topic Re: Keynote Legend Format in Documentation

Keynote Legend Format

RJSNZ — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 09:48:22 GMT

It seems like in order to set out a legend using all keynote elements (key/title/description/reference) you must use a 4 column format. (3 if you exclude reference)

When your title and reference is long this seems extremely space inefficient on a layout.

Is there a way to organize the legend into 2 columns or even 1 and still show all the information?

option 1: (my default layout with CI Keynotes - Sample image attached)

Key : Title
: Description
: reference (?)

option 2:
Key : Title
Description
reference

It seems that this library object needs to have more flexibility in formatting and displaying of information:

Operating system used: Windows 10

Re: Keynote Legend Format

James B — Sat, 15 Feb 2025 00:27:06 GMT

Thanks for the feedback, currently you can merge cell content into one cell, but at the moment it will separate with a space only - not onto new lines and having separate formatting as per your example.

We have been investigating this further though.

Re: Keynote Legend Format

RJSNZ — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 01:59:21 GMT

I just want to add to this in case the development team follows these threads.

Additional comment:

Table format / Table Style uses Max. Number of (table) Rows to set how far down the page a schedule will run.
This seems to be the only method to ensure your schedule does not over run a page (or the allocated space)

However in practice the lines in each row is not taken into account so if i set 60 rows, then one column could have 120 lines and another could be the minimum 60. This means a table with multiple columns appears inconsistent on a page.

Re: Keynote Legend Format

James B — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 09:17:49 GMT

Thanks for sharing the example and feedback.
The control is based on table rows, not text lines, as the gdl doesn’t know many lines of text is or isn’t being gathered. What might be possible, is to have a control for each column perhaps - I’d have to check if this is possible. In AC29 we have been working on a few other improvements for the legend, such as background colour, further control of merging columns and customising text.

Re: Keynote Legend Format

RJSNZ — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 00:15:07 GMT

Thank you.

Ideally, instead of counting multiple column rows and having individual settings per column, having a setting to limit the maximum table/column height would be the best solution from a drafting perspective.

If a note "cell" cannot fit in the space allocated then it goes to the next column stack.

I expect counting rows would be a tedious task for users especially if there are edits later in the content of the cells as a project progresses through a contract.

Deleted. Realized that spacing of rows was via the text settings.

Re: Keynote Legend Format

Gabor Szelei — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 20:01:28 GMT

Hello James,
Don't you want to develop something more useful than background color? The current keynote doesn't make much sense... Maybe it would be nice if it could read properties from elements, that would make some sense! Maybe this will be implemented in AC31, if the background color modification is only possible in AC29... 🙂

It shouldn't have been released without normal formatting options.

Gábor

Re: Keynote Legend Format

James B — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 18:23:39 GMT

Hi @Gabor Szelei

Thanks for the feedback. Background colour was to allow a transparent pen to be set which we receive as feedback from AC28. It is obviously a much smaller development than properties and element assignment. Which is still a wider topic we are investigation.

Can you elaborate on what you mean as “normal formatting options”?

Re: Keynote Legend Format

James B — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 18:26:03 GMT

Hi @RJSNZ

During AC28 development we did try to find a solution of limiting based on height - but the object doesn’t know what the content will be when settings sizes. Hence we need to find another way to adjust.

Re: Keynote Legend Format

figge — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 04:26:12 GMT

I agree, integrating Keynote with Element properties should be of highest priority when developing Keynote for the next iteration of ArchiCAD.

Re: Keynote Legend Format

markmcmillan — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 02:22:35 GMT

Hi Keynote users.

I've modified the inbuilt GDL legend object to have the format described above and a max height setting.
Is there someone on the Graphisoft development team I can pass the worked example on to?

I had to try out a few different methods to ensure the redraw was quick. I'll likely add in a set of presets for our office using a drop-down menu to ensure consistency.
The object preserves the original tool but allows for our office overrides with alternative subroutines. I have limited programming experience, but it seems to do what we want.

Re: Keynote Legend Format

markmcmillan — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 02:54:57 GMT

Hi James,

We really needed some of the functionality requested above to be in our template for the use of the inbuild keynotes tools.

Feel free to contact me if you want to see a worked example or help/feedback with developing the keynote schedule.
The height issue appears to be able to be overcome as can the issue with formatting a description under the key+ title.
Happy to share some snips of the code etc if that helps your team include that functionality of our mockup.

The method noting I'm just an architect with no professional programming experience etc was;
Modify the 2d script was to;
1/ Measure the height of all rows based on the dynamic table command / a clone of the draw table subroutine. This recorded heights in an array. The table settings avoided any render of the table as measured.
2/ Calculate a column-by-column total max number based on the height array.
3/ Run more or less the original main loop but substituting the imax values for the premeasured array values above.

This allows it to see the "context" and update on the fly and limited any changes.

Re: Keynote Legend Format

James B — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 08:55:21 GMT

Thanks for the additional feedback.

If you have any examples of the keynotes you're producing or are required to, feel free to send via DM - this will help our future planning.

I also think the team found a way to handle better the multi-unit keynote legend, but not sure when we can finish and deliver. But I'll continue to follow up.