Collaboration with other software
About model and data exchange with 3rd party solutions: Revit, Solibri, dRofus, Bluebeam, structural analysis solutions, and IFC, BCF and DXF/DWG-based exchange, etc.

Mac OSX Lion

Anonymous
Not applicable
I see Mac is coming out with a new OS. Are there going to be any issues with Archicad's 12 thru 15 any other issues like having to buy yet another computer. I also here that Intel is coming out with a their next chip will that have it's own issues or is it just too early to know anything about either yet.
Either way this might work for me, timing wise since I'm still on 12 on a PPC Mac it may allow me to skip a few computer generations and save a lot of money or maybe I'll just stock up on cheap used Mac's and never upgrade again. Although there are some nice features since 12.
87 REPLIES 87
Anonymous
Not applicable
I have had a quick play with Archcad 15 on a "non production" machine (April 2010 iMac, 8Gb Ram) running Lion and haven't had any issues so far - not a thorough test but it works. I would like to try to replicate any other specific issues if any are known. Speed is no different so far. The "slow text" doesn't seem to be an issue here. Neither is the "Launch a new instance" a problem as mentioned below. Reverse scrolling is a bit weird, especially in 3d.

This is not a recommendation by the way - YMMV.
Anonymous
Not applicable
I see. I was under the impressions that it's almost impossible to work in ArchiCAD and Lion.. apparently the issues are that severe.

I'm running SL until about 4 weeks when I upgrade to the current 17" Macbook Pro. Hopefully the issues will be resolved by then.

Thanks for your help!

Nathan
Ted Taylor
Contributor
I installed Lion in a separate partition and have played a bit with it and v15. I have not experienced any of the problems mentioned and speed seems to be OK. But, the text box is funky. One moment it stretches completely across screen and beyond, next moment the text extends below the box and is only partially visible. If you just click on a spot and start typing it seems to work OK. There was something similar to this going on with text way back in 2005 that GS got corrected (If someone can show me how to point back to a thread in a message, I will dig the thread out and post it)

If you are in a position where Lion is the only option, I have not seen anything in a cursory look that is beyond annoying, but it is cursory look.
Ted Taylor
Atlanta, GA , USA
iMac (Retina 5K, 27", Late 2015)
3.3 GHz Intel Core i5 32GB
AMD Radeon R9 M395 2GB
OS10.14.2,
Latest Archicad 22
Ben Cohen
Enthusiast
Well I bit the bullet and installed Lion. I am not one to rush into installing the latest OS so early but I was having major problems networking with snow leapard and it was either re-install or upgrade.
I first installed Lion on my 'non production' machine and AC 13 was running fine, but text was dissappearing on zoom and pan. This was fixed by changing the 2d redraw settings in the Work Environment (AC 15 was not installed on this Mac)
After this success I installed Lion on my production machine. Much the same - with AC 13 running seemingly fine (Opening a new instance of AC is working). But, AC 15 is having some serious issues with zoom and pan in floor plan. Its pretty much unusable. If your using 15 - wait for the updates. Note - I was testing 15 back in July 2010, and it was running better back then.!

The bottom line. AC 13 seems fine. (AC 14 on first inspection OK) AC 15 not so.

As for Lion. Hopefully my networking issues get solved (I find out Monday). But 'full screen' only works with a few apple apps, the window resizing from any edge doesn't work with AC 13 but works with AC 15. Rosetta has been removed so you can't use Office 2004 etc (2011 is much better anyway). Mission control is pretty nice, but not a huge deal. The lack of colour in the finder is not nice. I guess the best feature is its priced right. $31.99 inc GST for ALL your computers is a pretty sweet deal.
My tip, turn off that reverse scrolling immediately!
Ben Cohen
Mac and PC
Archicad (Latest Version) aus
www.4DLibrary.com.au
Eduardo Rolon
Moderator
Found another interesting glitch on AC15 using Lion.

