Archicad 26 is here!

[Noemi Balogh]

This is the connecting forum thread for Archicad 26 is here!

What is your favourite new feature? Share your thoughts and opinion here!

[Lee Hankins]

You can control the visibility of layers and their locked state within folders by changing the state of the host folder. You just have to be in the uppermost level of the structure.

I don't disagree that there are many improvements can be made to this newer structure for attributes such as folder tree and the ability to link layers to multiple folders (although I can see that becoming really complicated). From discussions I have had with the dev team this is a multi year project as it is such a huge change and I for one am glad for the small changes albeit not perfect. It gives us an opportunity to get used to a much larger change and develop our working methods. Unfortunately GS are never going to please everyone as we all work differently and the methods people use across different localisations are different. They definitely listen to what his fed back which is evident by the reintroduction of the now old Attribute Manager. GS do need to know our opinion and as extensive users we can see the pitfalls and benefits that the devs potentially wouldn't even think of. I am dismayed by the amount of quite brutal bashing of the dev team on here and we all need to take a step back and look at it from their side, imagine if you were the devs reading half these comments. 

[Eduardo Rolon]

Just to make sure that this is my recollection during the Beta process:

@Lee Hankins wrote:

You can control the visibility of layers and their locked state within folders by changing the state of the host folder. You just have to be in the uppermost level of the structure. 

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Fair point but it still is buggy as hell and you cannot use GOs. See Giff were the layer within only inherits the folder setting once you click "twice" to set it.

 

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@Lee Hankins wrote:

From discussions I have had with the dev team this is a multi year project as it is such a huge change and I for one am glad for the small changes albeit not perfect. 

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I agree that it is a good idea to go in steps, (told devs on phone calls too) but they cannot unilaterally remove functionality, the initial release should work and they should make it clear what the steps are. They didn't do anything on this and they gave the answer about multiyear development after they were savaged by a group of Beta users. It was my impression that they thought that Folders and the New Attribute Manager (now named Attributes) were final as is. They had to be convinced that you couldn't manage and/or audit a project with the new Attributes Palette.

Also a multi year project going in the wrong direction (ex SAM, SAF, PARAMO) or never finishing it like Curtain Wall, BMats, Stairs, Railings, Live Work Sheets, can destroy a company.

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@Lee Hankins wrote:

They definitely listen to what his fed back which is evident by the reintroduction of the now old Attribute Manager. GS do need to know our opinion and as extensive users we can see the pitfalls and benefits that the devs potentially wouldn't even think of. I am dismayed by the amount of quite brutal bashing of the dev team on here and we all need to take a step back and look at it from their side, imagine if you were the devs reading half these comments. 

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This was not the way I saw it during the beta and during the conference calls. They had to be forced to recognize the issue. I and others spent a lot of time and effort just to get them to acknowledge the mistakes and not only thru the beta channel but using every single resource we could find. I know for a fact that they had to be demoed how a BimManager uses Attribute Manager to audit a file and shown that it was impossible to do with the new one, this was right before they released RC01 not when they started their multi-year development. The clincher was that they didn't know anything about this workflow. Then we had to wait a couple of weeks until "Suddenly" we had the answer that they would be bringing the old Attribute Manager back.

AS I have written multiple times, try using "Attributes" to audit and/or update your template file comparing it with another and then remember that one of the features of 26 was the removal of the OLD Attribute Manager.

This is not bashing, this is stating the problems as was done during the Beta and in GDCP. I don't get paid by GS. I pay GS for a product and for the last three versions what I paid for does not have any major benefit, I could have stayed on 23.

For ex, this is the third time I go to the steak house, pay in advanced for a Prime Rib, get a single french fry on my plate. I should care for the feelings for the owner? This is the third time I need to explain to the owner that doing that is not a good strategy while as a bonus he raised the price on the third steak. I think I earned the right to raise my voice regardless of how he feels.

Is it really better if we shut up so that we don't hurt the Devs feelings?

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Obviously I am not happy with the last three releases and I have tried to tone down what I write but it is kind of a pain to see that the software that I use, train others and teach in university for the last 20 years (not to mention time spent as user and moderator here, on GDCP and in Betas) is becoming worthless to my practice and teaching.

At this point a user coming in from Autocad will find AC26 great , just like I did when I bought my AC08 license. But I was shown in the yahoo groups of that time why it was a dud release. This is me trying to pay it forward, 26 is a worse release than 08 and it is not only the bugs but the change in concept, philosophy and culture at GSHQ.

I know that there is a new "software lead?" at GSHQ and I hope to be shown wrong.

[thesleepofreason]

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@Eduardo Rolon wrote:

Just to make sure that this is my recollection during the Beta process:

@Lee Hankins wrote:

You can control the visibility of layers and their locked state within folders by changing the state of the host folder. You just have to be in the uppermost level of the structure. 

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Fair point but it still is buggy as hell and you cannot use GOs. See Giff were the layer within only inherits the folder setting once you click "twice" to set it.

