13 and library handling question

[Anonymous]

Hi all

I just picked a little bit out of comment Fabrizio made in another thread regarding 13 and the way it handles libraries! I was just wondering if anyone involved in Beta testing or anyone using it already can tell me if this is going to cause any dramas?
Even if it is as minute as reselecting the library path at load up!

[Rick Thompson]

I'm sure (?) it's a good thing overall for most, but it's not my favorite thing. Embedding parts should help some people, but I think it creates some problems too. For instance... I have many plns I use over and over. I have "standard" stairs I have made I use on different plns. Now, if you make a new stair it doesn't easily and automatically show up for widespread use. It is embedded. You have to select that part, open a dialogue and choose from there to save it also in a special folder. That's just a pain in my opinion, plus it's easy to get duplicate parts warnings. Also, I used to copy and paste stairs from my template since that was so easy, especially when you have a wall under it clipped for proper display. Now, you get a duplicate library warning when you open that file.

So, I am still having issue with the whole library concept. It has serious issues for me, but I admit my needs are not typical. Having a new name for the same basic part for each release is awful for me (ie.. cabinet12... cabinet 13 etc), but evidently solves some long standing issues for others. I don't like that al all. It makes library management for me a lot of work. I use Smart Parts windows and door for this reason alone. They are not perfect, but objects evolve with new releases, they are not replaced by another object, almost identical, but de-bugged.

Maybe others have a different opinion, and it might be great for you needs.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Personally, I think that the problem with stairmaker, Rick, is a bug. (The designers might have been thinking they were doing users a favor though.)

Attached is the "Save Library Part" dialog when you save a stair from Stairmaker.

The "Save to:" control is a button, but when you click it here, "Embedded Library" is the only choice. (New Folder just creates a new folder in the embedded library.)

But, when you save a GDL object from the 3D window (for example), the same dialog appears, but you have another choice for "Save to:" - browsing to a folder as always. Personally, I think this option should also happen for Stairmaker for the reasons you give.

ArchiStair 2 (Cigraph) does not have this issue, because a new library part is not created - rather, parameters are set for its common stair part in the Archistair library.

Cheers,
Karl

[ztaskai]

Hi,

Karl wrote:
Personally, I think that the problem with stairmaker, Rick, is a bug.
...

Karl is right as usual. The mechanism behind this switch (and its teamwork consequences) couldn't be implemented in API add-ons for v13. It is targeted in v14.

Back to embedded library: it shouldn't affect your company standard or any other standard libraries. It is there for the project specific elements only. It's a shame is created a hassle when saving add-on created standard elements...

Regs,
Zsolt

[Karl Barker]

One suggestion for a work around for this would be to add the standard stair parts to your company standard library.
I have a system in my office where at the end of a few projects (no point doing it every time a project finishes) I go through the special 'one off' library parts and materials and alike and decide if they need to be added to our company standard library.
Tends to be quite useful in that people are not having to re-invent the wheel time and again, and all our library parts are in one of only a couple of libraries, instead of having to trawl through hold projects, thinking there was a useful part that is could use again.

I do however have one little bug bear with the new library loading dialogue.
There is no longer a history of recently used libraries.
I always found that to be the firs place I would go to load libraries, as then I generally knew that I was loading the latest of my libraries.
At least thought the navigation is better new.
It was a bit AC6.5 up until now.

Cheers,
Karl.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Karl wrote:
I do however have one little bug bear with the new library loading dialogue.
There is no longer a history of recently used libraries.

This was mentioned early in beta testing by many people. I find the lack of the old history list very frustrating - most of what I wanted for new projects was always just a click away there. We can only hope that it might be returned in a future release.

Cheers,
Karl

[vistasp]

Karl wrote:
There is no longer a history of recently used libraries.

Why GS?

[Anonymous]

I suspect the reason "why" is that teamwork thinking has been adopted as THE philosophy.

TW2 requires a server specific library download and does not allow paths to other libraries. A history button becomes redundant. (Maybe GS decided people might would not like to work in a stand alone configuration anymore?).

Yet another issue to digest in the migration to AC13...

[Anonymous]

Karl wrote:

Karl wrote:
I do however have one little bug bear with the new library loading dialogue.
There is no longer a history of recently used libraries.

This was mentioned early in beta testing by many people. I find the lack of the old history list very frustrating - most of what I wanted for new projects was always just a click away there. We can only hope that it might be returned in a future release.

yes, it's a real hassle. hopefully they add it as a part of the next update!

[Rakela Raul]

I wasn't able to give solutions and big good news... I can confirm though that migration is a high priority issue for ArchiCAD development. I hope you'll see some improvement even for v14. Thank you for the feedback - there will be some serious thinking about it at GS HQ.

Regs,
Zsolt

i thought you gentlemen might want to know this