v15. wish list.

[Anonymous]

what should be weeks before the next release I thought I would shoot for the moon and lay out my request for Archicad in its next release! my ten wishes in no particular order:

I wish for:

1. complete integration of gesture based trackpad into the mouse settings and such, so that panning and the like are a delight rather than a workaround. gesture based input could be much more efficient than the mouse when we get up to 10 or 15 input gestures. *drools*

2. the ability to make my own custom objects without the GDL code nonsense that so easily discourages me.

3. need i ask? stairmaker.

4. a method for referencing window door to a specific zone. i don't care how. i just care.

5. 3d renderings directly onto layouts. what's this nonsense about saving it to a jpg and then bringing it back into my sheet layout?

6. w&d openings to affect multiple walls when i deem it necessary.

7. i also want it to read my thoughts (only the good ones!) and translate it into 3dimensional buildings.

8. a reader for the ipad2. something. throw me a bone here!

9. real reflected ceiling plan views.

10. variable height walls with a 2d like editor in planar elevation view where you use a pet palette to alter the heights and points etc.

did i aim too low? what's your list?

[Anonymous]

Dwight wrote:

cant wrote:
I read up on the reference manual.

When one dismissively says RTFM, and the FM is 2400 pages long, I can see how you might feel abducted by aliens.

So posting on the forum IS actually the best way to eradicate misconceptions. If you fear being thought of as an idiot, that's what nicknames are for.

I am presently learning SketchUp and I feel like an idiot almost all day long right now.

Haha! thanks for the encouragement. i actually have been reading quite a bit of what you more experienced users say on the forums. Most helpful. You may have prevented a revit conversion!

[Anonymous]

Dwight wrote:
While you make valid points, and without destroying your enthusiasm for suggesting improvements since you are so new to the forum, Graphisoft is a turgid enterprise scrambling to attract new users through enterprise appeal, not clever-versatile-guy-in-his-basement appeal.

As such, we see that thru the years, they focus on performance aspects, not interface apects.

And from an old guy to a new guy, everything seems simple, but assigning the correct priority is hard.

Another factor that you might consider is that users clamouring for features are people who have already purchased the program. Who cares about THEM?

i see your point. however. Graphisoft will slowly bleed to death if current users are not at some level kept happy. after all most people that buy the software are like our firm, we asked the other firms around and tried to get their opinions. if current users hate the program, it makes for a pretty poor referral. and of course there is the need for relevance in interface and performance in upgrades to make them worth the $$$.

anyways, i knew that two weeks before the new release is coming out is too late. heck two years is probably too late too! I'd put it at four if i had to guess. this is full-scale BIM, not the latest angry bird app. i must reference back to my title: "wishlist" I guess I was kind of wondering what other people would wish for not considering the practical side of it all.

[Bricklyne Clarence]

kantrolya wrote:

Dwight wrote:
While you make valid points, and without destroying your enthusiasm for suggesting improvements since you are so new to the forum, Graphisoft is a turgid enterprise scrambling to attract new users through enterprise appeal, not clever-versatile-guy-in-his-basement appeal.

As such, we see that thru the years, they focus on performance aspects, not interface apects.

And from an old guy to a new guy, everything seems simple, but assigning the correct priority is hard.

Another factor that you might consider is that users clamouring for features are people who have already purchased the program. Who cares about THEM?

i see your point. however. Graphisoft will slowly bleed to death if current users are not at some level kept happy. after all most people that buy the software are like our firm, we asked the other firms around and tried to get their opinions. if current users hate the program, it makes for a pretty poor referral. and of course there is the need for relevance in interface and performance in upgrades to make them worth the $$$.

anyways, i knew that two weeks before the new release is coming out is too late. heck two years is probably too late too! I'd put it at four if i had to guess. this is full-scale BIM, not the latest angry bird app. i must reference back to my title: "wishlist" I guess I was kind of wondering what other people would wish for not considering the practical side of it all.

Have you happened to visit this part of the forum?

