Formatting Mac HD what to do with AR projects and Library?

[Anonymous]

Hello,

Firstly I'm going to go off topic.

My Macbook Pro has recently being getting very hot, up to 106C daily when running ArchiCAD, when rendering a sketch render. The fans in the Mac stay at 2000rpm at 106C so the machine is not cooled down; the machine is basically overheating causing system crashes. After 2 weeks with dealing with Apple and their Authorized service provider they agreed to replace the logic board. (Well at first they said my Mac is fine, so I sent it in again, they said it's still fine to run at 106C... 13 hours on the phone and many stressful days they will replace the logic board which is basically a new CPU and GPU... a new computer)

I will be formatting the Hard Drive but I obviously want to be able to open my projects. My projects (.pla files) are mainly the generic ArchiCAD library parts, however there are additional gsm. Parts in there.

Instead of moving/copying the whole AR13 library which is a little 'messy' with things I don't want how can I open and edit the old projects on the newly formatted HD with AR14 ( when I get the EDU version). I want to ensure that all library parts exist when I create a folder inside AR folder called' GSM Parts' where additional parts are stored.

I hope this makes sense!

[Brett Brown]

Just a word of warning on .pla's. Always test them before saving them to backup. I had 50% of mine not work, luckily I had saved the .pln's as well.

[Anonymous]

Brett wrote:
Just a word of warning on .pla's. Always test them before saving them to backup. I had 50% of mine not work, luckily I had saved the .pln's as well.

Yep, I've got that now with some files I created on a PC.

Really basic question: Is the .pln just a backup of the .pla file and should I move them both ?

Also regarding the library parts: As I'm using 'external' library parts could I still view/edit them if I have the .pla and .pln but not the original sorce file?

It's just that I have over 100 'external' library parts, most of them I don't want so it will take some time to find the ones that are in use.

Thank You

[Brett Brown]

NStocks wrote:
Really basic question: Is the .pln just a backup of the .pla file and should I move them both ?

Look in "Configuration" in the AC Help, explains it better than I can.

Your "external" parts should be in your own folder outside Archicad and loaded into each pln through the Library Manager

[Anonymous]

Brett wrote:

NStocks wrote:
Really basic question: Is the .pln just a backup of the .pla file and should I move them both ?

Look in "Configuration" in the AC Help, explains it better than I can.

Your "external" parts should be in your own folder outside Archicad and loaded into each pln through the Library Manager

And is this the part that should be of most interest to me ? Archive

[Anonymous]

NStocks

And is this the part that should be of most interest to me ?

[Brett Brown]

NStocks wrote:
And is this the part that should be of most interest to me ?

Yes

[Anonymous]

If I want to use the library parts on the newly formatted HDD in a different project for example, should I chose the second option in the image below and choose to " extract elements to a folder", created by myself for 'external' library parts. If so, will it ONLY extract the 'external' library parts or ALL of the library parts including the built in library.

By 'external' I mean objects downloaded from archibaseplanet.com etc.

Thank You

[Brett Brown]

The main reason for the PLA file is for Archiving. i.e. you want to go back to it after a couple of years. So when you open it you extract to a folder, that folder is named (from memory) file name library pla. It contains everything that the file needs, so two years latter you don't have to search around for missing parts.

If you have put any object that you use in a project, that is not in AC 13 Library, in it's own folder and load that through the library manager, you shouldn't need a pla file.

On the new hard disk you put the External Objects folder in the documents folder and when you open the pln again, AC will ask where it is, you point to where it is, it loads them and you shouldn't have any missing objects in the library manager.

HTH p.s. the embeded parts bit has made this process even more confusing