Poll: Railing Tool Use

[4hotshoes]

I would like to know how other people work creating railings for a project, so I created this poll. But I wish the Railing Tool was easier to use. Or that comprehensive detailed and useful training was available. While it can do amazing things, I struggle to make it do specifically what I want. I would like to know what others do. Fill in the poll with all of the options that make reflect your experience.

[runxel]

4hotshoes wrote:
They are very complex, too complex.

Yes indeed, this is a very big problem. Not only in Archicad, but programming in general and it's even true for our whole lifes nowadays.
But especially programmers should worry about the rate the whole industry is burying everything under more complex layers, and then putting more complex layers on top. Nobody can grok that anymore.

But as you said: I would argue that the tools are buggy and broken, since their behaviour is non-deterministic. How could this pass QA? Is there even QA? But even as a programmer? How can I responsibly design a system, which never works in the same way?

And what a weird way to define buggyness! It bewilders me – is this the standard you want to set, GS?
If your software crashes you're already way beyond any meaningful discussion.

Think about that: If architecture would be as bad as IT... "Oh well, another house collapsed. Meh..."

[Carstenem]

Yes programming this would be quite difficult.

As a tip use the tools you got to create the stair and railing you are after. What I mean is first don't use automated railing, or the space bar magic tool on a stair, this will most likely not work.

If the railing tool can't handle it then model the railing another way, there are plenty of options. I think many times people try to get to the end product "the easy" way.

Saying this EVERY Software will struggle to create 3D stairs. Some might say then, well don't have a stair and railing tool if it is not working or buggy. Mmhh I rather have a tool that works for 70% of my stairs then none at all.

Could it be better ? Of course it could and it would be nice.

[4hotshoes]

I was just thinking of what might make the Railing tool easier. If the user had more control with predictable results, this is the goal. Maybe it needs to have the option for manual placement of posts and inner posts as a step one. Then step two would be to link those posts with a rail between? This is often the frustration; the placement of posts is by sophisticated program guessing what the user might want.

Let the user have the option for control. The user would control location, base height, top height, rail connection points and how the rail terminates into a post (sloped or horizontal. I think it is too much effort to figure out how the rail tool works. Let the user take the lead and the Rail tool should follow. Take the complex computer guess work out of the equation. Make the tool simpler.

So in essence, as an option, the Railing Tool would not have posts that it creates but that it could be controlled by post that the user creates. In this scenario, I am not sure if inner posts would be automatic or manual too. I am in favor of manual, at least as an option.

Maybe the posts can respond to each step or not at all in terms of snapping to a base height. If three post do not align, let the rail follow the miss alignment. Each post could be created from the column tool or objects and each could be unique. They become posts by the user selecting them in sequence.

Shall I post this as a wish? Any input to make a better suggestion?

[Laszlo Nagy]

4hotshoes wrote:
Shall I post this as a wish? Any input to make a better suggestion?

Yes, I think you should. If you do, please post a link to that thread here.

[4hotshoes]

Here is a link to the Wish for a new Post Tool.

https://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=69026