The Info Box does not update when you select an object. Nor does the Command+T Window.
Eduardo Rolón AIA NCARB
AC27 US/INT -> AC08

Macbook Pro M1 Max 64GB ram, OS X 10.XX latest
another Moderator

ArchiTAD
Newcomer
Been playing with AC15 and OSX Lion on my home systems and am actually (surprisingly!) experiencing few, if any, issues—had to uninstall everything and reinstall to get to this point though! Info Box and Command+T seem to work fine for me. On the plus side, I am loving some of the new Lion features, such as window resizing—don't forget to play with "Shift" and "Option" variations—really nice!

Am making a concerted effort to train myself to use the default "Natural" scrolling feature, was really weird for awhile, but am getting used to it. Better to roll with significant UI changes than resist them, they're not gonna go away and you'll be battling them ad infinitum!—my opinion based on ~30 years 2D/3D CADD experience. Also, like myself, if you use custom Work Environments (WE), I recommend starting with the provided AC15 WE(s) and customizing them rather than bringing "up" customized ones from previous versions. Learned the hard way again, after trying to add an export option to my customized AC14 WE to no avail, but was easily added to the AC15 "Standard Profile 15".
Thomas A Dailey, CPBD, AIBD, Assoc. AIA
www.designdailey.com
ArchiCAD • 25+ years experience
AC …20, Sketchup Pro 2016, Artlantis Studio 6 Piranisi 6 PRO, VectorWorks, Adobe CC, 27" iMacs, G4 Cube, Mac OS 10.12.5, iPad Pro, Windows 7 Ultimate
JaredBanks
Mentor
ArchiTAD,

Great advice. I agree; no need to fight the future. Best to learn reverse scrolling now (among other things)...
Jared Banks, AIA
Shoegnome Architects

Archicad Blog: www.shoegnome.com
Archicad Template: www.shoegnome.com/template/
Archicad Work Environment: www.shoegnome.com/work-environment/
Archicad Tutorial Videos: www.youtube.com/shoegnome
Ben Cohen
Enthusiast
Just a quick update.

1. Lion has fixed all my networking issues. So I am really happy. Plus there was a network printing bug that it also fixed (although this was just be fixed in a snow leopard update)

2. I reinstalled v15 but I am still having the zoom and pan issues.

I totally agree with upgrading your brain along side your software, but I work in a mixed PC and Mac environment and swapping between the two scroll methods would 'do my head in'. I'll will stick to the old, un-natural scroll.
Ben Cohen
Mac and PC
Archicad (Latest Version) aus
www.4DLibrary.com.au
Marton Kiss
Graphisoft
Graphisoft
Ben,

your 2nd problem - zoom and pan issues - sounds quite similar to the text related slowness. I played a bit with such files and my first experience was that after zooming above 50% panning and zooming started to be really slow. This is the side effect that refreshing texts is much slower. So check the fonts you are using in your plans, there might be one from our list or an other 3rd party one that is affected.

Unfortunately this bug was first present in the GM build of Lion, so even though we started to test Lion from the first developer builds we were not able to identify and report this problem to Apple.

Regards,
Marton
Marton Kiss
VP, Product Success
GRAPHISOFT
Anonymous
Not applicable
Well, I downloaded the new Lion operating system on my MacBook Pro as well as my husband's iMac and found out the hard way that you can NOT run ANY version of archicad with Lion therefore, I urge you not to try. I asked the archicad rep and he said he didn't think that Archicad 15 would work with it either. Furthermore, he stated that they might only fix the glitch for Archicad 15. I have Archicad 9 and it definitely doesn't work.

Fortunately, I figured out that lion has a share feature that allows all the computers using the same network to share screens and sooooo, my husband is sharing the screen with my old Powerbook G4 with Tiger (slow) so that he can still work from his iMac. It's not perfect but it sure beats clients screaming at the door. I am thinking of purchasing a mini-mac on craigslist with Snow Leopard and do the same thing. This way it will at least be faster. Guess it's time to upgrade Archicad.

***Take note that any software program you have that is PC based will NOT work with Lion therefore, the problem is not only Archicad but other programs as well.