Annoying Archicad

[Anonymous]

This thread is for those things Archicad does that during the daily grind makes one clench their teeth.

This is not meant to be a wish list, but a place to tell the devs what where and how Archicad causes frustration while using it (and maybe a place where "bad" behavior can be explained if there is a reason for it).

[Anonymous]

My first annoying behavior is one I run into many many many times every time I use Archicad and this is my #1 most hated Archicad behavior.

When I select a group of objects to move to another location, when I select a node it automatically selects a deform command instead of the drag command. 9999 times out of 10000 times I do this I'm looking to drag my group of objects. Once in a blue moon I might need to have multiple objects selected to see a deformation take place but it's almost never.

Everytime I use Archicad this comes up many times each session. It slows me down, adds thinking effort to solve each time which adds to mental fatigue, and it's illogical. Or at least I have yet to find a compelling reason (or any reason) why a deformation command should be default instead of the drag command.

[Anonymous]

My second most annoying behavior is any box that pops up, especially the layer settings box. It seems I'm resizing them and repositioning them too often.

I figure that the box's position is stored with the profile but something is resetting them.

But how those pop up windows are handled besides just frustrates me. Like I can't hit a maximize button to make boxes like layers, or the object setting dialog box full screen in one click instead of having to repositioning the box and hovering twice over the edges to resize.

[Anonymous]

A third annoying behavior is the interface design of boxes like the settings dialog box. The paradigm of using the collapsing what ever they're called and the box itself following the movement of those collapsing tabs on wide screen monitors is no less than painful.

I'm constantly fiddling with this in a bad way. I would much much much much much much much much rather positioning and preview thingy stay open and the other scrolling tabs are handled as tabs that can be easily switched between in the space under the positioning and preview area. I rarely need to have two of those open (as in I can never remember even once I need two open at the same time). But the CONSTANT unnecessary fiddling with is annoying.

[Anonymous]

Something else I'm starting to notice with AC 18 is I'm doing more menu drilling to get to settings. This is a direction I'm not liking. For instance, in the attached picture I'm hitting that custom settings button and opening the all parameters section way way too often. I prefer settings where as many options are visible at one time as possible.


Please just remember this one simple thing when it comes to UI design


Menu Drilling = Bad



Sometimes it's like AC is designed around a 1024x768 screen.

[Anonymous]

The lack of expand all and collapse all on many menus and lists is frustrating.

[Anonymous]

The orthogonal lock seems a lot less responsive now the horizontal and vertical drag command have been combined for the last few versions of AC. Combining these drag commands has actually slowed me down (sometimes for up to 30 seconds as I'm trying to get AC to lock in a direction). And it's not me. Everyone in my office has complained about this and I've ran into this on every machine I work on.

It was much better in the past when I just kind of moved in direction I wanted and hit shift and it would lock. Just simply work.

[Anonymous]

Another really annoying behavior is the orange ball of getting the hell in my way.

That ball should not appear under my mouse or over hot spots/nodes.

[DGSketcher]

Have you considered moving to Sketchup?

It's sometimes to easy to slate GS for what in the big scheme of things are just petty frustrations on a truly exceptional expert system. Yes it's not perfect but I don't see anything else out there to tempt me away and AC becomes more useable with each release.

We would all love a system free of bugs that did our job for us but the reality of human errors in the programming will always be a factor until Skynet takes over.

[gpowless]

My biggest beef is when placing objects,columns, walls or slabs only to find that the place storey is offset one or two storeys. Having to place an object twice slows the CD process down by 1/3.

The default storey of any object should be fixed at the current storey when it is first selected. If a user wants to move the object then and only then should they decide to open the object dialog and change the storey.