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Just to be clear - as the interface always have been a bit messy. We can only use folders as shortcut to select all its contents right?

So a new layer added to a folder will not inherit the status of the folder but rather change it to the various value state right?

[Eduardo Rolon]

I think that is a No on both counts.

For Select all you need to right click on a Layer except within a folder were you need to Shift+Click to select all or click on one of the Layers in the bottom list and use CMD+A.

Layers dropped in a folder will not inherit the the folder they keep their Combo Setting

[Jp1138]

Comments may seem harsh, and many of them are, but they just show how frustated many users are. The improvements of this version don´t seem to be worth a year of work. I understand a lot of things can, and probably are, going under the hood, but as GS tells everybody so little of what´s going on, it´s no surprise people get upset. Right now i´m begining to think Gs is must be severely understaffed in the  programming department, and overstaffed in the marketing one 😐 

[DGSketcher]

I don't feel too bad about Dev bashing for two basic reasons 1. I pay them to hopefully deliver some useful improvements 2. They or their handlers aren't listening to the end users.

What is really frustrating is seeing someone trying to rewrite industry standard workflows on data organisation & management (Files / Folders) with something so bad. These workflows have been developed for decades for maximum efficiency yet AC26 seems to have completely ignored so many of the basics. What has been delivered to the user isn't a multiyear project it is a simple rehash of the user interface. I would be very surprised if the latest interface couldn't be reformatted in days if they wanted to do it. The data we are seeing is the same as AC25 just laid out differently. There may be complex restructuring behind the scenes but that isn't our problem, it is for GS to manage and protect that data to suit their future plans. The important part is usability and on that front AC26 has failed badly. And slightly off topic but try using macOS Dark Mode with the attribute settings, three years on and there are still lists that are unreadable due to white text on a white background. 🙈

[David Shorter]

Yes it’s important to note that WE ARE THE CUSTOMERS

[mthd]

It might a sound harsh what some are saying here but I think they all have the best interests of GS and Archicad at heart.

You can tell that they love using the software but they are just expressing how they feel. I think the developers would understand what many of us are asking for now and in future versions ?

Simply put, we are not engineers. Archicad doesn’t need to follow the Revit business model. They need to focus on the Architect first and then the basic collaboration, not the other way around.

Anyway, I understand their frustrations and they are just honestly expressing their opinions. English politeness doesn’t apply to the full national users base. Some cultures express their frustrations and they are not being rude, just honest and clear about how they feel.

So please don’t take the constructive criticism from Architects here to heart. After all they get paid to show others how to build great designs. Now they are asking GS how to build a better Architectural CAD software for us all to use.

[DGSketcher]

The Nemetsheck Annual Report is publicly available for anyone that wants to read it. One aspect that I found interesting was their strategy of having design to construction solutions but some lack of clarity as to whether this was to be delivered through fully integrated or "Federated Design" solutions. I guess we will find out in due course.

One part of the report that that did make me wonder about what is going on between GS & their holding company was the following statement on page 40...

Innovation Focus

All brands are continually developing their solutions. In their respective segments, the brands have focused on issues such as improving the user-friendliness of their solutions, process optimizations and integrated interfaces and connections for a smooth OPEN BIM workflow. The focus in the year under review was also on improvements aimed at minimizing the time required, increasing efficiency and productivity in the planning and construction process, and optimizing workflows.

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Personally I don't recognise that statement in AC26? 

It was also interesting to note that the Nemetscheck share price took a bit of a hit on the 14 July. Maybe there was more than just members of the Community Forum watching the launch.

https://ir.Nemetschek.com/websites/Nemetschek/English/1000/stock.html

[Mjules]

If you observe the Autodesk's behavior on the market vis-a-vis Nemetschek, the trend is to restrict the expansion of its products around the globe, especially Archicad by imposing more conditions that can prevent Archicad, for example, from developing its capability of exchanging with standard platforms using extensions that belong to it. We don't know when it will decide to restrict the .dwg and .rvt extensions as well. Therefore, Nemetschek must act as wisely as possible to avoid greater surprises to its brands' users in the future.

[Bricklyne Clarence]

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@DGSketcher wrote:

.........

It was also interesting to note that the Nemetscheck share price took a bit of a hit on the 14 July. Maybe there was more than just members of the Community Forum watching the launch.

https://ir.Nemetschek.com/websites/Nemetschek/English/1000/stock.html

 That would be a start.

It's also noteworthy that Autodesk only changed course after that infamous open letter from two years ago by their customers, after their stock price began to take a bit of a hit and there was a serious threat of a major rundown on their share prices.

I've always intimated that we're probably never going to se a real genuine and honest commitment from Graphisoft to positively change for the better and start actually listening to people until one of two things (or both) start to happen.

Nemetschek's stock price actually starts to take a serious hit in a way that can only be correlated to customer dissatisfaction of one of their main companies and loss of faith in the direction they're going.

Or if Graphisoft themselves observed in real time the number of subscriptions and licenses falling off a rock as users decline to renew until the get better.

