Label Settings...

[Laura Yanoviak]

Does anyone know why sometimes the Label Settings... button is active within some element's dialogs, and not in others? In the attached screen shot, both Objects reference the same part, and the tool settings dialog opened in the same (Story) Viewpoint.

[Laszlo Nagy]

Let us say this: If you have no Walls selected and you go to the Wall Settings Dialog, the Label Settings button is enabled. At this point you can go and set default settings for the Label which will be used in subsequently labeled Walls.
With the above example, if you have any Walls selected, if you go to the Wall Settings Dialog, the Label Settings button will be disabled.

So the idea is that we must set default Label settings prior to labeling elements. I don't know why but that's how it works.

[gpowless]

Laura wrote:
Does anyone know why sometimes the Label Settings... button is active within some element's dialogs, and not in others? In the attached screen shot, both Objects reference the same part, and the tool settings dialog opened in the same (Story) Viewpoint.

One can not edit the label settings for a placed object.

[Laszlo Nagy]

gpowless wrote:

Laura wrote:
Does anyone know why sometimes the Label Settings... button is active within some element's dialogs, and not in others? In the attached screen shot, both Objects reference the same part, and the tool settings dialog opened in the same (Story) Viewpoint.

One can not edit the label settings for a placed object.

That is true. So what one needs to do with a placed element is select its Label directly and then go to its Settings Dialog if settings need to be chagned.

[Laura Yanoviak]

laszlonagy wrote:
So the idea is that we must set default Label settings prior to labeling elements. I don't know why but that's how it works.

So you can't change the Label Settings via the tool's dialog box after the element has been placed? Seems like an odd limitation to me.

[Anonymous]

Laura wrote:

laszlonagy wrote:
So the idea is that we must set default Label settings prior to labeling elements. I don't know why but that's how it works.

So you can't change the Label Settings via the tool's dialog box after the element has been placed? Seems like an odd limitation to me.

Yes it is a bit inconsistent. Door and window tags and zone stamps are tightly linked to their associated parts but labels are not. In GS' defense I can see reasons for this. For all my complaints about the label tool (quirky behaviors and generally falling just short of the great feature it could have been), I do appreciate that labels are relatively decoupled from their associated elements (if they are associative that is).

But...

You can change the labels any way you want (including choosing a different label) by selecting them and editing them directly. There are times when I prefer to use the defaults to reset my labels though. Since I have a lot of custom ones with automatic rotations and alignments I often find it easier to change the defaults select all the elements and then unlabel and relabel them.

BTW: The versatility of the loosely coupled, customizable labels is something I find very useful and have yet to see any way to replicate in Revit. The Revit tags are more automatic (and directly editable on screen by in large) but I've found no way to customize them.