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Mass Re-index Attributes

Josh Verran
Expert

Is it possible to re-index attributes on mass?

Eg I have ~50 line types, I want to index so each one has an index 1-50, as opposed to 1, 2,4, 6, 12 etc (not really that bad, but hopefully conveys the idea).

I can do each on individually however this is going to be extremely time consuming, considerin my next move is to reindex fills, then surfaces etc.


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Barry Kelly
Moderator

In the Attribute Manager you can 'Append' to the right hand side.

One at a time if you want to control what gets the next number, or you can select the whole group and they will go across in the same order starting at 1.

 

Then you would select them on the right hand side and 'Overwrite by Index Number' to bring them back with the new index numbers.

 

But I would strongly advise against doing this if you intend to copy and paste, merge, or hotlink to other files.

Also all of you library objects will suddenly go crazy.

This is because Archicad uses the attribute number and not the names when referring to attributes.

So if an object was using line 5 (dashed) it will now be using line 5 still but will now be dot/dash or zigzag or something quite different to what you would expect.

 

Barry.

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Josh Verran
Expert

Ah, thanks Barry, I'll stop there.
That's not going to achieve what I was hoping.

 

The only reason I was going to attempt, is that keep getting odd attributes appearing as staff are importing objects that are then bringing in tonnes of unwanted attributes.

At the moment I'm culling the embedded library each time, then manually clearing the attributes.


The staff need to be able to add new objects to files, but at a bit of a loss on how to stop all these unwanted attributes from appearing.

 

Was hoping I could use the indexing as a way to quickly identify index numbers that fell outside our default range.

 


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What I have done in my template, is to add an attribute for each attribute type that has an index number that is higher than any of my standard attributes.

For example the highest attribute number for surfaces is 296.

I create an new attribute that has the number 1000.

What this does is if someone now creates a new attribute for a surface, it will be created with the index number 1001.

All new attributes are created with higher numbers (unless someone deliberately re-indexes it).

So they are easily recognised.

 

If I need to create a new surface in my template, I do so, but I re-index it so it has a number less than 1000.

 

Now I know what my index numbers are that I control, and what others have created.

I can easily update attributes (overwrite by index number) from my template to any other file and know that it now contains all of my standard attributes.

Anything that is not in my standard range will not be affected.

I don't even bother deleting user created attributes - they may want to deliberately create a different surface that I don't have in the template.

That is fine but I know I can control my attributes and keep them up to date in any file I want to update.

 

I think this applies to attributes created from copy & paste as well.

If a new attribute has to be created, I think it creates also with a higher number.

I am not 100% certain of this, as all of my files are based on the same original template, so I don't have the problem of new attribute being created with a copy & paste.

Any new attribute a user has created will have a higher number, and if that gets copied and pasted into another file, it will still have that higher number.

 

Barry.

 

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@Barry Kelly wrote:

I think this applies to attributes created from copy & paste as well.

If a new attribute has to be created, I think it creates also with a higher number.

I am not 100% certain of this, as all of my files are based on the same original template, so I don't have the problem of new attribute being created with a copy & paste.


I just tested this.

When you copy and paste from another file, if the attribute number exists already, then it does not update anything, it just uses the existing attribute.

If it is a new attribute number, then it creates a new attribute with that number - it does not create an attribute with the highest number.

 

So you will have no way of knowing that a new attribute has been added except by comparing it to your template.

 

Barry.

 

 

One of the forum moderators.
Versions 6.5 to 27
Dell XPS- i7-6700 @ 3.4Ghz, 16GB ram, GeForce GTX 960 (2GB), Windows 10
Lenovo Thinkpad - i7-1270P 2.20 GHz, 32GB RAM, Nvidia T550, Windows 11