It's quite neatly organized and well structured and with lots of good ideas.
Unfortunately like a real wishing well, it seems like most of those wishes seem to fall into a deep bottomless abyss never to be seen from or heard from ever again. There are wishes there for the program that have never been addressed and which go back as far as the 1990's, I kid you not.

Which is all really sad because some of those wishes are really quite nice and would make for a pretty kick-a$$ program if they were ever implemented. Unfortunately it seems like no one at GS actually pays attention to them and that section is really there to serve as lip service for the users and not as something they take seriously themselves.

I personally don't visit nor waste my time posting in the wishlist section any more. Other than being an obvious tremendous waste of time, it also makes for pretty depressing reading because, as I said, some of those wishes are really good ideas and nobody seems to be paying attention to them and also especially seeing all those new green naive users who think their wishes might actually stand a chance of ever being addressed like some innocent wide-eyed child who's yet to have all his hopes and dreams crushed and shattered by the cold cruel world.

Not to go all Forrest Gump on you but new versions of ArchiCAD released each year are like a really bad box of chocolates ; you'll be lucky to open it up and actually find a flavor you were really hoping to get.
Or wishes you were hoping to get addressed for the better part of a decade in the case of AC.

[Anonymous]

Bricklyne wrote:
Have you happened to visit this part of the forum?

It's quite neatly organized and well structured and with lots of good ideas.
Unfortunately like a real wishing well, it seems like most of those wishes seem to fall into a deep bottomless abyss never to be seen from or heard from ever again. There are wishes there for the program that have never been addressed and which go back as far as the 1990's, I kid you not.

Which is all really sad because some of those wishes are really quite nice and would make for a pretty kick-a$$ program if they were ever implemented. Unfortunately it seems like no one at GS actually pays attention to them and that section is really there to serve as lip service for the users and not as something they take seriously themselves.

I personally don't visit nor waste my time posting in the wishlist section any more. Other than being an obvious tremendous waste of time, it also makes for pretty depressing reading because, as I said, some of those wishes are really good ideas and nobody seems to be paying attention to them and also especially seeing all those new green naive users who think their wishes might actually stand a chance of ever being addressed like some innocent wide-eyed child who's yet to have all his hopes and dreams crushed and shattered by the cold cruel world.

Not to go all Forrest Gump on you but new versions of ArchiCAD released each year are like a really bad box of chocolates ; you'll be lucky to open it up and actually find a flavor you were really hoping to get.
Or wishes you were hoping to get addressed for the better part of a decade in the case of AC.

My experience is most software is like this. I've been a beta tester on several titles in the past and I can't think of a single instance where community wishes were really considered (except for some games).

Most of the time they just cruise the wish lists and occasionally see something that they think might work or is easy to implement and then they put that in. That typically means the criteria is "If a lot of users will use it or not", not if it solves a difficulty or deficiency in the software. They see that as value-add vs service and maintenance. The first they see as making money and the latter they see as costing money.

And usually they have they're plates full with what they are working on already they don't really even have time to consider wishes other than ones that are squeaky, if you know what I mean.

And there is the fact that it's not Graphisoft anymore. They are part of a larger org that is concerned with things like companies getting mad that they have to retrain employees to use new versions. Consequently, it's going to take an earth-shattering feature or a very squeaky "wish" to get ArchiCAD to change significantly from where it is now.

[MMontgomery]

Point #2 could use a ton of improvement.

Sure, you can model custom objects, but to give them logic and functionality one still needs to be a programmer. And even programmers have tools with much more efficient GUIs than we do in GDL.

I would be ecstatic if they just added a better scripting tool similar to notepad++ or eclipse. It would make it so much easier to create smart and complex library parts if you could follow a color coded script that provided available commands, parameters and variables as you coded. Perhaps it would make more sense for them to just add the GDL language to the notepad++ application.

I don't think we can get away from having to be a programmer for deeper functionality, but they can definitely make it easier.

[Jere]

Heck, I just want to be able to turn lineweight on or off while in the middle of a command.