Secondary Path for file locations

[Anonymous]

I am constantly switching between work/home/laptop. Every time I open a drawing last modified on another computer I find myself jumping through hoops like a circus seal.

If AC or PM cannot find the Library/PMK/PLN/etc it should check in the parent folder of the currently opened PLN/PMK file and then check any subfolders. Autocad does this very nicely. If an Xref is missing but is included in the parent/subfolder it finds it and loads it.

This should not permenantly change the path. The next time you go back to the original computer/network the hard-wired path should be restablished.

On a side note, already mentioned in the forums, something has to be done with pallette and window locations when swithcing computer (screen resolutions). MS does this nicely in Excel. Windows resize to fit your screen.

[__archiben]

gough

regarding the library aspect of this, i would suggest that satellite libraries (cache libraries) desperately need to work 'offline' without (as you say) jumping through hoops like a circus seal.

currently, with cache libraries enabled, archiCAD has the library manager check for the libraries at every sign-in, send and receive, draft open, etc, etc and on a draft open it has you verify that it's found the right libraries for validation before it 'synchronises' them.

what needs to happen is for the library manager to look for the libraries, but if it can't find them just go ahead and load the cache anyway. i don't mind if it tells me that i'm working from the cache and that it couldn't 'validate' the correct libraries, (much in the same way that it already does with the teamwork draft file itself if you are working offline or away from the network server which holds the PLP file), just so long as i don't have to keep defining different paths every time i switch locations.

hope that made sense guys. i felt a wee bit of a rant coming on there.

~/archiben

[Anonymous]

I'm amazed that this has not been fixed in ArchiCAD 9. Surely it is such an obvious feature, especially with the increasing use of laptops.

On any sizable project there needs to be a project-specific library located on the network server. Cache libraries are a good way of synchronising libraries and ensuring all team members have up-to-date libraries loaded, without the libraries being loaded off the server each time.

So if the network libraries are unavailable, because you have taken your laptop out of the office, but copies of them are in the cache library, the ArchiCAD Library Manager should automatically throw up a prompt for you to either find the libraries or load them from the cache.

Instead you get a silly warning if you load your cache libraries, and then when you get back to the office you have to reset the library paths back to the correct network libraries.

What's crazy is that Teamworking has specifically been designed to allow team members to work off-line i.e. out of the office on a laptop, so why the inconsistency.

[Anonymous]

The cache libraries (nee satellite libraries) used to work as they were supposed to (AFAIR) but their behaviors have changed from version to version so that I have given up on them altogether. They need to be a consistent and automatic function to be worth using. I do not have the time to revise the standards every time a new version is released.

This is an issue that needs to be addressed. Perhaps in the short term just fixing the cache would do. In the longer run this would be fixed by my wish for the unified file format.

If all library parts are included in each project (pln) file, as they are presently in the archive (pla) files, then the single file is all that is needed to work on the project. External reference libraries can be maintained (as I do now) with file synchronization software.

For more on this see:
Unified Project File Type

[Anonymous]

The responses to your wish are over my head but I fully agree with what you are asking for. When I switched to ArchiCAD from AutoCAD, I also switched to a laptop so that I can present design work to clients. I am constantly frustrated and embarassed when I un-dock, go to make a presentation, and ArchiCAD tells me my files are not there.

A basic flaw in ArchiCAD is that it cannot understand that my hardrive can be called many different things. It is K: when it is docked and C: when it is undocked. The files are still in the same physical place.

As you mentioned, AutoCAD fixed this problem years ago. Your comment is also related to another thread I looked at yesterday and, of course, cannot find today. In that wish, the user wanted to be able to copy a set of standard text documents of notes, etc. from job to job and have Plot Maker look in the closest directory. For example:
..../Notes/General.doc
instead of
X:/Acad/Projects/2004/0401 Residence/Notes/General.doc
Hope that makes sense.

[Karl Ottenstein]

I fully agree with the desire of this wish, if not the title of this thread. I hate having to make all of my computers look the same so that I can just copy files from one to another and open them without adjusting paths.

I don't want a secondary path: I want RELATIVE paths, just as are used with HTML.

I want my project library to be known as: "..\Project Lib", not a hard-coded path for example.

I want my AC9 library path to be something like %AC9Install%/ArchiCAD Library 9/" etc ... with the %AC9Install% environment mapped to whatever is stored in my system registry as the drive and location of my AC 9 installation. Something appropriately similar for TW network/satellite libs.

Geez. I sound like a 2 year old ... I want, I want ... OK. I'd be REALLY happy if... 😉

Karl

[Anonymous]

GS -

Please can you take a look at the approach that Bentley Microstation uses? It's robust and wide-ranging.

Users can write config files that simply map out an office, client or project's folder structure. Taking this file away with the folder structure allows complete access to files, referenced files, libraries etc without any redirection work at all, as the paths are generally relative to the project folder. Take the entire project folder away [or just the relevant parts in the same structure] and the thing hangs together. We use this approach on a laptop without any significant issues.

The Config files work as a cascading structure, allowing company, site and project levels for multiple locations. Our laptop config file simply tells the program that if it cannot find the S:\ drive [our main server], then it should default to c:\sdrive\, into which users copy their project folders and project configs when they take files away.

The Config file can also be used to generate any desired variable - useful for Plotmaker autotext applications for each project/Client. We also use it to simply extract the Windows user ID and provide the correct screen interface and individual preferences. The list must be endless.

I enclose a couple of our config files [simple text files]:

[James Murray]

Bump.

It's ridiculous how much rainbow ball we have to look at as AC 'Looks up' various resources when we take a project off network. We already have the libraries and the modules. Now there's a new round of spinning in 10, as it looks for externally linked, manual-update, stored-in-project drawings. 'Manual Update' should mean 'Don't worry about it.'

(If you don't know what I'm talking about, you will soon enough. )

It is positively primitive to have AC looking for things on a network that doesn't exist. Listen, AC, if you need help, ask.

I'd like to see a Location Manager, accounting for libraries, modules, Teamwork, publication paths, everything. It looks like Bentley has it working.

Laptops are normal. Join the 90s, maybe?

[Anonymous]

Yes its a shame that Graphisoft haven't sorted this out in 10.

My big gripe is still the cache libraries. I regularly take work out of the office on a laptop, and have to remember to copy project libraries etc. onto my laptop. You can't even load the cache libraries from the Library Manager on Windows as the Library Manager hides the folder they are located in, just to annoy you a bit more.

The cache library still does not do what it should, that is to load when the server libraries are unavailable, with a suitable warning dialog.

After all, what are the cache libraries for, if not a local library that can be synchronized with the network library when the network connection is there.

Come on Graphisoft, listen to your users please.