Workflow for importing details different in AC10?

[Richard Morrison]

I am wondering if anyone is maintaining details differently in AC10. I have most details stored in a single PLN file at the moment, but since the elimination of PMKs, have not found a very quick way to search, retrieve, and import details. So far, having two PLN sessions open at once and cutting and pasting from one to the other seems to be the best I've come up with. Any suggestions?

[TomWaltz]

Richard wrote:
I am wondering if anyone is maintaining details differently in AC10. I have most details stored in a single PLN file at the moment, but since the elimination of PMKs, have not found a very quick way to search, retrieve, and import details. So far, having two PLN sessions open at once and cutting and pasting from one to the other seems to be the best I've come up with. Any suggestions?

Why not link directly to the other PLN?

[Richard Morrison]

TomWaltz wrote:
Why not link directly to the other PLN?

1) Haven't found a good way to preview the view before dragging it into another PLN's layout with the Organizer. (I may be missing something obvious here.)

2) For 10-15 details at a time, it's been really slow.

EDIT: In AC9, it was easy to run down a list of views with the Navigator Preview on, and when I came across a detail I'd want to use, drag it over to be published. Then the list of details would be published to a folder as PMKs, which could then be quickly added to Plotmaker. I just haven't found an equivalent process, yet.

[TomWaltz]

Richard wrote:
1) Haven't found a good way to preview the view before dragging it into another PLN's layout with the Organizer. (I may be missing something obvious here.)

You're right. There is no preview.

2) For 10-15 details at a time, it's been really slow.

Did you try it with the other PLN open in a second session? I found them to run MUCH faster that way.

[kevin b]

Sorry if I'm stating the obvious but we have named the views in the standard detail file so that you know what you are getting by the name, then you just pick the name from the list, which is how we did it in 9 as well.

[Richard Morrison]

I thought it might be useful to some people to resurrect this topic, as I've only recently figured out how to do this so it actually works. In hindsight, it seems obvous, but since there may be others as "slow" as I seem to be, here's what I came up with.

My major complaint was the lack of a preview for details before importing them. I've found that you can make a really great catalog of details, all nicely organized, by first creating a LAYOUT in the "Office Details.PLN" file, which has every detail sent to the layout pages. (Each detail has its own view, of course.) The layout pages are organized by, say, a couple of layout pages for foundation details, a page or two for shear transfer details, a page for roof details, etc.

Having two sessions of AC open at once, you can first preview details in the "Office Details.PLN" layout, then switch to the "Project File.PLN", and using the Organizer opened to Layout for the details, simply drag and drop selected details onto the project file layout pages. Details are easily identified in the Organizer, because they have the same numbering as what you've just previewed. And if you've just dragged "Eave Detail #8" from the details layout, it can be easily renamed to a simpler "Eave Detail" in the project layout. Pretty slick. This is the first time I've felt good about the standard details workflow. Anyway, hope this is useful to a few of you.

Addendum: I've found it useful to copy the standard details file to the project file folder and work from that one. That way, if you need to make some tweaks to a detail for a specific project, it's easy. Also, at the project closeout, you can unlink all detail files and create a "locked" single archive file, if desired.

[Aussie John]

I have all of the standard details in the template file (all unlinked). The user can make views of them as necessary. Maybe some redundancy but the convenience factor is high. The good thing is v10 no longer restricts with unique ID numbers so details can have categories added to the ID field to help sorting and identification. eg Joinery - xxxxxx