Properties mayhem in large TW-project with a zillion nested hotlinks....

[Mats_Knutsson]

Hi,
Just jumped into a project where a need for som smart properties with option sets are needed. However there is serious hotlinking going on and also nested (and curcularly nested...) modules. I've never needed to bother about this before but now I got caught with the beard in the letter box...

* when I have multiple conflicts regarding the same property...is there any way to see which conflict is from which hotlnk or nested hotlink?

I have main file A, hotlink B and hotlink C.
C is hotlinked into A and B.
A is hotlinked (nested) to B. (which would give a double instance of C!?)

I've checked the GS tutorial and from what I understand I shall only create the properties in C and then in B I shall merge them and finally also in A I shall merge them. If I need a new option in my option set i go the route C then merge in B and lastly merge in A. The merging procedure is to ensure the same settings. I could theoretically create all properties manually but it's more than 50% risk of not getting it correct and end up with a conflict instead.

Kind of confusing but that's where I am.

Thankful for any wise input .

[felcunha]

I've had the same issues you have.
The solution I've found was to duplicate C and reinsert it into A as a new hotlink.

[Mats_Knutsson]

felcunha wrote:
I've had the same issues you have.
The solution I've found was to duplicate C and reinsert it into A as a new hotlink.

Hmmm.... Had you set values already using the option sets in A? I suspect if I had a correct option set in C and a faulty one in A and I had set a lot of values in A those values would be gone when reinserting!? It's a large hospital project I'm working on and it's quite long gone in the process (construction drawing) so I cannot mess up anything. I feel I should become religious and pray for a central attribute and property managament in AC...

[felcunha]

It's not clear... If I were you I'd duplicate both and make a test (without going for now into CD) even with partial elements. What I know is that:
if you want to show or hide elements in C differently when they're in B and in C, you can't do but by duplicating C AND change its layers name...
if some elements as custom profiles and composite walls have the same name in A, B and C, the host properties prevail over the hotlinked ones.

[Mats_Knutsson]

Here is small video, 3 mins, of a typical property problem. I guess I need to sit down for a couple of hours just testing... it sure doesn't behave as I would expect it to..

[Anonymous]

Thank you for taking the time to make this video. This is a problem I've also been struggling with and you examplified it very clearly.

My guess as to where the problem comes from is the following : Properties are attributes and thus they possess a unique ID. The label is calling for the property ID and when you "copy" the hotlink's property in the other file, it's being attributed a new ID. That's probably why the labels shows it as a missing property.

This is a really annoying feature. I'm not sure it the problem comes from the label or from the properties itself that should have the same ID as the imported property.
FYI, I had the exact same issue with zone stamps and properties.

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, it's the same issue like with Attributes. The only working solution, for now, is creating a coherent template for each file in the project.

In all cases when AC doesn't find the same element with equal GUID it's creating a new one.

In the case of Attributes(Layers, composites etc) there is additional ID but it's a different property. When AC finds the element with the same ID but different GUID it creates new Attribute with ID bigger than biggest in the file.

[agroni]

I will also add my input to this topic. But maybe first of all I would like to ask why the main File is hotlinked to another module file???

We are also having a very big project which has been divided into

• 1 General module
  4 Modules representing 4 different parts of the building
  1 Main file where everything is put together

When I developed the strategy of working on a such complex project, my goal was to create a clear path of how data is going to be presented. Therefore, the result was to create a “linear” connection starting with the general module -> 4 modules -> Main file. We don’t go back and fourth hotlinking the files with each other. The only exception is hotlinking the 4 Modules with each other, in order to have the information from the other parts of the building at hand. Also, I have decided that for the first two design stages, we will publish everything from the main file. When we enter the construction phase, we will use the 4 separate modules to produce documentation.

And as everyone has been talking about these hotlinks, Attributes are holy. If you don’t control them, you will have a lot of difficulties. But I am aware of attributes like layers, pens, fills etc. but not Properties! That is strange thing happening in your video. We are not experiencing this problem…so far

I would suggest that you create a Property and distribute it in all files. In this case when updating your hotlinks, the program won’t need to create the missing property and list it as a hotlink. This should be actually a general rule:

define properties/attributes -> distribute in all possible files -> work

[Anonymous]

agroni wrote:
create a Property and distribute it in all files

That's true... importing properties should also do the trick as far you don't have the same name in the file.

agroni wrote:
We are not experiencing this problem…so far

Probably you start files form same structured template. So you don't have different GUIDs in each file.

[agroni]

kzaremba wrote:
Probably you start files form same structured template. So you don't have different GUIDs in each file.

Exactly! This is very important if you want the structure to work in multiple files. And it very very important to keep this structure up to date, to avoid all sorts of problems.