Wall Direction/Orientation and Favorites

[MSotero]

The goal of this post is to try to find a way to select a large number of Walls,
and modify them by implementing a Favorite without having the Walls flip-flop
every which way due to their drawing Direction/Reference Line orientation.

Typically, I could not care less what "direction" their drawn in, but it leads to
problems when using Favorites. And it is not practical to draw/track this aspect of
every single wall when designing.

So I think this might work (maybe not):

Please add these 2 options to the Design/Modify Wall menu choice:
1-All Wall Directions Clockwise
2-All Wall Directions Counter Clockwise
This way we can select all walls simultaneously and normalize their direction and reference line orientation in one step.
Trying to sort through hundreds of walls to achieve this is a nightmare.

Then it would seem that implementing a Favorite on a select group would not suffer flip-flop.

As it turns out, the Reference Line orientation is saved within the Favorite itself.
This seems to have a use when it comes to centerline versus edge.
Though the edge options for clockwise versus counter-clockwise drawing seems kind of questionable.

Then again, the Wall height changes when implementing a favorite in this way but I don't have any ideas about how to overcome that one.

[Anonymous]

I think my question would be why are you using favorites to change your wall type? The height issue seems like a very big deal. Using composite walls gives a lot of control over global changes and other parameters are quite easy to change with minimal changes to the settings. What types of changes are you making using a pre-defined favorite?

[MSotero]

Mike wrote:
I think my question would be why are you using favorites to change your wall type? The height issue seems like a very big deal. Using composite walls gives a lot of control over global changes and other parameters are quite easy to change with minimal changes to the settings. What types of changes are you making using a pre-defined favorite?

1) It still might be nice to have the 2 controls mentioned above.

2) Yes, composites, etc. do provide some global control methods. And while the other parameters are relatively easy to change, thats still a little optimistic from my perspective. One is still required to Find & Select items to change those other things (versus redefining a composite) which costs time and its still possible to overlook something. Please see 3 below.

3) Why Favorites? Well, its really a different topic I suppose. And yes, it simply does not work well for this kind of approach with its current functionality. However, the desire to use it in this manner stems from the very first time I saw Favorites when it was introduced into AC. I asked but can it also do this? Number 4 below.

4) Having a function of Favorites (call it "Linked Favorites" if you please), that when desired, maintains a direct connection with the elements used by it. Perhaps a dialog box with selectable checkboxes for you to decide which aspects to keep linked. If one changes the Linked Favorite, the elements are automatically and globally updated. This way nothing gets overlooked. If one used this option for Walls, the height check box would be used for certain Walls and not for others. In effect, what we achieve by redefining composite walls or more directly a placed object's script changes things in a global manner. It might be nice to extend that working method to the use of Favorites in order to have total global control (within AC not the world in general ).

5) Then again, maybe a different method would be better. Perhaps a pop-down menu next to Favorites called something like Groups (that have user definable names). If an element becomes part of a Group, then redefining something in the dialog box for the Group, updates the placed elements of the group. Its seems that Find & Select sort of helps one in this direction already, in that, you can save various selections with names to assist in grabbing them for editing.

At any rate, its just an idea.