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

Different Issue Numbers for Different Layouts

Anonymous
Not applicable
I think this topic deserves its own topic as it is such a critical update. I have seen it mentioned in many wishes about general improvements to Plotmaker but it has still not appeared in the recent Plotmaker.

It is a simple concept. When a drawing set is issued each drawing has its own issue letter/number. There is not one issue letter/number for the whole set (in most circumstances). Currently this has to be manually entered on each layout and then added to file names that are exported in publisher. Makes the "issue field" in the book info a useless function as it stands.

Please graphisoft give us this option. All it needs is an additional column in the navigator where the issue number can be stored. An additional column could also be valuable for the reason for revision. This could simply be placed in the titleblock using a autotext function. With a little bit more power in publisher the exported filename could also be tinkered with to let these autotexts be added to end of the filename in publisher.

I cannot emphasise how much time this will save! Not to mention complete a critical function of "Publishing"!
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Anonymous
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After thinking on this further i can see this becoming a very good feature if it was also customizable. Ideally it would be good if we could create our own 'columns' in the navigator which has either text fields or boolean checkbox's for each layout. These could then be related to a autotext that is created along with the column and placed in the master layout. So in operation i could setup our company templates to include columns for issue(text), issue reason (text), put 'not for construction' on layout (tickbox), put 'for construction' on layout (tickbox), put 'check plot' on layout (tickbox). Alternatively the construction text could be turned on and off using layers, but i would need separate layers for each layout sheet as they need to be turned on and off individually not as a whole.

I can see this being very valuable to our office and making it customizable means everyone else can set it up how they like with as many columns as they like.
I'd like to re-emphasize the idea of autotexts for Publisher output filenames. It's widely standard to have a project ID in the name of every project-related file. Dates are extremely common as well. Some of this can be handled by naming folders in Publisher, but it would be far better to have it automatic.
James Murray

Archicad 25 • Rill Architects • macOS • OnLand.info
Link
Graphisoft Partner
Graphisoft Partner
Mark,

You should get in touch with the guys at CADImage - I believe they are creating such a revision tool and would probably be interested in your ideas.


James said:
I'd like to re-emphasize the idea of autotexts for Publisher output filenames. It's widely standard to have a project ID in the name of every project-related file. Dates are extremely common as well. Some of this can be handled by naming folders in Publisher, but it would be far better to have it automatic.
Well said brother. I have long wished for an extra text box in addition to ID and Name, for all project views, views, drawings, layouts and publishing views, and sets. Just a text box where we could include our own description. And we could decide whether it shows up in titles, titleblocks, filenames, etc.

Everything (apart from publishing sets) has ID's and Names now so one more shouldn't be that hard to introduce. Would be even better if we could put autotext in there too!

Cheers,
Link.
Anonymous
Not applicable
I am also in full support for putting autotext into publisher. Even better if the issue could be automatically put into the filename. Oh, i dream.

In regards to my earlier comments. I was very disappointed with how this was addressed in A10. I assume the index schedules were created to address this but in the end was a poor attempt at a possibly usable solution.

So, basically i gave up waiting for graphisoft. For those that are interested, i have created my own object(in A10) that now reads from our company transmittal excel document. Issue letter, Issue date, Issue reason and scale are all read from the transmittal sheet so we no longer have to edit each layout, the only time we access the layouts is when placing the drawings. Everything else is done in excel.

This also extends to creating drawing lists based on a issue reason and i am sure there are a few other things i can come up with

Its currently going through a beta test in our office but i do not foresee any problems. It will be a great time saver i think.

I am also looking to make this a object available to others but currently cannot see a way to make it universal as everyones transmittal sheet is so different.
Anonymous
Not applicable
Could not agree more with the sentiment of this post..

If GS was serious about AC being used for documentation, then WHY is there no proper way to manage drawing releases and revisions? Surely computers=automation=easy tracking of changes between issues, and tracking of issues!

I love the work of my "cuzzie-bros" in NZ at CADIMAGE, who have developed a great set of tools - not least a beta of a new "Revision Manager Tool".
But why should we have to pay $2-300 extra for something so fundamental to what we do? Again it shows how GS do not seem to have a grasp of documentation management (in the southern hemisphere at least). I.e. when we issue amendments to drawings we do not necissarily update them all, and hence the revision letters get out of sequence between drawings.
(Another 'bugbear' is the autonumbering of sheets - a salesman's "look at this nifty feature" nonsense - an inexperienced user can inadvertently insert a new sheet, and so half way through a project half the drawing numbers change - doesn't go down well with clients/ builders! At the least these should be lockable once assigned).



In AC9 I had a few approaches depending on the project stage:

1
During SK use a global autotext field to assign a revision letter to drawings.
Positive:
+Easy to update revision number/ letter.
Problems:
-This meant all drawings were updated when issued even if the change was only on one sheet.
-PDFs from Publisher had to be renamed manually (in publisher - or after) or (what usually ends up happening) different revisions are in different folders (except when someone forgets to nominate a new folder in publisher and inadvertently overwrites the previous set!);-(

2
Add a fixed drawing number (for reasons listed above) and add a revision letter
Positive:
+Once updated, the PDFs were automatically correctly named in Publisher.
Problems:
-The revision is part of the drawing number, and hence appears in any cross-referenced titles/tags. Not a good look.



So now in 10 I'm hoping to crack this with a few of the tools GS have given us; albiet in a rather ad-hoc fashion! But i need some help - any comments on my queries below would be greatfully received! Please read these in conjunction with attached images (see following posts as only 1 image can be added per post!):-[

1
In the Drawing Index a field is used to assign revisions to drawings.
2
How do I get this field to display as AutoTEXT in a layout master?

If I can crack this then I have a simple way of managing revisions from the Index schedules.
Anonymous
Not applicable
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Anonymous
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Anonymous
Not applicable
rwallis wrote:
"cuzzie-bros"
Choice, bro!

A thought I had a while back was that you could have a place in the Layout settings for revision, linked to an Autotext element in the master (in the same way that you can add a prefix or otherwise customise each layout number / name). If you could then select all layouts that are revised in Navigator, set the revision "letter" then they all get this assigned thru' autotext. This still requires manual assignment of revisions, but is easier than going to each layout and pasting text as I currently do, and could be linked to drawing lists.
Make sense?
Anonymous
Not applicable
rwallis wrote:
...How do I get this field to display as AutoTEXT in a layout master?

If I can crack this then I have a simple way of managing revisions from the Index schedules.
The short answer: I dont beleive there is anyway to get a custom field back into the layout. Unfortunate as i also looked into this method.