Assign fixed ID to door

[Andre_Steynberg]

Hi all

we're busy making favourites of the door types we use and would like to know how to assign a fixed ID to each door type.
What we've done is split our door types into categories eg. Interior doors will have an ID D1, Exterior Doors D2 etc and saved them as favourites.

So when we place the doors the first ID will be correct, but the second and third door will increase by 1 each time.

I saw the option under Work Enviroment to "Assign New Element ID When New Element Is Placed" but Im not sure if this is a good idea or not to uncheck this?

[Laszlo Nagy]

If you uncheck that checkbox in the WE Dialog it will affect all element types, not only Doors.

Maybe what you should be doing is you should create a new parameter for this purpose. Then you can lock that parameter so it cannot be modified by users.

[Andre_Steynberg]

Ah I see, thats why I asked before just unchecking some random options and later on sit with a problem.

I've been trying a few different ways but always seem to get stuck, one of which is the paramater method you mentioned.

It works fine in the schedules etc but the one issue I havent been able to solve is how to select everything of one type of door on plan if Im not using the ID to group them, hope that makes sense?!

[Andre_Steynberg]

Ok so I think I've answered my own question after all

Heres what I did and it works for our needs, but if anyone know of a better way please speak up!

I couldnt use the IDs as they increase automatically each time I place another door type so I changed each door types marker to "Custom Text" and added the relevant reference number D1, D2.1 etc. Thus basically rendering the ID useless for now...

Which was a problem as I usually use the ID to select all of the certain door types at once, so I typed out the reference number in the ID D1 becomes one, D2.1 becomes two.one
Which works as the ID is now static ie doesnt increase and I can still select my doors easily using Find & Select

There is probably a better way to do this so if anyone knows of a way please tell me!

[Laszlo Nagy]

As far as Door IDs:

We usually assigned these IDs the other way around:

Originally we set the ID of all our Doors to "" (no text).
Once we had all our Doors placed and all our various parameter assigned like Acoustic Rating, Accessories, etc. we made a Schedule listing all these various parameters based on which Doors will get their types. We schedule items having the same values in one row (List Unique items checkbox unchecked). We also listed the ID field. Then in the Schedule we simply filled out the ID to the values we needed. This is how we made sure that the same type Doors had the same IDs.
I hope this explanation makes sense.

[Barry Kelly]

Don't forget in your Favourite Settings (the little triangle at the top of the favourites dialogue) you can un-tick the box to ensure that the ID is always set as it was when the favourite was saved.
The catch is you have to use the favourite every time you place a door otherwise the ID will increase automatically if you have that set.
It also affects all doors and windows - you can't pick and choose.

Barry.

[Erwin Edel]

laszlonagy wrote:
As far as Door IDs:

We usually assigned these IDs the other way around:

Originally we set the ID of all our Doors to "" (no text).
Once we had all our Doors placed and all our various parameter assigned like Acoustic Rating, Accessories, etc. we made a Schedule listing all these various parameters based on which Doors will get their types. We schedule items having the same values in one row (List Unique items checkbox unchecked). We also listed the ID field. Then in the Schedule we simply filled out the ID to the values we needed. This is how we made sure that the same type Doors had the same IDs.
I hope this explanation makes sense.

We use this (or at least very similar) method too in our office, in fact it is part of the dutch template as far as I know.

I find it best not to worry about IDs until the end of design stage, when you want to roll out the documentation.

The bulk of our work is large residential homes, though. I can imagine larger office buildings and the like, might require a more planned approach from the start.

Still, any naming rule set you can imagine, you can specify in schedules (width, home story, acoustics, etc etc) and as Laslzo pointed out, it is easy to then name then in the schedule.

[Andre_Steynberg]

Guys,

thanks very much for your replies, as always the advice here is invaluable!

Im very interested in the "reverse order" method mentioned by Laszlo and Erwin, it does sound like a nice way to do the doors without all the setup I've been busy with.
Problem is not everyone in our office is disciplined enough to entrust this method to, so we usually end up with random parameters on all the doors and its a hassle to rectify this.

So hence my very rigid way of fixed door types and parameters to just show the huge benefit of working in a discplined way in Archicad, if they grasp this then I think we can move onto the "Reverse way".

So just to show what I've been busy with I've attached my door schedule for interests sake. So our doors are grouped into 4 categories, D1 Interior, D2 Exterior, D3 Gates and D4 Garage doors.
Also under each category we have made doors with a specific spec we use a lot for example Accessible WC doors.
The reference numbers will be used throughout projects so whenever you see a door marked D1.1 on a project you know its an Accessible WC door for example.

[Andre_Steynberg]

So after much testing and trying out I've abandoned my original "simple" idea, it just gets way too complicated down the line

After that I implemented the reverse method suggested in this thread, and yes it works, it works brilliantly!

Thanks again guys