Title Types

[Anonymous]

I'm just starting to use titletypes in Plotmaker, and have come across a problem.
Example1.jpg shows what my title should look like, with the drawing number in the circle, and the drawing title beside it. This is easy enough to set up, by putting the 'Undefined Drawing Number' auto text in the circle, and the 'Undefined Drawing Name' auto text beside it.

The drawing number I want to use is the 'By ArchiCAD' option in the drawing settings box, with a cross section/elevation this is the ID number of the section marker.

The drawing name is the name I have given each drawing in my view sets.

This is where the problem begins.

Usually I leave the drawing name as the default (in the case of my example it would be 'E01 Front Elevation'). But when I get to inserting my titletype, it correctly reads the drawing number as E01, but it also places E01 in the drawing name placeholder.

The obvious thing to do is save the drawing names in the view sets without the drawing number in front of them, however, this gets confusing when it comes to working with the drawings later on. Apart from Front and Rear elevations, typically my sections are titled 'Section', so if I was to remove the drawing numbers out of the name, I would have a large amount of drawings in my view sets with the name 'Section' which gets incredibly confusing. It also causes confusion in Plotmaker when trying to review drawing status in the drawing usage window.

So, if anybody can understand my problem and long winded explanation, any suggestions on how I can fix this?

[Link]

Can you simply not include the number in the view's name, then in your PlotMaker Navigator (Tree By Subsets), set the display mode to 'Show Names & Numbers'?

Cheers,
Link.

[Anonymous]

Link wrote:
Can you simply not include the number in the view's name, then in your PlotMaker Navigator (Tree By Subsets), set the display mode to 'Show Names & Numbers'?

Cheers,
Link.

I've tried doing that, and it mostly works, but as I explained at the end of my question, it creates a lot of confusion, for me, and more importantly for anyone else in the office who needs to access the drawings. As my office tends to name all sections 'Section', I would end up with a huge amount of drawings called Section, with no easy way to tell which section is which. Viewing the drawings in the Plotmaker 'Tree by Subsets' is fine, but viewing it in the ArchiCAD navigator, or Plotmaker 'Drawing Usage' doesn't have the same viewing options...

[TomWaltz]

As my office tends to name all sections 'Section'

Any reason not to make your names more descriptive? It seems like it might help...

[Link]

Well I do know what you mean and have asked the GS Design team personally to allow us a non-printing desciption field in our view names for the very same reason.

Until then we must be either more descriptive, as Tom suggested, and/or in ArchiCAD take a second to look at the 'source' of the view - towards the bottom of the navigator pane (if working in View Sets mode).

Cheers,
Link.

[TomWaltz]

Personally, I found Title Types to be too restructive.

My office likes to have two or three lines of text, and the line under the text extended to match in the case of a longer title.

These needs led us to a custom library object instead of Title Types, but required people to type in their text instead of letting Plotmaker do the work. It's not idea, but it works all the time (which I could not say for TTs)

[Anonymous]

I create a subfolder in the archiCAD Navigator, then include the section and all dependent subsections in the folder. This allows me to name the folder whatever I want so that I know what the contained section is refering to. For example; In the navigator View Sets window, I have a main folder titled Sections. So effectively, I create the heirarchy as such Navigator>Sections>Garage> (then include the section and all linked sub-details).

This process makes it easier to import drawings into plotmaker from my navigator, as I simply click on the 'Section' folder and import the section and all of it's sub-details in one fell swoop.

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure how much PlotMaker work you're planning on doing, but an easy workaround (IMHO) for this would be to use one of the custom value fields for auto text, then enter the drawing name in the custom field in plotmaker, rather than the drawing name field, then you can type whatever you want. This may however become inconvenient if you're doing a lot of PlotMaker books.

cheers,
Dan

[Anonymous]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions, I've played around with a couple, and still trying to work out the best option

- cheers.