V15 new guideline methods

[Arcadia]

With the new guidelines in V15 I am finding it very frustrating that I can no longer get guidelines when I hover the cursor over element handles. For instance if I want to place a window in a wall that lines up with the edge of another window or door in an opposite wall I used to be able to hover over the edge of the existing window which would give me a guideline that intersected both walls then I could drop the new window in on this guideline at the wall intersection. In V15 I don't get them so I have drop the window in the wall then drag it across to line up to where I want it which is a slower 2 step process. Also you don't get guidelines when hovering over special snap points. Why would they reduce the functionality of this really important tool!!!!

[Anonymous]

I share your pain: However the AC14 guidlines could be frustrating.

I have some hope that once I'm used to the new system it will feel like second nature. Eric has some good tips - see:

http://www.youtube.com/user/EricBobrow#p/c/5531C745C2D1437C/1/E99TsG6jJ1E

[Arcadia]

That was a very helpful video thanks Samovar. I did not even know about the new 'force guidelines' command which is great and helpful but still takes a bit longer than the old auto hover guidelines we had before.

[Cary Westerbeck]

Agreed!! The new guidelines in v15 are worse than v14! It takes more clicks and more steps to line some things up. I have already set up the force guidelines key and have been using it a lot.

However, the thing that is a step BACKWARDS and is wasting my time is that AC now doesn't offer guidelines OR forced guidelines when doing dimensions or lining something up at the end of a wall, etc. There are many things AC guidelines can't "see" and therefore it won't offer you a guideline point. The auto guidelines were everywhere and made lining things up quicker and "saw" everything I hovered over with the mouse. This is a big step back, not forward. I'm having to actually go back to some old techniques of drafting 2D guidelines so I have an aligned snap point.

I'm seriously considering downsaving some of my projects to v14 and using it again. I'm not seeing such huge improvements in v15 that it makes a big difference to me. I wish I would't have spent the money to upgrade to v15 now.

[sinceV6]

I think this is a matter of personal taste. I REALLY like the new guidelines. In previous versions I ended up turning them off because AC would pop up a guideline almost everywhere, and I was constantly using the "erase all guidelines" command because they got in the way instead of helping out.

The new orange orb is a great thing for me, and the new interactions are a lot cleaner in my opinion. Now instead of just hovering during an operation I just drag away from nodes to create as many guidelines as I need. Now you can create guidelines from other elements drag them to a new position. There are many many things I like about the new guidelines, but I guess for some people who had used the old guidelines a lot can be frustrating. I didn't use them that much (now I do), so this wasn't a problem for me.

Guidelines still "see" everything you hover, now you just need to drag away to create them. If you create another one that intersects the first one, you can even drag from the intersection to create another guideline. Give it a few days, and it will become second nature.

Best regards.

[Arcadia]

Yes and another thing V15 doesn't do any more when doing dimensions: previously if you wanted to draw a dimension from a point (ie the corner of a house) to a point on a non-parallel/angled line at right angles to the line (such as when showing a setback dimension on a site plan) all you needed to do was click the dimension start point on the wall then hover over the boundary line to bring up a guideline then hover back over the first dimension point then you would get a guideline come up which was at right angles to the boundary line. Now I have to draw a line in at right angles snap the dimension in to the ends of the line and change it to static then delete the line. This is prehistoric.

[Arcadia]

sinceV6 wrote:
Guidelines still "see" everything you hover,

The whole point of this thread is the fact that the do NOT see EVERYTHING you hover over. This functionality has been reduced. There are some good things about the V15 guidelines but at the expense of less automation and more manual guidelines creation in some aspects.

[Cary Westerbeck]

Arcadia nailed it! I used use the perpendicular guideline feature on site plans and similar drawings all the time. Just click the wall, hover over the line or something way out there and then go back to the wall and *voila* a perpendicular (right angle) line. V15 is missing this and it is indeed a prehistoric step backward. I also have to go back to the old school method of manually drawing a right angle line. This reduces functionality indeed.

Since V6, I agree that v15 guidelines are very elegant, useful and clean. My feelings are nuanced. I think most of the v15 guideline improvements are great, however they removed some of the handy, timesaving features and that is a setback.

For example, if I could rotate the orange handle somehow I'd find the new guidelines awesome. The handle can't be rotated and often the edge or node I want isn't recognized as a place where the orange handle will pop up, say a the skinny end of a wall.

I'm open to a hotfix to get back some of the v14 functionality while keeping the streamlined v15 guideline improvements intact.

[Greg Kmethy]

The force guide line command does not seem to work during dimension input, which is a bug. By design, there should be no feature loss compared to AC 14, but some of the options are now triggered with the Force Guide Line command. I personally much prefer this to earlier "out of the blue" guide lines.

All guide-line related knowledge is collected on this archicadwiki page:
http://archicadwiki.com/GuideLines

[sinceV6]

I understand what you mean. Yeah... in those cases it might involve one or two more clicks. The almost instant perpendicular guideline you mention was cool indeed, but in my case -because of the timings and how I had my guidelines preferences-, it meant having too many guidelines all the time because AC thought I needed those.

As for dimensions, I didn't notice this was happening. I normally dimension directly to the nodes, not guidelines or guidelines intersections, so I don't use them while dimensioning. It might be a bug, because while dimensioning you can create a guideline by dragging out from any node but ONLY to another node. Incremental angle, perpendicular or parallel guidelines don't seem to work.

In the mean time, you can assign a keyboard shortcut to the force guidelines command, and draw the perpendicular guideline you need before starting the dimension.

It sure wouldn't hurt to have a user set timer option to show guidelines along with the option to have the orb.

Best regards.