Dealing with Missing Attributes

[Keymaster]

@Barry Kelly In this thread 

https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Collaboration-with-other/Missing-Object-Surface-Defaults/td-p/33... 

I screenshot the comment I'm speaking about. 

I ran into this problem. We are using 27 solo and I want to go up to 28 solo soonish. I edited a ton of things in our template.  It works fine, but now that I started working on a 28 template I'm learning a lot of default objects have missing things. I didn't notice before because I have favorite starters for almost everything we use daily.

I can't fix 1000s of objects. I'd be better off almost starting fresh and then redoing all the changes to surface names and images. You mention fixing it with the index numbers. Can you get more into detail about this? How do I know what the default index number I'm missing is? There are two columns of numbers in the attibute manager? Which is the index number (one doesn't say anything, the other has a work street sign looking thing as a header)? I think this might be my best course to go from my 27 solo template into the new solo 28 global library. I'm trying to do some research to avoid doing things twice or more. I'm limited in some of my attribute management because we are using Solo version. That's why I manually changed surface names to names with numbers for our office.

Thanks for any help you can provide

Operating system used: Mac Apple Silicon

[Barry Kelly · Accepted solution]

There is no list that I know of.

But export a mapping table in 28 and you will have a list of every parameter and default value for every object in your loaded library.

2 things you don't want to do in my opinion.

1. Don't edit the GDL scripts to use the parameter values (attributes) of your choice.

You will need to do this every time there is a library update (or new Archicad version).

2. Do not change an attribute to something else (keeping the same index number)

i.e. do not change '15 Wood - Pine Grained Horizontal' to '15 My Timber Surface'.

This will affect every single object and element that is using surface attribute 15.

Keep attribute 15 as it is and create a new one for My Timber Surface.

Create favourites that use My Timber Surface instead of Wood Pine.

So yes, append your attributes to the default template so they all have different attribute number.

And set up favourites to use your attributes.

Try to keep all of the default attributes, so that if you copy and paste anything from any other file or load a 3rd party library (based on the default template attributes), there will be nothing missing or mixed up.

The Mapping Tool is exactly what we need now - for library objects.

In the list it creates, you can edit every 'surface fill = 15' entry to 'surface fill = 665' for all objects or just the ones you want.

The problem is it is a very manual process at this stage.

Super easy to make a mistake.

This only helps with objects though.

For other elements (walls, slabs, etc.) you will still have to amend the composites to use the building materials you want an adjust the building materials to use the surface and fill attributes you want.

I have done this mapping and now have the default Graphisoft library using my attributes in my template, which are completely different.

Previously I have not been able to use the default Graphisoft library easily.

Now I can use it without having to change any values in the objects I place.

Barry.

[Keymaster]

Thank you for the help. 

I've basically been doing what you said the last couple days. I finished up all the attributes this morning. I'm fairly certain I broke less than a dozen things. It was a lot of moving things around and then checking and fixing things that came along. Surfaces got fixed but then I had to check the fills with them. Fixed building materials then had to go down the line and check surfaces then fills again. It wasn't bad as you can organize the column to group all the missing things together. 

I think I broke a few things because I did a delete and replace on a few things. I realized after that I should have did something else. I had made a lot of changes and didn't hit OK yet. I figured it was easier to catch a dozen errors in the first couple projects we do, rather than redo all the things I did that weren't saved yet because I didn't finalize the pop-up.

[Gerry Leonor]

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@Barry Kelly wrote:

2. Do not change an attribute to something else (keeping the same index number)

i.e. do not change '15 Wood - Pine Grained Horizontal' to '15 My Timber Surface'.

This will affect every single object and element that is using surface attribute 15.

Keep attribute 15 as it is and create a new one for My Timber Surface.

Create favourites that use My Timber Surface instead of Wood Pine.

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apologies for reviving an old thread, but our office is in the process of possibly moving to v29 & i'm just weighing options whether or not to migrate the existing template or recreate from scratch.

what i left quoted above is exactly what I did back from the conversion from 25 to 27. Surface Attribute 15 Wood was converted to a similar Wood surface; albeit a different colour, but included a manufacturer, finish code, description (etc) for our scheduling work. 

from memory, this was done with all Attributes. dashed lines was swapped with a slightly different dashed line with a different name, Fills / BuildMats / Composites etc...

with the new Global Library, is this Similar-Swap method not advisable for a new template fully created in 29 from scratch?

we still use Favourites & have a separate Building Yard file that houses more complex modelling work (think already modelled wet areas, PWDs, kitchen cabinets external site modelling elements etc) that people copy from and paste into their active projects.

not too concerned about having people re-assign the default attributes for modelling tools to the correct Attributes as these can be addressed on a per-project basis or use the Favourites / Building Yard elements as a starting point then re-assign their respective Attributes as required.

[Barry Kelly]

It is the same in 28 & 29 regarding attributes.

Elements (including objects and favourites) will use the attribute based on the index number (not the name).

So if you change the default '15 Wood - Pine Grained Horizontal' to '15 Plastic - Blue', then every element that uses the surface index 15 will now be blue plastic.

So, if you have modified your attributes in older versions, and you want compatibility with 28/29, then you will need to use those same attributes in 28/29.

Or it is a case of start again and never copy/paste anything from those old files into a new one.

Having said all that, there is a new feature in 28/29, but it is not very easy to use at the moment and is possibly not what you need.

A mapping tool was in development, but has now been delayed indefinitely.

There is now a 'Mapping Value Table' in every file - search the community for post about this.

What this does, is allow you to map the attributes used in the Global Library Pack objects with attributes you have set up in your template.

So you can now keep the original attributes and also have all of your new amended attributes and have the Archicad library objects automatically swap the attributes as you use them.

For example say the default chair object uses '15 Wood - Pine Grained Horizontal'.

With the mapping table you can make it so the chair uses '1507 - Wood, my shiny mahogany' - or any other surface that you want.

The same can be done for pens, lines, fills, etc.

Note, it does not affect other elements (only objects).

The other elements and favourites in your template must be set to use the attributes you want.

I am using this, so I can now use the default Graphisoft libraries with my custom template and attributes.

Previously I had to edit and re-save the Graphisoft libraries to use my attributes.

Now I can just use them (or 99% of them at least - some are just not editable with the mapping table).

Barry.