Changing a layout number with a revision letter.

[Anonymous]

Our office wants to institute a regime whereby the reference number of a drawing is amended each time the drawing is revised.

(I've noticed that some practices use the layout name as the field for the revision letter - but we really want to keep this field for the name)

Our problem is that, after having done this, when publishing the layout, the resulting file sometimes has the original name (the one that it had when first published), rather than the new name, thus over-writing the previous revision of the published layout. This doesn't happen consistently. Today when publishing a set of 20 drawings, only 5 of them had file names reflecting the new name.

Is this a bug in Archicad? How do other practices get round the revision letter problem?

Also, how do most practices manage the outgoing data on their network? Do you have, for example, one folder containing the latest set of GAs which can be emailed on demand to consultants/contractors etc. Or do you keep a unique folder of drawings every time a set is issued, possibly named as per recipient? (the latter method requiring a new publishing path every time drawings are published)

Keith
Archicad Ver 12 on MAC OSX 10.4.8

[Fez1974]

Keith,

I know alot of time has passed since this thread but I revise my drawings in exactly the same method as you and I get exactly the same error every now and again which is incredibly frustrating, annoying, time consuming and potentially dangerous as you may appreciate. Hence me searching for a fix.

Over the past 12 months have you overcome this "bug" or changed your system of revising drawings at all?

Regards

Mark

[vfrontiers]

Hmmm... I do this a lot and have not noticed it... But I also tend to CHANGE THE NAME OF THE FOLDER (in the navigator) as well...

Does it happen with ALL file types? I noticed you were publishing PDF's... I have never been able to get good results publishing PDF's and always PRINT TO PDF... I typically publish DWG's tho...

Just trying to help figure it out.

[Fez1974]

vfrontiers wrote:

Does it happen with ALL file types?

Thanks V, It mainly happens with dwg's but occasionly with PDF. I've often wondered whether it is caused due to me putting in a number of spaces between the drawing name and revision letter. I do this to get the revision letter to appear in the right place on the title block at the same time of exporting the file types as a different name within publisher to enable me to keep a record of old revisions.

However, I've just started a new project in archicad 14 today as i've stayed with 13 for a bit and I note that publisher will not allow you to overwrite files with the same name and will prompt you for a revision. Interesting.

[Anonymous]

Fez1974 wrote:

Over the past 12 months have you overcome this "bug" or changed your system of revising drawings at all?

Our technique has been to incorporate the revision letter in the name of the file in the Publisher dialog, and therefore to change the name manually each time a revised version of the drawing is published. You have to do it for DWGs and PDFs separately of course, and in answer to Vfrontiers' question, yes the problem occurs with PDFs as well as DWGs.

Like you, I haven't been using release 14 extensively yet, so look forward to seeing if there's an improvement here. It sounds like this revision prompt would only occur if you attempt to add a layout to a publisher set that already contains that layout.

How nice it would be if a revision letter could be linked to a revision panel, preventing the embarrassment of issuing Revision B with the letter A still following the drawing number.

[Fez1974]

Keith,
I'm afraid v14 still does this occasional blip. But yes it would be so nice to have a separate revision field.
I've wondered whether to use the ID field for the name and the Name field for the revision and then we can add an autotext field to our title blocks. Never got around to trying it out.

[vfrontiers]

Revision TEXT would be great.. but it has to be tied to EACH INDIVIDUAL LAYOUT... We could already use the PROJECT INFO for revision, but it will make a GLOBAL CHANGE..

If we could only access those CUSTOM TEXT items that are available in the PROJECT INDEX environment as an AUTOTEXT on the layout itself... then each layout could be individually changed and this number could be coordinated from INDEX to TITLE BLOCK...

Don't know if I've explained it clearly... but that's my vote...

In addition, I use these little custom texts to display UPDATE DATE on my index (sort of like an ISSUE DATE, but again, individual for each layout).. Would be nice to display that same info on the sheet itself.

[Anonymous]

Yes, but it's fairly elementary programming isn't it?

A field for the current revision number / letter, and an array to hold the various revision numbers, dates, descriptions, letters etc. Each array stored with each layout. The revision number field would default to the most recent revision number in the array.

[Eduardo Rolon]

vfrontiers wrote:
Revision TEXT would be great.. but it has to be tied to EACH INDIVIDUAL LAYOUT... We could already use the PROJECT INFO for revision, but it will make a GLOBAL CHANGE..

If we could only access those CUSTOM TEXT items that are available in the PROJECT INDEX environment as an AUTOTEXT on the layout itself... then each layout could be individually changed and this number could be coordinated from INDEX to TITLE BLOCK...

Don't know if I've explained it clearly... but that's my vote...

In addition, I use these little custom texts to display UPDATE DATE on my index (sort of like an ISSUE DATE, but again, individual for each layout).. Would be nice to display that same info on the sheet itself.

Duane,

This should be a poll.

[Fez1974]

Annoying thing is, when I got my NEW FEATURES OF ARCHICAD 14 it said 'Revisioning of Published Items' - How excited was I but ultimately what a let down.

[Anonymous]

ejrolon wrote:
Duane,

This should be a poll.

I've entered it under 'Publishing Wishes'