topic Re: Tweak it in 10, lose it in 9 in Libraries & objects

Tweak it in 10, lose it in 9

David Collins — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 07:12:20 GMT

A word of caution to anyone who dabbles in GDL tweaking: Any GDL element that has been edited and saved in 10 will no longer open in 9. Make sure you save a 9.0 version of your custom libraries. And a *.pla file for all projects is always a good idea.

Re: Tweak it in 10, lose it in 9

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 07:36:09 GMT

David wrote:
Any GDL element that has been edited and saved in 10 will no longer open in 9.

This has been true for every ArchiCAD upgrade that I can recall with the sole exception of the transition from 6.5 to 7.0. It is for this reason that there is a warning whenever you open an older part in a newer version of the program. It is good to point out though since it is a serious pain if you have to recreate an old part from one that has been saved to a newer version.

Re: Tweak it in 10, lose it in 9

owen — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 04:09:31 GMT

I've made this mistake once before, its not the sort of thing you will do again Had to retrieve the old one from backup and do the work over again .... if only you could copy-paste items in the Parameters list

It would be good if you could save a library part as an older format, with a warning about any parts of the script that are incompatible with the selected version.

At the moment you need to keep an old version of archicad installed just to change a default pen in an object which may be being used on an older project.

Re: Tweak it in 10, lose it in 9

Frank Beister — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 06:16:13 GMT

Downgrading an object is poor pain. If pictures included nearly impossible.

There a two theoretical ways to transfer (large) parameter lists to an older version.

1. Use the "Black Turtle", which opened any object, regardless of its version and saves it to Format of ArchiCAD 7. Does not work for all, but sometimes it reduces work and typing faults.

2. Hope you ave archieved all old GDL2XML converters. I haven't had to test it, but you should be able to copy and paste the XML part of the parameters section of a newer object into the XML of an older one. Then reconverting the extended XML-code of the old one with the old converter back to GSM.

Re: Tweak it in 10, lose it in 9

David Collins — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 06:22:51 GMT

Matthew wrote:
.... there is a warning whenever you open an older part in a newer version of the program....

This is true for older objects, I've found, but library parts created in 9.0 will not give fair warning when edited and saved in 10.0.
(guess how I found that out )

Re: Tweak it in 10, lose it in 9

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 06:57:42 GMT

David wrote:
Matthew wrote:
.... there is a warning whenever you open an older part in a newer version of the program....
This is true for older objects, I've found, but library parts created in 9.0 will not give fair warning when edited and saved in 10.0.
(guess how I found that out )

Strange. It's been working for me.

Re: Tweak it in 10, lose it in 9

owen — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 07:27:11 GMT

F. wrote:
1. Use the "Black Turtle" ...

are we supposed to know about that? I feel like I should be keeping an eye out for some sinister looking East Europeans for the next few days ....

Re: Tweak it in 10, lose it in 9

Frank Beister — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 07:33:49 GMT

The Black Turtle was an GDL-Editor project, which never reached a final release. The development was stopped, but the old betas work by turning back the clock. No download availaible AFAIK. You have to search for a good guy, who sends it to you, but don't waste to much time for it, if you really do not need it.

Re: Tweak it in 10, lose it in 9

David Collins — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 05:05:19 GMT

Matthew wrote:
Strange. It's been working for me.

Very strange. I've just tested it again. Objects created in 9, then edited in 10 are saved without a warning message and then can no longer even be seen as a library part in 9. "Open object" error message in 9 reads "Unknown Document Version."

International version vs US version. maybe?
As you say, its always been this way with upgrades. Having missed the warning message this time around, I just thought I'd post one of my own.

Re: Tweak it in 10, lose it in 9

Anonymous — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 06:12:26 GMT

David wrote:
Matthew wrote:
Strange. It's been working for me.
Very strange. I've just tested it again. Objects created in 9, then edited in 10 are saved without a warning message and then can no longer even be seen as a library part in 9. "Open object" error message in 9 reads "Unknown Document Version."

The very odd bit is that I occasionally get that message when I try to open parts in AC9 that I have NOT saved in AC10. This happened earlier today with a part that I had just written from scratch in 9. I saved and closed the part, and then later went back to edit it and it refused to open with the "Unknown Document Version" message. I did get it to work eventually but now I don't remember how - I think it opened in a different session.

Re: Tweak it in 10, lose it in 9

Frank Beister — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 06:42:37 GMT

Mattew: I had something similar between 8.1 and 9.0. I ran both parallel and I could open the 9.0 written and saved objec tin 8.1 in the moment the object was opendin AC9 and the same library was loaded in 8.1. It was not reproduceable, but it worked definitvely!

I remember a functionality (in AC 8?) to convert a complete library into the new version. But that AC10 changes the version by its own would be awful!

Maybe it has to do something with the precompilation. By saving (or using) an object the source code of the object is precompiled to translate the most possible into "machine language". This result is saved on hd. On windows machines this are the annoying .gs&-files. On Mac it was up to 9 encapsulated into the HFS-format (macos9-objects have been everytime larger than windows saved ones). On OS X this part is maybe hidden - ".objectname.gs&"?

Assumption: An AC 9.0 object, stripped of its precompiled part, out of which reason ever, ist used in AC10. Loading the library in AC10 precompiles the object and saves the data. Back in 9 the object has an 9.0 source and a 10.0 compiled part, and this is recogniced by AC9, which stops loading? Just an idea.

Re: Tweak it in 10, lose it in 9

David Maudlin — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 12:11:25 GMT

F. wrote:
I remember a functionality (in AC 8?) to convert a complete library into the new version.

There was a command under the "Special" Menu for doing batch conversions, it was there before version 8. Since you had to jump through some hoops to get the Special Menu, it would have been hard to convert files accidentally. Activating the Special Menu is very difficult (impossible?) on the Mac in version 10, so I don't know if this feature is still around.

David

Re: Tweak it in 10, lose it in 9

Frank Beister — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 12:15:02 GMT

AFAIR there was a way to activate it up to 8.1, but AFAIK there is no specal menu from 9 on included.

Re: Tweak it in 10, lose it in 9

Anonymous — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 14:04:57 GMT

F. wrote:
AFAIR there was a way to activate it up to 8.1, but AFAIK there is no specal menu from 9 on included.

The special menu is still there in 9 (10 too I think). Enabling it is different. This has been discussed but I forget where.