Special Menu

[Anonymous]

Why would anyone not want to start Archicad without the special menu?? Why must you start Archciad with a Ctrl Alt to get it (on windows)? It must be made easier than this?

Thanks,
Michele

[David Larrew]

GS has a disclaimer on the use of the Special Menu... In general "Use at your own risk."

I can speak from experience.
Found and used the SM!
Crashed project!
What happened!
Lost work!
Lost time=lost money!

[__archiben]

michele

i think the special menu is where they put some of the 'un-polished' features prior to getting them right and letting the masses loose with them!

i guess they're a little more liable to crash (hehehe - so why wasn't archicad 8.0.0 one big special menu then? ) than some of the others.

for example - the ability to set the direction and origin of a material texture was in the special menu for a long time before it made it through to 'full-feature' in 8.0 . . .

~/archiben

[Anonymous]

GS has a disclaimer on the use of the Special Menu... In general "Use at your own risk."

So are saying don't start Archicad with the special menu loaded or just try not to use the special menu? I thought I'd just start opening Archicad with the CTRL + ALT keys... but maybe I shouldn't. Let me know. You just burst my bubble! I thought I could really use this "new" feature!!! Oh man...

Thanks,
Michele

[David Larrew]

~/archiben wrote:
i think the special menu is where they put some of the 'un-polished' features prior to getting them right and letting the masses loose with them!

You are correct. The SM is like a testing ground for extended features and commands mainly used by the GS developers. Kind of an "Easter Egg" for us users.

[David Larrew]

Michele,

You can still use it. Just "Save" alot and keep back-ups up to date.

If you are on Windows, you can hack your registry to activate the SM every time to start AC... I used to have my AC set up like that.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Hmm. I've always had the Special Menu permanently up since 6.5 (where I joined the club) and have had no ill-effects.

The Windows registry trick is quite simple.

Start Menu | Run | Regedit

Navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Graphisoft\ArchiCAD

While you're there, go to the Favorites menu and click "Add to Favorites"...now for future versions, you'll only have to click Favorites | Graphisoft to get here again!

OK. Now expand the ArchiCAD folder and click the folder below corresponding to the version of AC that you want to enable the Special menu for ... perhaps repeat for each installed version.

In that folder, you'll see a key on the right called "Special Menu". It probably has a value of 0. Double click the name, and change the value to 1. Click OK and close.

(Screen shot below.)

Start ArchiCAD, and it's there. 😉

HTH,
Karl

[David Larrew]

Boy, Karl, I'm glad to hear you've had good luck with the SM. But I'll tell you... When it happens... Better knock on wood

[Dwight]

Like what?
[short post still gets a pont.]

[Karl Ottenstein]

Dwight wrote:
[short post still gets a pont.]

Hey, Dwight, I wondered where ponts went to after they were pontificated! 😉

Sorry; couldn't resist. And now I have another one, too.

To keep on track, I'm with Dwight, David - please share more. I know you've had way more experience than me because of the huge user base you support and work with, so if I'm headed for a pit, extra warnings appreciated.

(Since 8R1, I confess to having autosave set to every 5 steps and backing up daily - and during the day if I've been productive; even though the crashes are gone, I've stuck with the habit, so hopefully am protected against the demons about which you warn.)

Karl

[Dwight]

So call me a ponter.

[Djordje]

Dwight wrote:
So call me a ponter.

Looks more like you want to take off ...

[Thomas Holm]

I actually use just one feature of the Special Menu - Show Penetration Lines. it slows down hidden line view generation a bit, but makes them immensely more useful. And that one dowsn't make it crash, at least not in AC7.

Are there any new features of the Special Menu in AC8?

Thomas

[David Larrew]

Karl wrote:
To keep on track, I'm with Dwight, David - please share more. I know you've had way more experience than me because of the huge user base you support and work with, so if I'm headed for a pit, extra warnings appreciated.

(Since 8R1, I confess to having autosave set to every 5 steps and backing up daily - and during the day if I've been productive; even though the crashes are gone, I've stuck with the habit, so hopefully am protected against the demons about which you warn.)

You hit the nail on the head... The size of my user-base requires a somewhat conservative approach to support. In fact, I don't even let my "Power Users" use the SM.

Don't let me scare you away from experimenting with the SM, there are many commands and extended features that do help advanced/experienced users. In fact, I recommend that any CAD manager reading this SHOULD get to know the "Special Menu".

One piece of advice I can give you... The stepped "Autosave" will not save you from losing Section/Elevation information, lost or corrupted Quickviews (7.0) or View Sets (8.*), or worst of all a corrupted file database. I've seen them all.