I can use VBA to loop through the columns of a table and change many properties related to the Column object itself. What I am looking for is to change the color of select columns of a table as displayed in a PDM diagram. It is possible to do this from the UI, by clicking on a column of a table to select it in a diagram, then right-click to display a context menu, then select 'Sub-Objects Format'.
Here is an example, which does that with some arbitrary criteria to write in red some Columns in a Physical Data Model, when their name contains a "b"... using the ObjectCompositeSymbol.SubObjects
attribute.
option explicit
const workfont = "Arial,8,N,255,0,0"
dim diags: set diags = createobject("Scripting.Dictionary")
dim m : set m = activemodel
dim t
for each t in m.tables
' public name of subobjects: Column; 0: display all
dim sb : sb = "Column 0" + vbcrlf
dim c,some : some = false
for each c in t.columns
' our criteria is: column name contains a b
dim match : match = instr(lcase(c.name),"b") <> 0
if match then
sb = sb + "{"+ c.GetAttribute("ObjectID")+"} " + workfont + vbcrlf
some = true
end if
next
if not some then sb = ""
' apply subobjects coloring
dim s
for each s in t.symbols
if s.subobjects <> sb then
s.subobjects = sb
if not diags.exists(s.diagram) then diags.add s.diagram,0
end if
next
next
if diags.count > 0 then
dim d
for each d in diags.keys
output "... redraw "+d.name
d.RedrawAllViews
next
end if