Inches as the default (imperial units)

[Anonymous]

Most architects work in inches not feet, i.e. distances are usually defined in inches or feet-inches. Rarely (1-in-12 chance) are units exactly one foot incremetnts.

So 1-out-of-10 times I am golden. Pretty bad odds. It should be the other way around or at least an option in the preference panel.

Actually the balance is probably even more scewed. Think of all the wall thicknesses, GDL paramaeters, offsets, column sizes, dimension settings, etc. Most of our CAD life revovles around inches and not feet.

[Anonymous]

I doubt you'll get much support. Most ArchiCADders have adjusted. But I certainly you do get support.

This should be optional.

A little tip: Use the "/" key on the number pad instead of the inches sign.
If you are doing a fraction of an inch (IE 1/4") all you have to do is type "1/4". If you want 4" all you have to do is type "4/".

[Anonymous]

Alex wrote:
A little tip: Use the "/" key on the number pad instead of the inches sign.
If you are doing a fraction of an inch (IE 1/4") all you have to do is type "1/4". If you want 4" all you have to do is type "4/".

Thanks for the hint. (although it should be an option)

[James Murray]

Alex wrote:
A little tip: Use the "/" key on the number pad instead of the inches sign.

That's a big tip. Typing " is a pain. I can remember on about day 6 of using AC5 saying to myself, I wish " didn't require shift.

Portable users will be glad to know that the regular slash key works too.

Where is this written down? I'm almost certain it's not in the manual, having checked every instance of "coordinate box" in both parts. It should either be in Coordinate Box discussion in chapter 2, or the Entering Numeric Coordinates discussion in chapter 5, with the treatment of feet/inches punctuation.

Sorry to go OT, but it's really poor to have a piece of fundamental data entry missing (or impossible to find) in the manual, especially one that would save a couple hundred keystrokes a day.

[Anonymous]

I haven't found this written down anywhere. This seems to be one of those "features" that GS never intended, but I am more than willing to take advantage of. Hope they don't get rid of it, like they did to deleting the user origin with the delete key. (You used to be able to select the custom user origin and press delete. Went away with 8.1.)

[Erika Epstein]

Alex,
What am I missing?
When I type 4/ in AC, I get 4/ not 4"?
Thanks

[Dave Jochum]

Erika wrote:
Alex,
What am I missing?
When I type 4/ in AC, I get 4/ not 4"?
Thanks

When using the text tool, that is the case. / works for " in the coordinate box.

[Erika Epstein]

Dave,

ahh...the coordinate box!
Thanks
Erika

[Dave Jochum]

Erika,

I should have mentioned that it works when defining parameters as well.

[Anonymous]

I may be missing something here, but, I work in inches quite often and have not experienced too much hassle with it. When creating the main structure I set my working units to feet and fractional inches and when I'm detailing millwork etc. I set them to fractional or decimal inches, when I want 14" i type in 14 and thats all, I just wish that this preference could be associated with views so I wouldn't have to manually change it each time.