Attribute Manager for CAD Managers

[Andy Thomson]

Maybe someone posted already, but a password protected admin level permission for Attribute Manager featuring:

lockable project attributes in the manager, such as lock index numbers (layers) 1-100 - much like windows file permissions, read/execute/modify/delete

only with the properties:

show/hide/modify/delete/ - preserving the integrity of the index stack/order.

In most cases, I would allow everything but deletion, as maintaining 80 active projects in the same standard has given me nightmares, as the index numbering often gets messed up by well-intentioned collegues who change names, delet layers, purge, etc. Then the office standard becomes like a tossed attribute salad - and all files become unique, and attributes subsequently multiply and snowball out of control.

If such a thing were enabled, then I wouldn't have to make another post about 'allow rewriting of index numbering to fix messed up layers/attributes, etc)

[Djordje]

Andy, please put the original Poll back in ...

[Andy Thomson]

sorry D, will do ASAP....thought was nifty that one could modify, but I obey protocol.

A

[__archiben]

i think it essential that some kind of lower-level, permission-based access be allowed to manage the files.

a while back i proposed an asset manager:
http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=14423&highlight=asset+manager#14423

of which this wish should also form a part i think . . .

~/archiben

[owen]

ok so now that 10 is out i can finally say it ..

how many more fucking releases do we have to wait for Graphisoft to listen to what has been requested for nearly 10 years and give us a decent fucking Attribute Manager!?!

apologies for all the bleeping but i have just spent close to 5 hours cleaning up a mess of layers across multiple hotlinked files all because the simple ability to simply merge layers doesnt exist. It would have taken me half an hour if i could do that but no ... i have to go through and manually change the layer of everything on the layers i want to delete, then delete them. In 7 files. This is such a pain in the arse

Its a pretty simple database operation isn't it ... you know, find and replace?

[Link]

apologies for all the bleeping but i have just spent close to 5 hours cleaning up a mess of layers across multiple hotlinked files all because the simple ability to simply merge layers doesnt exist. It would have taken me half an hour if i could do that but no ... i have to go through and manually change the layer of everything on the layers i want to delete, then delete them. In 7 files. This is such a pain in the arse

But you can merge layers using the Attribute Manager.

Just open up a file in the right pane and either Append or Overwrite lthe layers. You can even merge layer combos, but it's a little more tricky.

Cheers,
Link.

[owen]

Not sure we are talking about quite the same thing - i didnt really explain myself clearly though so

Say i have layers X, Y & Z ... all being used by elements in the model. If I want to merge them all together to leave only layer X this cannot be done in one step via Attribute Manager AFAIK?

You need to actually select all the elements on layers Y & Z, change their layer to X and then delete layers Y & Z?

This is not the only issue i have with Attribute Manager however, just an example of perhaps the most basic functionality I would regard as essential

[Link]

Firstly, let me agree with you that the Attribute Manager drastically needs improvement.

But what you want to do is possible using a somewhat unorthodox method. Take a look at this thread on how to switch out materials (PM me with your email address if you'd like the entire PDF):

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=8207

You can use the same logic to switch out your layers between different projects, if you can get your head around it!

Cheers,
Link.

[Anonymous]

Link wrote:

apologies for all the bleeping but i have just spent close to 5 hours cleaning up a mess of layers across multiple hotlinked files all because the simple ability to simply merge layers doesnt exist. It would have taken me half an hour if i could do that but no ... i have to go through and manually change the layer of everything on the layers i want to delete, then delete them. In 7 files. This is such a pain in the arse

But you can merge layers using the Attribute Manager.

Just open up a file in the right pane and either Append or Overwrite lthe layers. You can even merge layer combos, but it's a little more tricky.

Cheers,
Link.

The only way to actually merge layers (including their contents) is with strange and complicated uses of the merge command (actually I take that back, there may be a way to use the DWG translator and Smart Merge, but somehow just thinking about that gives me the willies).

For example: make three copies of the PLN; in each delete all but one of the layers to be merged (a different one in each of course); rename them to match in each file; delete those layers from the original and merge the stripped copies back in. I'm not sure this is any faster than the manual method, and of course it won't retain anything on those layers drawn directly in sections or details.

Attribute manager is no help here. And, yes, it is due for a major overhaul.

[owen]

Thanks for the tip - I followed this just trying to swap materials before I moved on to layers but end up with the attached error message (this occurs after Step 8, before 9). The links you posted has a double copy of Step 4 in the place of Step 5 so i may have missed something important there?

Aside from that I think I have my head around the attribute swapping concept but i'm still not clear on how this can be used to actually merge attributes (e.g layers). All attribute IDs and names must be unique within their category - the materials example is permited by this as we are just swapping the IDs (although I got that error). However what we are trying to do by merging layers is changing 3 unique attribute ID's and Names to be identical? This just cannot happen can it?