(...which,....presumably could also lead to the former).

As long as they can keep showing that their SSA subscriptions and overall license sales have increased or stayed the same each year they have a piss-poor release, then there's really no actual incentive for them to improve or do better.

Because who would feel the need to pull up their socks and do better when they still get paid the same even when they're doing sloppy  and substandard work?

[jl_lt]

At least in México, and im sure also in the rest of latin América, the percentage of this Big integrated office ammounts to less than 1% of the total practices, and a lot of the best architectural work is not done by these offices (of course, some of it is). So all the integration mjules talks about has little correlation with the quality of architectural results. So why cater so much to them? Let revit choke on them! 

The reason for this is simple. Mantaining such a big office is very difficult here, even for some of the more famous offices, thanks to the ammount of money clients can pay relative to the work needed.

The solution for bigger projects, at least here, are the so called "integrators", that is bim specialists that are hired as external consultants as a third party to assist but the architectural office, engineers and contractors to create the bim model, so the fixed bim costs are absorbed by someone else instead of the architectural office once the project is finished. Otherwise, with all the económic turnmoil here, they would be out of business very quickly.

So mjules, there are more realities than what you have in the USA, please dont generalize. And i thought Graphisoft was more aware of this. Not all projects are 70floors towers or airports!

[mthd]

To be fair,

I do like the improvements with the cabinets from AC25 and now AC26.

The simplification of the navigator.

All improvements are much appreciated by me.

And yes, I do think that you need to listen more carefully to your loyal user base who pay for high SSA fees each year.

I am just a burnt out CAD monkey looking to make my job much easier.

Thank you for your input.

[Jim Allen]

I honestly don't think I'm going to bother upgrading to AC26.

I have a Forward licence which supposedly gives me new content and updates annually, but this year - honestly, is there really much point?

Each upgrade requires the entire office to upgrade, and in environments where users are restricted from upgrading their own software (like mine) every new release and maintenance upgrade is a bit of a pain.

The templates need to be updated and the libraries migrated, all the models updated (and for BIMcloud SaaS the model needs to be downloaded, upgraded and re-uploaded) and we get a whole load of new issues that we probably didn't have with the last stable version of V25 - and for what exactly?

Is any of this worth the aggravation? For me it's a definite no.

It's not just that it's the worst Archicad update in at least 7 versions, it's one of the worst upgrades I've ever seen of any major software packages.

It's making me reassess my pathological hatred of all things Autode$k...

[Bricklyne Clarence]

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@Jim Allen wrote:

.........

It's not just that it's the worst Archicad update in at least 7 versions, it's one of the worst upgrades I've ever seen of any major software packages.

It's making me reassess my pathological hatred of all things Autode$k...

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And to think  here that about a year ago we all thought that version 25 was one of the worst updates in recent memory in terms of how feature-thin and worth-less-ness it was.

And of course we all gave them the benefit of doubt that they were just coming out of the pandemic lockdown year and like other companies were facing workforce crunches and issues with work-at-home situations.

Well, we're now well over two years from the worst effects of the pandemic and they certainly out-did themselves in not the best sense imaginable.

It also continues to boggle my mind just how in two different universes these people live in.

Over at the official Archicad Facebook page, they're busy patting themselves on the back over a successful version release and launch event.

Everywhere else in user groups like here on the Talk forum, LinkedIn, Slack,...you name it,...and everyone is rather displeased,...to put it mildly, with what Graphisoft have put forth as their version update.

Almost like they're completely utterly (and willfully so) blind to the harsh reception this version is getting among actual users, or just how or why users are so angry right now.

[Mjules]

And they still don't have the decency to apologize through a press release. This implies that the main issue is not related to the pandemic.

[Mjules]

@JL@jl_lt Come here with data from official surveys to show that Archicad is mostly used by multidisciplinary firms in North America. Even governmental institutions or public offices there don't use Archicad for security reasons according to what I've been told by some officers. 

Thus, you wouldn't like Graphisoft to also address this kind of issues by targeting these market segments while there are lots of employees who would prefer working in Archicad in these firms or institutions. Why do you want Graphisoft to exclude them in the package? 

[jl_lt]

Thats right mjules, it is my humble opinion that Graphisoft just cattering to those big offices at the expense, and possible alienation, of the smaller ones is an extremely risky move, because its dedicating too many resources applied to a small market segment (big offices most of whom already use revit and wont switch).

Could it payoff in the long run? Its possible, they are Graphisoft after all, but the current signs and state of things are not encouraging.

Unfortunately, catering to a small segment and alienating its current user base is exactly what seems to be happening  

[Mjules]

@jl_lt Archicad is also a good software for multidisciplinary firms, and most of them are looking for a BIM software alternative to that of Autodesk. Why not welcome them to the big family of Graphisoft too? Why do you prefer excluding them in the package?

[jl_lt]

Because @Mjules, i like to exclude death weight, bloating (be it due to liquid retention or bloatware) and complication