Cut CD Production Time in HALF - toggle LAYERS ON and OFF...

[Anonymous]

I haven't found any threads on shortcut key programming to TOGGLE layers ON and or OFF (without having to go into the Layer list..."control-L" on windows.) When trying to develop efficient PROCESS, we look which sub-tasks happen the most FREQUENTLY and try reduce how often they occur, or reduce the amount of TIME it takes for it to happen.

An analysis of the Construction Documents phase shows that a vast amount of production time is lost working through the layers to select the content you want to work on.

One could present that the "Layer Combinations" feature built into AC already does this, however, I have found that a mastered keyboard command process for layer control can be a much faster form of data entry, navigation and layer management. There are a few items that have presented themselves during the course of considering this...

Benefits of Keyboard Layer Commands...

1- You don't have to look through a list to find the name of a layer which your mind has already thought of... mind, eyes, and hand (tethered to the mouse) all have to shake hands (so to speak)... the eyes and hand being the bottleneck. This process becomes repetitive thousands of times over in the process of modeling and drafting.

2- As you are working, on the fly, you can toggle a layer on... with one command... For example... "WE" for Walls Exterior ON, or "RS"for Roof Shingles ON, or "D" for duct ON. ...Inversely, "WEO" for Walls Exterior OFF, or "RSO" for Roof Shingles OFF, etc.

3- The least amount of letter in the keyboard shortcut... the better. (ie. its best if you do not have to enter "control", "command," or "shift" along with the layer information)

4- Its best to set them up so that they are all on the left side of the keyboard...(if you mouse with your right hand)

3- It is also advantageous if the Layer Combinations can be set to toggle with keyboard commands... for example... "FA" = Floor Plans ALL, or "FLA" = Floor-Framing ALL, or "RA" = Roof-ALL layers.

4- Another keyboard layer command that would be advantageous is to be able to toggle all layers OFF... for example type in "O" for off and all layers would turn off... this let's the CAD tech reset there mind and frame of reference in a lot of cases and be able to toggle layers on from that point

I'll stop the list there for now. This isn't the first time I've looked at the layer strategy in a software to make work more profitable. The last CAD system for which I created Keyboard Layer commands proved incredibly successful. Once the layer commands were set up and applied to the next project in queue... we reduced the CD phase by an estimated 40-50 hours. Now, it's not that CAD operators were spending 40-50 hours changing layers... its that the inertia of a mouse and window driven layer GUI (graphic user interface) was sabotaging the speed and momentum of the work.

At the end of the day... we all want to spend more time in the SD phase and less time in the CD phase. Because the "work" of architecture is highly tied to the hour it is very difficult to scale. We only have two (2) options to "scale" the work into a more profitable model...

1- Higher more people to do the work = (increase in HR overhead)
2- Identify and create solutions to get the same work done faster = (Keyboard Toggled Layers)


Based on my calculations, If the layers could be managed with memorized keystrokes... production time could almost be cut in half. If anyone is interested in more of these efficiency work-flow ideas, let me know. I would welcome a collaborative dialog to share ideas and findings of where the bottlenecks have been found in production, and solutions to these bottlenecks.

If ArchiCAD has a feature to set up keyboard commands for layers like I mentioned above, I would be VERY interested in this. I have found keyboard command setup for tools and tool bars, however I have not found them for layers, or layer combinations yet. Thanks in advance for your time and thoughts on this subject.

Cheers-

[Anonymous]

Quick layers do a lot of the operations, wished in the original post. If you assign shortcuts to them it is really fast to navigate.

However, I do not like the idea to remember several new command just for toggling layers. According to me this will unnecessarily complicate the workflow.

[JaredBanks]

Agreed. The Quick layers palette, keyboard shortcuts for hide/show layers, and smart use of layer combinations should be able to handle all of this...

http://www.shoegnome.com/2010/08/11/eyeballs-and-locks/

[Anonymous]

zeropointreference wrote:
What I don't like about doing it that way laszlonagy is I'll end up forming a really long quick layer combo list. That list doesn't sort easily and it can't have folders. Plus there is a lot of scrolling and hunting for an entry if it's back and forth switching between layer states as well as having to open the list every time there is an adjustment. Feels like the quick layer combo list is working against me.

I use views, layer combos and trips to the settings dialog according to the circumstances but I use combos in the Quick Options palette most by far.

One trick to make it easier with a long list is to distinguish between working combos and output combos. I start the working combos names with an exclamation point (works for both Mac and Windows) to bring them to the top of the list. Combos that I frequently switch between are usually named to be together on the list.

Since the output combos are for assigning to views I only have to access them once to set up the view and then I'll use the view itself after that.

Of course all this varies widely depending on the project, personal preferences, etc but I think a good naming standard for the combos is helpful in any case.

[Anonymous]

As to the OP: I don't see the value of using keystrokes for layer control. The existing methods are quite workable and the keystroke approach seems as though it would be difficult to set up, administer and use. There are also not that many unused keyboard shortcuts available.

Two features I would like to see are a layers palette for quick individual layer control and a layer hierarchy for better organization.

[Anonymous]

i have been thinking along the same lines and i agree with most of what was suggested. i personally have found a (incomplete) solution for myself but it is very personalised and needs a lot of time and effort to do initial set-up. but... but for me it is without any hesitation the single most useful workflow enhancement though unfortunately implemented by me and needs a relatively expensive third party software.

i was talking about this in the following topic:archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=205385&highlight=#205385

"after customizing all the most used commands, i virtually run out of normal keyboard shortcuts and it's not possible to memorise if cmd-ctrl-shift-S is assigned to "set home zoom" or "send backward" or what have you. so i was looking for system that can simulate autocad style commands where you have to type in first few letters of the command to distinguish it from the rest of the commands beginning with the same letters, so one wouldn't have to remember all the tedious keyboard shortcuts possible. i found few workarounds to achieve this on mac. programs like quickeys, keyboard maestro etc came to help where you can use abbreviations to type in shortcuts, press menu items or buttons etc. so now for example typing in "irl"(invert reference line) executes design menu>modify wall>reference line, clicks invert all sides and simulates pressing enter to close the wall reference line window, without having to use the mouse at all. of course it took some time to set this all up in quickeys, but without a need to use the mouse for going through endless menus and windows and buttons, i think it payed off in a week or so and has really improved my speed in archicad. it's much more simple to memorise that typing "sf" means sun off and "sn" turns sun on in 3d or that i can even change layer combination to "render" or "work" layer combination by just typing in "re" or "wr"! or "em" to edit hotlink modules or "um" to update selected module etc etc. all of this usually means opening a number of windows from the menus and making a numerous clicks. i wish this could be an integrated option in archicad to be less mouse dependant..."

so in my case manipulating behaviour with the key sequences(HL-hide layer) on a single layer level is limited to the quick layers palette, meaning you can turn off the layer of the selected element and turn it back on only by using undo quicklayer action button(UL-undo layer). but on the other hand which works extremely efficiently is layer combination by assigning key sequence to them and this due to the fact they are found in the menus, that quickeys can reach.
quickeys is also available for windows, but i cannot comment on it's functionality compared to on a mac, but i guess there are more alternatives on windows platform like autohotkey etc etc. it's just that quickeys seemed to be with the most functionality and most easy to set up.