Project Info customisation

[zarmenas]

My wish is to have an option to organise the Project Info fields by requirements of my country's codes, not creating a bunch of "custom" fields and making a mess in there.

The fact that one cannot rename or delete the default fields, renders it nearly unusable. What I mean - project code, project name, addresses, contact details, architect's details, etc. are country-specific, code-specific and need to be laid-out in certain way. At the moment default fields are useless for me, I have to create custom ones that mix up with the default ones creating a mess.

I strongly believe this is long overdue. It should not be something very hard to change, is it?

By the way, if anyone has a solution for this, I'd be very happy to hear it.

[Erwin Edel]

Is this for autotext purposes or is it because it gets automatically exported with some file format?

For me, personally, I fill out the fields that make sense for Dutch adresses and you can just sort the invididual fields with autotext in any order you want.

Beyond initital start of the project I don't fill out much more, so the empty fields don't really bother me, I do make custom entries for autotext purposes (detail text etc).

[zarmenas]

It is meant to be used in Autotext. As an example, on Master Layout one can configure Drawing stamps to fill-in all the information automatically, what would save lots of work and lots of human mistakes. Unfortunately, the build-in fields do not represent the information that is needed by our codes and standards, so we need to make custom ones.
Even the information structure is different than needed - for example, Site details are not needed at all. Contact section should have fields not only for architect, but for his/hers license number. To cut long story short, the structure of the Project Info is just wrong for us and therefore I would like to have an option to change it. It can be via options, or scripting, or any other means, I don't care.
At the moment it is just a very promising and useful thing except it is not. It's like they'd give us wall tool with predefined 100 composite structure settings with no means to change or delete them.

[ricki-fritz]

Somewhat related to this wish is the ability to update Project Info fields based on new Project Info fields

Example of Use: new template with preset 'new' fields that you want to import to an existing project. Yes, you can import an xml from the template Project Info, but any data you already have in the existing file is overwritten.

A function similar to the Attribute Manager where you can overwrite or append fields and the data would be handy (and quite straight forward??).

Even simply having a dialog box where you can compare existing and new (imported) fields that allows copy & paste would be hugely useful

[PEARLMAN]

Totally agree with Ricki.  The project information dialog box needs a serious update and overhaul.  It's not complicated...is it??  🙂   The Project Info box should be fully customizable for anyone, in any country.  For me , it's all about creating a Template, personalized to your own projects and not having to re-enter information twice - anywhere - whether it's on the Cover Sheet / General Information page or in a Title Block.  It all links back to the Project Info Dialog box so Autotext can do its job!  It's all there, but it's not refined enough.  Ok, who's going to tackle this over there at GS?  You?  Yes, you, in the back, you raised your hand...right?  Get to it.   :-).   What are we talking about 40 hours of code?  20 hours?  Does it really matter?  It's time for the Project Info box to be reborn!  

[JeffH]

Fully onboard with the need to allow for project info to be tweaked to allow for adding of additional company specific or specific building department Groups or Headings.

Make it similar to Properties where the stock AC ones are available and can be added to...but also allow for us to add our own groups as needed for sorting and navigational purposes.

[Atort]

I agree too.

Just for fun, I tried to give a chance to AI and prompted ChatGPT to find a solution, and got one... but the problem is that there is no chance to find the tab described on step one. Anyway, I'm pasting the answer received:

EDIT...

ChatGTP response removed because it is complete nonsense.

If you are going to post AI solutions, please check that they are accurate first.

Barry (moderator)

[Barry Kelly]

@Atort ,

I edited your post and removed the AI response as it is just not correct.

Firstly it does not even know where the Project Info dialogue is (File menu > Info > Project Info).

Secondly, you can not create custom sections or custom schemes in Project Info.

You can only add custom fields to each section.

Barry.

[Atort]

Hi Barry,
No problem with the deletion of my post.
However, as you can read - although I may not have expressed it clearly enough - my intention was precisely to highlight the futility of relying on the AI to solve that question because their answer makes no sense at all.

[ML_Arco]

Agree strongly that Project Info definitely needs to be modernized!

We need to be able to create customized entry types other than simple text strings, such as preset option menus (dropdowns), true/untrue (checkbox), in the same way we can in Property Manager. 

Why? Because legislation mandates us to eg. pick the correct "usage category" of the building (a numeral code with description of the use case, from a preset list). This will then be exported in the IfcBuilding metadata as part of an IFC4 model to be submitted to the authorities for building permit and archival into national data storage. Logically, this kind of information should be in the Project Info. Currently it has to be manually typed in in the IFC Project Manager. Very unintuitive. 

Concurrently, I've made a wish to make Project Info and Location Settings available for IfcSite and IfcBuilding custom property mapping.