After Exiting AC & Opening Can Not Modify XREF! Why?

[Anonymous]

Hi,
I have been attaching dwg files as XREF's, MODIFYING (deleting, extending...) them and saving (with out reloading them). But I noticed for the first time, if I exit ArchiCad after the first time attaching them and coming back to ArchiCad the XREF's become not editable! any work around or I am missing a point?
Thanks,
Joseph

[Anonymous]

Xrefs are exactly what they say - external references. Any editing will be erased upon a rebuild, and the drawing will be locked on a reopen. To change the Xref, you would need to open the drawing you are referencing, make the changes there, save and update. The alternative would be to bind the Xref after inserting it, making it part of the Archicad drawing. This holds the edits you make, but breaks the links to the DWG.

[__archiben]

Joseph wrote:
Hi,
I have been attaching dwg files as XREF's, MODIFYING (deleting, extending...) them and saving (with out reloading them). But I noticed for the first time, if I exit ArchiCad after the first time attaching them and coming back to ArchiCad the XREF's become not editable! any work around or I am missing a point?
Thanks,
Joseph

the golden rule of XREFs according to archiben frost:

NEVER, EVER EDIT/MODIFY/WHATEVER REFERRENCED FILES FROM THE HOST PROJECT!

i personally wish that archiCAD would lock out all attributes from hotlinked/xref'ed files until otherwised officially merged into the host project file.

of course, having the sketch-up-like ability to go into a hotlink/xref as a separate file but within the same archiCAD session to edit it would be nice.

~/archiben