sheet.Activate();
            }
            catch (System.Exception ex)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
            }
            finally
            {
                OleMessageFilter.Revoke();
            }
        }
    }
}