ArchiCAD 16 - Freezing When Importing Work Environment Settings and Rotated Grid Issue

[Anonymous]

I am working on a project at the moment for someone who is using ArchiCAD 16, and so I am working in that version as well, but have found a couple of issues with it. Hope it's OK to put both issues in the same thread, given it's an older version.

The first is that I am trying to import my work environment settings from a newer version, but whenever I click on import, the window opens and freezes ArchiCAD straight away, and then after a few minutes it crashes. Does this sound familiar to anyone, or any suggestions to get around it? In particular I don't want to have to set up all of my keyboard shortcuts or any other more fiddly work environment settings.

And the second issue is that default grid is rotated relative to actual '0°' in the project, if that makes sense. The simplest way to show it is in a section, where I don't believe you can have a rotated grid, but as you can see in the attached screenshot, ArchiCAD thinks 0° is at an angle to true horizontal or vertical. Any idea what would cause this, or how to fix it?

[Barry Kelly]

benanna88 wrote:
I am working on a project at the moment for someone who is using ArchiCAD 16, and so I am working in that version as well, but have found a couple of issues with it. Hope it's OK to put both issues in the same thread, given it's an older version.

The first is that I am trying to import my work environment settings from a newer version, but whenever I click on import, the window opens and freezes ArchiCAD straight away, and then after a few minutes it crashes. Does this sound familiar to anyone, or any suggestions to get around it? In particular I don't want to have to set up all of my keyboard shortcuts or any other more fiddly work environment settings.

I doubt you can import an entire work environment from a newer version to an older version.
There will be things in it that just do not exist in the older version.

Maybe you could try exporting/importing just the keyboard shortcuts section of the WE.
If not you will have to rebuild it manually.

benanna88 wrote:
And the second issue is that default grid is rotated relative to actual '0°' in the project, if that makes sense. The simplest way to show it is in a section, where I don't believe you can have a rotated grid, but as you can see in the attached screenshot, ArchiCAD thinks 0° is at an angle to true horizontal or vertical. Any idea what would cause this, or how to fix it?

Yes you can have a rotated grid in the section.
This image is not from 16 but make sure you have the horizontal grid chosen.


Barry.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your reply Barry, and sorry for my slow reply. I've just had a chance to check - I didn't even realise that the rotated grid was different to the view orientation, hence not thinking it applied to sections, and not knowing to check that. Glad that's sorted, and thanks for showing me that.

But as for the work environment, even if I just try to add the keyboard shortcuts, I still get the freeze issue when I go to import. Export works fine, as do the rest of the work environment functions/buttons. Anyone else experienced this or have any suggestions? Thanks

[Eduardo Rolon]

As Barry said, AC might be freezing trying to parse a command list that have actions that do not exist in the previous version. I would just recreate the shortcuts,

[Anonymous]

Sorry I might not have explained it well enough, but ArchiCAD is freezing as soon as I click the import button (the one highlighted blue in my screenshot below) - I don't get as far as selecting a profile to import, so it can't be an issue with later ArchiCAD versions. Anyway yes I might have to do it manually, but just thought I'd check if anyone could offer a solution to the freezing first.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Ben, this sounds like an OS compatability issue then, if the file browse dialog won't appear. (As others said, it is highly unlikely that a future WE file, even just shortcuts, could import into an older version. But, I think it is an XML file, so you could always edit it and delete any sections that apply to future features.)

Windows 10 did not exist when AC 16 was around. Just as a punt, have you tried running in compatability mode - for WIndows 7 or 8 (or even XP)? Find the AC 16 exe, right click > Properties and see attached. Maybe even try running in administrator mode (checkmark in same screenshot) if just Win 7 doesn't do the trick?

[Barry Kelly]

You may also find you have some problems running Archicad 16 on a Windows 10 system.
This may be one of those problems.
16 was not designed to run on Windows 10.

Maybe you could go to the 'Archicad.exe' program file, right click on it, choose 'Properties' and set the compatibility to be for Windows XP or Windows 7.

I just tested 16 without the compatibility mode (I still have it installed) and when I press the Import button, I get the wait cursor for quite some time (10-15 seconds).
It says 'not responding' but eventually it goes good and then I can choose a file to import.


Barry.

[Barry Kelly]

Snap.

Barry.

[Anonymous]

Haha, great minds think alike. But thanks guys, this seems to be the issue. Using compatibility hasn't solved it entirely - trying to import a whole work environment still freezes and crashes, but clicking import for individual sections works straight away now. And it feels like it's running a bit better too, but hard to tell this soon.

But just in case anyone else comes across this regarding backwards compatibility of work environments, importing my keyboard shortcuts worked fine, going from ArchiCAD 21 to ArchiCAD 16.