Ensuring Consistent Pens for GDL Objects Across Language Versions in Archicad

[kieselotte]

Hello everyone,

We are developing a tool for Archicad that includes custom GDL objects. To maintain a consistent color scheme and pen thickness for these objects across different language-specific versions of Archicad, we need a tool-specific Pen Set. Each language version of Archicad uses different pen sets, which creates inconsistencies in our tool's appearance.

My question is: Is it possible to install a custom Pen Set alongside the installation of our ADD-ON/Tool to ensure these consistent colors and pen thicknesses across all versions? If so, what steps or considerations should we keep in mind during the implementation process?

Thank you in advance for your help!

[Piotr Dobrowolski]

The attributes can be created by an addon, however You will never know which penset users will use in their project, every bim/cad manager and office might use their own, maybe...only maybe basing on the standard set for the language version. The another challenge is that some standard pensets are much different: eg.: GER version uses pre-AC10 pensets upgrades comparing to INT version. There are diffrent pens for the whiteout which might be problematic...

[Lingwisyer]

A whole Pen Set would not be very practical as different drawings may use a different Pen Set, some of which you may or may not be wanting to draw attention to said objects. I think the best option would be to include an attribute file in which the user or manager can adjust the index numbers then import into their templates or projects relevant Pen Sets if they wish to integrate your object.

If you really want to, you can Request a Pen of a given RGB, then use the result of that. Not sure if you can set a tolerance and fallback for that though... 

Ling.

ps. No one wants another Master-GDL Surface Virus...

[kieselotte]

Thank you very much for your reply! The concept sounds great.

Could the user adjust the index numbers of the attribute file in Archicad itself? How is the way to implement this?

The option that would come to my mind how this kind of works is Graphic Overrides. I could provide a graphic override .xml file, that the user has to import himself. This could include rules, that only apply to my objects and that would make it easy for him, to change the pens to the custom indexes he uses.

This could be an option to me. Even better would be the possibility, if this .xml file is installed directly when the user installs my tool in archicad.

What do you think?

[Lingwisyer]

Unsure if you can redefine the index numbers of an external file prior to importing...

GOs would not work as they override the entire element, there is very little granuality to them.