Parameter Insanity

[Anonymous]

What the heck is going on here?

I have been working on custom curtain wall door panels for a client. This has been an extraordinary pain in my GDL due to the quirks and anomalies of these parts. Well I just about have all the odd bits sorted out when this shows up. Suddenly ArchiCAD seems to have decided that I am missing some essential default parameters for this subtype and has added them out of the blue.

This occurred while I had all the files open. I have been reorganizing the order of the parameters (with some very annoying display anomalies) then when switching from the main 3D window back to the GDL editor and these new parameters have appeared.

There is already a large surplus of unnecessary default subtype parameters in these parts. I am not pleased to see more suddenly appear. I understand the value in principle of establishing default subtype parameters but it feels like this is getting out of control.

[David Maudlin]

Matthew:

When I select the GS Curtain Wall Door Panel Subtype, these parameters appear in the Main Window, and are part of the ArchiCAD Curtain Wall Door objects, so I think they should have been there from the beginning. When selecting Subtypes, I always end up hiding a bunch of these built in parameters.

David

[Anonymous]

David wrote:
Matthew:

When I select the GS Curtain Wall Door Panel Subtype, these parameters appear in the Main Window, and are part of the ArchiCAD Curtain Wall Door objects, so I think they should have been there from the beginning. When selecting Subtypes, I always end up hiding a bunch of these built in parameters.

David

Maybe I missed them but I had long since finished hiding all the default parameters when these seemed to suddenly appear. The parts were pretty much finished and I was doing the final tweaks. It may be that I started them before some recent changes to the subtype and ArchiCAD decided to update them to the latest settings.

Other problems have started showing up such as the parameter names showing incorrectly when I dragged them to rearrange the order and the order getting jumbled after being saved and reopened (I have reported these as bugs). I have yet to install the latest hotfix so I am doing that now to see if it helps.

These custom panels have turned out to be quite a big pain. The lack of 2D editing options, mysterious default parameters and the failure to read the ID outside of the 3D context have made these some of the most expensive parts I have ever had to struggle with.

[Anonymous]

Hmmm. I believe I have experienced a similar phenomenon in an object I created from scratch as a General GDL Object (Model Element "subtype"). Beginner that I am, I took this as "imagination overdrive."

Key thing is, have you arrived at an explanation for it, or has it been solved?

[Anonymous]

didrik wrote:
Hmmm. I believe I have experienced a similar phenomenon in an object I created from scratch as a General GDL Object (Model Element "subtype"). Beginner that I am, I took this as "imagination overdrive."

Key thing is, have you arrived at an explanation for it, or has it been solved?

I followed my standard rule of just of fixing the problem and leaving the whys and wherefores for later (or never). I made a new blank part of the generic curtain wall panel subtype (not the GS door version) which stripped down the default parameters nicely. I then rebuilt my parameter list and copy/pasted the scripts.

I started the parts in version 12 which I assume had fewer default parameters. While working in 14 I may have opened the dialog to check the subtype or something and I guess ArchiCAD noticed that I was lacking some parameters and kindly added them for me. I haven't confirmed any of this but it seems a sensible hypothesis.

Since I was already dealing with a long list of unneeded parameters and was in a rush to wrap up the parts this was quite an annoyance.

Other annoying anomalies included a display glitch (which I have reported as a bug) where the parameters would not display correctly while dragging them around to change their order (they would appear to be the one above or below in the list) and then the list would rearrange itself slightly after a save. Since I was also getting some of the mystery text coding errors at the same time it was an altogether unpleasant afternoon of GDL work.