Why are stairs and handrails in Archicad so painful!?!

[SAM-PBD]

Hi All, 

I have read a lot of bad feedback.  I know that Archicad have tried to make a universal tool to fix them all.  It is an absolute pain in the ass to use. 

It has taken me about 3 hours to build something that should be a 10 minute job.  I am trying to set up fire escape stairs to the national standards. 

Why is it that in order to get the position and offset of the stairs it is easier to model all the landings and stair flights as separate elements?  This should be something that comes out of the box and should be easy to use.  See number 1 on the drawing. 

Next, why is it such a pain in the ass to use a handrail that actually follows and joins like it is supposed to?  The handrail at 2 should just wrap around and meet neatly.  Instead I get some modernist painting of a handrail. I can tweak it so it looks good, but then it doesnt comply. 

Operating system used: Windows

[Lingwisyer]

Is there an issue just using a single continuous railing down the middle? Then you can just edit the connection settings to suit.

[SAM-PBD]

Hi Lingwisyer, 

This is the rail that I am trying to create and make look good. I am trying to get a continuous rail and build out from there, but it is not an easy thing to create. 

Sam

[scottjm]

My experience doing a 1428 stair and handrail is not to use an associative railing. It's unable to handle the handrail extension needed. You need to add an extra node to handle that. 

I've managed to get a so gke switch back to work fine. But if you are doing multiple stories it definitely needs to be a separate stair and railing for each floor. 

[SAM-PBD]

Thanks Scott, 

I am coming to the same conclusion.  

The tools get us about 90% of the way and then drop the ball. 

Sam