Wishes
Post your wishes about Graphisoft products: Archicad, BIMx, BIMcloud, and DDScad.

Bottom Scrollbar Button Area

Anonymous
Not applicable
Four wishes that would make the Bottom Scrollbar Button Area more effective:

1. [SCALE] Provide a fly-out in lieu of the floating dialog box (similar to the zoom arrow). It is currently cumbersome to change scales. Currently 4-clicks versus a 1-click and drag motion.

2. [ZOOM] Get rid of the zoom arrow button and provide that functionality as part of the zoom button itself. Sometimes less is more. One less button to look at equals quicker user reaction. I personally do not find the zoom to 100% that useful.

3. [PREVIEW BUTTON] Provide a new Preview/Work-mode toggle button that toggles back and forth between the current Display Options and a All-Pens-Black/True Lineweight mode. Colors are great, but they are distracting. I assume most people plot in B&W. We should be able to view the way the way the contractor will see them.

4. [LAYER COMBO] Provide a new Layer Combination fly-out button for changing layer combinations on the fly.
4 REPLIES 4
Anonymous
Not applicable
1505Gough wrote:
Four wishes that would make the Bottom Scrollbar Button Area more effective:

1. [SCALE] Provide a fly-out in lieu of the floating dialog box (similar to the zoom arrow). It is currently cumbersome to change scales. Currently 4-clicks versus a 1-click and drag motion.
I have wanted this for a long time, but is not a big deal. It doesn't have to take four clicks. I do it with 1-click, type the scale, hit enter, and the scale pop-up is now available in Navigator/Project Map. It would still be handy as the Navigator pop-up is not available when viewed as View Sets. The way it should work is: Click and release, type in scale, hit enter; Click-hold select scale from pop-up; If there is still any use for the dialog it could be a choice in the pop-up (I can't see why).
2. [ZOOM] Get rid of the zoom arrow button and provide that functionality as part of the zoom button itself. Sometimes less is more. One less button to look at equals quicker user reaction. I personally do not find the zoom to 100% that useful.
I like the percent button when I am previewing line weights. 200% and 400% are useful for comparing relative weights since the screen is so lo-res compared with a printer. I could see merging the arrow button for selecting a percentage into the percentage display: Click and release reverts to 100%; Click-hold select from the pop-up. This does remind me of one of my pet peaves: Changing scale should retain the same view, not preserve the percentage zoom. I have never been interested in how much of the current view would be visible at the new scale.
3. [PREVIEW BUTTON] Provide a new Preview/Work-mode toggle button that toggles back and forth between the current Display Options and a All-Pens-Black/True Lineweight mode. Colors are great, but they are distracting. I assume most people plot in B&W. We should be able to view the way the way the contractor will see them.
I am happy to preview drawings in PlotMaker now that the layouts can show the true pens of the drawings. Of course this is partly because I have all my pens pretty well worked out and I use custom settings to make the appropriate pens black in PlotMaker (I NEVER print all colors to black). There is another wish that, if granted, will give you what you want. You can already switch view options with the pop-up in Navigator. It has been suggested (by Michael Sotero I think) to allow multiple pen sets within ArchiCAD. The combination of these would do just as you ask, which would be a very good thing.
4. [LAYER COMBO] Provide a new Layer Combination fly-out button for changing layer combinations on the fly.
Done. Check the pop-up at the bottom of the Navigator palette with Project Map selected
Anonymous
Not applicable
Good comments.

SCALE: It isn't that big of a deal to me either. But it's such an easy fix, that's why it should be straightened out.

PREVIEW BUTTON: I guess my focus is not really to "previewing" a drawing (for lack of a better term, but rather twofold.

One, I once in a while have to walk a client through a model on the computer screen - the colors just distract the conversation. (If you want someone to take you seriously you don't print out your drawings in color.) Why not have this option for the screen. Two, personally, sometimes I just get sick of working on rainbow colored drawings and feel like working in B&W. There is a whole contigency of offices in SF that have been trained (by the local Archicad rep) to use one color for each discipline. Black for architecdtural, Green for site work, Blue for MEP, etc. They have 10 pens for each color, each with a different lineweight applied. Just for the above reason. In Autocad colors have more significance (they usually represent what layer an object is on). This is completely lost in Archicad.

LAYER COMBO only works in Project Map. What happens if you work in view sets? What happens if you don't have a huge screen and choose to keep navigator closed?

Thanks again for the feedback Matthew.
Miquel Garcia
Participant
1505Gough wrote:
In Autocad colors have more significance (they usually represent what layer an object is on). This is completely lost in Archicad.
I have never understood why is so important for AutoCAD users that the color represents the layer an object is on. This would be a good way to control objects in layers if we use few layers, but it's impossible to track the objects with 25 layers or more (25 colors, more than I can remember: what's the light purple for?)

I use a short set of 5 pens and I know which weight belongs to each one. So I know exactly how I am drawing. Then I need to be careful with the layers, but this is true in any case (or software).

These 5 pens prints always black in PlotMaker. The rest of pens are good to color the drawing if we need to.
Miquel
Capella & Garcia Arquitectura
AC18 - AC21, iMac 27" 3.1 Ghz Intel Core i7, 16GB Ram, OSX 10.13.1
Anonymous
Not applicable
Miquel wrote:
I use a short set of 5 pens and I know which weight belongs to each one. So I know exactly how I am drawing. Then I need to be careful with the layers, but this is true in any case (or software).
That's exactly how I do it too.

My point is -- the only time I really need to see colored lines is when I am housekeeping (checking layers and lineweights, etc), not when I am designing. I surely wouldn't break out a box of Crayola's to design a floor plan on the drafting table, I use a big fat pencil. It would be so simple to implement.

( I know, I could turn all pens to the color black, but there are times when the color-coding is needed)