mkopecky wrote:
To have multiple design and/or phase options with extra layers, create a Planned Filter option, duplicate it and rename it to Planned Filter Option 2 (or Phase 2), duplicate and rename as many as you want.
Back on the floor plan draw your first design option while the pin is pushed on the revocation filter option. If the pin is not pushed you can go back and pin design elements to the Planned Filter option of your choosing. When you switch to option 2, option 1 pinned elements will turn off. Any unpinned items will remain visible for all other options that are now affected by the different designs.
Pretty nice feature but not well documented.
I have to disagree. IMO, this is another example of one GS's good ideas crippled by its bad habit of not following though and finishing things properly to make them REALLY useful (Take the Selections palette as a classic example).
The "pin" you refer to is the "Show on this renovation filter ONLY" button. Which means that a "pinned" element can ONLY be shown visible in ONE filter ONLY. It's a very inflexible one-to-one relationship. As an example of why this doesn't work, take the "building phases" example: phase 3 needs to include elements that have been "previously built" in phase 2 and phase 1. With the "pin button" used as you described, an element can only exist in one phase.
Likewise with design options -- an element may need to be present in multiple options, whereas at the moment, it can only be visible exclusively in one.
A the very least, it would have been way more useful if GS had changed this button to "Exclude selected element(s) from this filter" rather than "Show only on this filter". In which case the button could have been used to successfully implement phasing and design options (though it still feels like a work-around solution, compared to being able to add your own custom "tags").
As it stands, yet more frickin layers have to be added to the project -- including updating all your layer combinations -- a really 1990s solution, IMHO.
As you can guess, I'm a big fan of the dream of adding custom tags to elements and implementing tag filters to define their visibility on any view. I think this should programmatically be an easy feature for GS to add, and would MASSIVELY simplify the current layer mess we have decended into. The more you think about it, the more you realise its potential, and wonder why on earth this wasn't a priority ten versions ago.
(I guess this will remain
an item on the wish list for another year, but feel free to add your vote of support.)
