Is it possible to show a map information, at the personal tool window?

Question

I'm creating a tool to change some 'Map Document Properties' (for example Title, Description, Author), with arcpy (it can also be model builder, or both), to execute from a personal toolbox.

But I want to know if is it possible to show the actual information of the property I want to change at the tool window, before I run it. Just like the 'Project' tool does. It reads the input coordinate system, and show it:

I think it could be something like 'print', but to work before run the tool, and display it... But I do not know how to do it.

This way, I could run it in a batch mode, and easily see the mxd's that I really need to update, and the ones already updated.

It would be something like this:

Input mxd

MXD 'Map Title' (given)

MXD 'Map Title' Change (optional)

Answer 1

You would need to script this using python and arcpy to access the map document properties. If you read the help file on MapDocument (arcpy.mapping) and look at the Syntax section you will see that you can indeed read/write to these properties.

You would read the properties from an existing MXD in the validation event on your first parameter (the selecting of the MXD) and update the other parameters. Read the help page Understanding validation in script tools

By wiring up the script to a tool interface you can expose it as a geo-processing tool in a tool box which it self could then be dragged onto a model.

Answer 2

This is what i did, as validation:

  def updateParameters(self):
"""Modify the values and properties of parameters before internal
validation is performed.  This method is called whenever a parmater
has been changed."""
if self.params[0].altered:
  import arcpy, os, glob, arcgisscripting
  gp = arcgisscripting.create()      
  filename = gp.GetParameterAsText(0)
  mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument(filename)      
  self.params[1].value = mxd.title
return