Guys, this seems to be a very old thread.
We are in Archicad 25 and still only partial workarounds available for the most basic documentation tasks: Label the Finish (surface) of an element, apply a wall type code, add ratings to a system (not the instance)
The fundamental problem is this: We have the base information in the model, but can't extract it for documentation, and can't add the necessary descriptions!
What needs to be done by Graphisoft (should have been done ages ago)
1) We need Attribute level Properties.
What does it mean?
For Attributes like Surface; Composite; Complex Profile the only available data field is their name!
That's not enough.
Example 1: for a wall tile, we would need to have a short code (T01; T02 etc) simply because there is not enough space in the drawing to label the surface with the full name. Also, as a minimum, would need a short description, supplier, manufacturer, etc.
All this info belongs to the Surface and not to the Building Material. The building material is generic, like Ceramic Tile, then the Surface defines the specifics.
Example 2: A stud wall would be modeled as a composite. The Fire Rating, Acoustic Rating, Thermal Rating of that wall belongs to the Composite level (as a system) not to the placed Instances of the wall, let alone to the Building Materials of each layer.
Example 3: Basic thing: Wall types in any country, any company's documentation would need to have a wall type code (or ceilings a ceiling type etc) This code is obviously not Instance based, but Attribute based -> an ID field for the Composite/complex profile is needed, or let us use custom Properties.
2) We need to be able to label sub elements such as:
- Individual surfaces of a complex profile
- Any clicked surface of a gdl object
- Any clicked surface of a railing (Seriously, why is railing so bad compared to Curtain Wall? wasn't it supposed to be the same technology???? The only difference between a railing and a curtain wall is that railings need to be able to follow stairs at an angle, while Curtain Walls don't need to)
Note:
a) Any gdl element code recognizes parameters defining surface as a different type of variable. Why then that differentiator can't be accessible for labels? (I mean, if it is a variable to define a surface, the name of the variable does not matter, it can remain user defined)
b) Any placed label has an insertion base point. Why that base point can't be matched with a point of the labelled element? That's all that would be required to not label an entire element, but label the part of the element at the clicked point.
ArchiCAD since 4.5
Windows, Mac
