Persistent labels

[Anonymous]

Hi folks,

We've been using labels to identify various objects in elevations (bath accessories, light fixtures, plumbing fixtures, doors). Much thanks is owed to James Murray, "Shape Label JM9" whose elegant part puts ALL the GS labels to shame.

What I find puzzling is that some earlier placed labels are lingering on the elevation in layout view only, despite having eliminated the object and the label in the model. When I open the view, and show all layers, the offending label is nowhere to be seen. Nor is it something silly like being set to a white pen.

Any ideas?

[Anonymous]

I think I'm having a similar problem.

My door/window labels that I've set up in Elevation views are acting strange, gettting duplicated, showing up on different layers than where I placed them. Sorry not more helpful....

[Anonymous]

Nathan wrote:
Much thanks is owed to James Murray, "Shape Label JM9" whose elegant part puts ALL the GS labels to shame.

BTW Nathan, can you explain what you referred to here?

[Anonymous]

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/object_depository.php?

Go to '01 General' then, 'Custom Labels'

'Shape Label JM9' at the bottom.

[Anonymous]

I think JM deserves to have more people pestering him to create a subscription service for his work

Check out his site:

http://www.onland.info/

Even if you know how to do everything in Archicad, it's great to see so much info so well presented. If he had a penny for every time our office uses his cutline part, he'd be rich.

Regarding the labels, now that my bid set is out the door. Here's how I finally found the culprit: Archicad's Door/window label.

Here's what I did:

1. In the elevation, copy the model with the marquee.
2. Paste the resulting content (lines, fills, offending labels) to a convenient place.
3. The labels should now be visible in the elevation, you can delete them here, and replace your carefully modeled view with a dumb line drawing that will look right...Until you change your model.
4. Take note of which label is such a show-off, and report it to GS.
5. Watch them do something....

I think that the GS labels don't function well. Use a door label, and the text comes in to a relation to the plan. A simple line in GDL, (Rot ~W or something, ) would make it a little friendlier. Try using labels as object labels that pick object id's, and they are awkward to control.

[Wokka]

The Description Labels is the type of thing I'm looking for as I need to access some text parameters from an object to label it in an elevation. I can't find the label in the depository or at the 'On Land' web site. If it's freely available (and only if ) could someone possibly send me a copy or just the scripting that collects the information from an object. I can happily collect information using Global Variables but just can't crack the ability to get parameter information.
I have contacted 'On land' and I'm awaiting a response, but as usual I need to get this part done yesterday.
Cheers.

[James Murray]

Hi,

That Description label is about the simplest thing in the world, made slightly more complicated by the (label) parameter for setting the (object) parameter to be labeled. You could lose the choice and hard-code the parameter you want to call out.

All the action is in the ASSOCLP_PARVALUE Request, which is on pg 247 of the 11 GDL manual. A couple of tips about working with requests, they're socially awkward:

Use a statement like xx=REQUEST("ASSOCLP_PARVALUE", ... The 'xx' is just a junk variable, but you will get a distracting, though harmless, error without it.

You have to use the whole request, even though you only want one piece of the data. Make sure you have enough placeholder variables.

For the returned values of the request that are strings (text), initialize the variables before using them. The description label is looking into the object and reading a string, and I call the variable 'valTemp' within the request, so before the request I say: valTemp="". Which is quote marks with nothing inside. This is a good tip for working with string variables in general in GDL. Other kinds of variables don't care about being initialized.

The difference between a string and a string variable can be confusing. In the Description label, I use a variable so the user can change what object parameter is being described. So the request goes

xx=REQUEST("ASSOCLP_PARVALUE", parToLabel, ...

where 'parToLabel' is the name of the parameter in the object. Note the absence of quote marks. If you want a label that only ever describes one object parameter, the name of that parameter goes in quotes:

xx=REQUEST("ASSOCLP_PARVALUE", "objectDataParam", ... 

Usually GDL doesn't distinguish between single and double quotes, but there are cases where it does matter. I don't think it matters here, but it's another thing to keep in mind for troubleshooting. I believe the name of the request must be in double quotes.

Styling the text is a whole nother thing. The Description label uses the label tool's settings to define the style; this is the simplest and most intuitive for the user.

PS, while I did the Shape Tag object, credit for its labelization goes to David Pacifico.

[Wokka]

James,
Once a again, thanks greatly for the object and explanation.
With my GDL scripting experience however, I wouldn't call it "about the simplest thing in the world".
I'll have to sit down in a quiet corner and wrap my brain around it.
Thanks again!

[Chazz]

Nathan wrote:
some earlier placed labels are lingering on the elevation in layout view only, despite having eliminated the object and the label in the model. When I open the view, and show all layers, the offending label is nowhere to be seen.

We're getting a little off topic from Nathan's original post. I'm seeing this issue too, for the first time and think it's a v12 bug. In my case, the labeled elements were deleted in plan and the elevation view was moved to a new location (also in plan, obviously). Yet the labels persisted in their original location when viewed in the layout.

Creating a new elevation appears to fix the display problem. The issue seems to have to do with moving the elevation that includes labels. It's very disconcerting when the layout does not match its linked view. Ugh!

[Wokka]

I don't think it's new to R12. I'm working on an R11 file for the last year and it's a constant problem. I have been slack and should have reported it or at least raised the issue here.