Hi Leo,
Really interesting ideas ... but maybe we're not understanding each other on the ID thing - I am not advocating using the ID field for anything but the door/window label which is seen in plan and in schedules and maybe in elevations.
I'm not sure about having each library part optionally read an xml file to update its parameters as a solution to Erika's desire. It could work of course. But, it would be extremely inefficient. The API offers the most reasonable way to do that kind of thing. (But, both techniques would require that the external editor of the xml could not modify the fields that specify the internal parameter names or object GUID, even by accident - otherwise the import could cause some really bad results when the wrong data went to the wrong objects and/or fields!)
I have wished since the ODBC driver was first introduced that it was a two-way linkage, rather than read-only data access - as that would be the ideal way to address Erika's wish: quick, attractive friendly form and report design in Microsoft Access with a live link to the project data. No need for API programming, and really opening up the data side of ArchiCAD.
Cheers,
Karl
One of the forum moderators
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