Here is a most ancient and despised bug in Archicad's wall cleanup behavior.
In most cases, if two surface edges meet whose materials are the same, the line between the surfaces is eliminated.
We have several objects offer the user a group of roof slope selection parameters. You can select an n/12 slope from the list, or you can enter a custom slope angle. When you select a slope, the angle changes. When you put in an angle, the slope parameter will show n/12 if there is a match, and 'Custom' if not.
I use GLOB_MODPAR_NAME statements to keep such parameters in sync. In the code there are a bunch of IF/THEN statements associating the angles and the named slopes.
Since this lookup is used by several objects, I keep it in a macro and use RETURNED_PARAMETERS to get the data back to the calling object.
Intersection priorities help the user control interactions between certain elements. Wall and beam elements have their own intersection priority; I'm calling that the element priority. Composite skins (and components of custom profiles) have their own intersection priorities. Those are skin priorities. Neither of these should be confused with the intersection group number property of layers, though that bears on intersections too!
Element priorities effect plan and 3D geometry. Skin priorities effect only plan. Managing skin priorities is the key to proper automatic joint cleanup between composite walls in plan. Here's a look at the essentials of skin priorities and our standard composite setup.
If you encounter a failed Archicad autosave (Crash followed by no recovery dialog at relaunch), and you are running Time Machine in OS X, restore the Autosave folder from Time Machine instead of messing with cron job workarounds.
Make sure Archicad is not running.
Activate Time Machine on the Dock.
Navigate to [Home]/Library/Application Support/Graphisoft/. You should see a folder called Archicad Autosave Folder. If you don't, go 'back in time' by clicking the next window. If you see more than one Autosave folder, sort the window by Date Modified to determine the right one.
Highlight that folder and click the Restore button. (You shouldn't get a 'replace this folder' warning, because if the Archicad Autosave Folder was present, Archicad would have seen it and given you the recovery dialog. If you do get it, make sure Archicad is not running.)
Once the folder copies over, relaunch Archicad. It should find the Autosave data and present you with the recovery dialog. Depending on when Time Machine ran last, you may have lost more work than you would with a normal autosave.
It may happen that you would like to manually hack Archicad's recent files list. Recent projects are shown in the Start Archicad dialog box when AC launches. Recent projects and library parts are shown at File -> Recent Documents. One good reason to prune this list is that you can get apparent-duplicate items if you open a files from different locations, such as a server v. a local folder. Another reason is if you change servers and you need to make sure the recent items have the right address.
These are OS X instructions. We use the free utility Pref Setter to edit plist files. On Windows, use whatever Windows users use.
The AC preference files are at [home]/Library/Preferences/. There are a number of AC prefs; the one we want is com.graphisoft.AC .plist. You can right-click on the file and choose Open With... Pref Setter, or open the file from Pref Setter's File Menu.
The Pref Setter window will present all the 'Keys' in the plist file. Scroll to Recent Files.
Projects are listed first: Plan File_1., Plan File_2.,... You can delete any of these items. You can also modify the path in the Value field, to point to a different server, for example. Following the projects themselves, there is a Plan FileType_ item for each project. If you are deleting project items, you can delete these items as well, or not. It doesn't matter. Following that is a Plan Number item. This value is set automatically; you can ignore it.
After all the project list information, there is a similar arrangement for recent library parts that have been created or opened for editing. In this context the word 'Symbol' means library part: Symbol File_1., Symbol File_2.,... You can delete or hack these exactly like the project items.
(There are also integer keys for the number of RecentPlans (projects) and RecentObjects (library parts) you would like to see in the list. These are set to 12 by default, perhaps you would like more or fewer.)
We had to do some of this recently when we moved our projects, libraries, modules, etc. to a new server with a different address. When AC launches, it will try to make sure the recent files are accessible. This may lead to a prompt to log in to the missing server. Or, if the password for the server is stored in the user's keychain, the old server volumes can mount without you noticing it. Next comes confusion about where you are actually working, which is never good. Tip: Delete the password to the old server in Keychain Access. That way, you will be notified when AC wants to go looking where it shouldn't and you need to hack your prefs.
(To be honest, even after carefully working through this, I have seen AC mysteriously seek out the old volumes. There's some glitchy behavior going on, but it seems to settle down over time. We do what we can.)
Roundup of issues with daily shutdown, data backup, and power failures.
Our title block is an object with hard-coded dimensions for each sheet size on our printers. The template has a worksheet for each sheet size, and within each worksheet is placed a title block object set to that size. Then there's a saved view of each worksheet, and the view is placed in each master of a given size.
One object -> A few worksheet views -> Several masters -> Many layouts.
Graphical changes to a given sheet type are made in the master. Changes to all the sheets are made in the worksheet. Changes to every sheet in the office are made in the code of the object. (Rare.) To change every future sheet in the office while leaving extant work alone, you need a new object and you need to update the template(s).
The text information in the title block object is a mixture of autotext tags in <angle brackets> and hard-coded text in quotation marks. The TEXT2 shape commands can use hard-coded text or string variables. Both of these will display the text 'Bar':
!! Display the text in the string variable named foo
foo='Bar'
TEXT2 0, 0, foo
!! Display the literal text 'Bar'
TEXT2 0, 0, 'Bar'
(In this usage, double and single quotation marks (and grave accent marks, on the ~ key) are interchangeable as long as the pairs match.)
Within each script of the object, you need to do a Find (Cmd+F) for all the text bits that need to be changed. If the company name has changed from Foo Architects to Bar Architects, you need to find each instance of 'Foo' and replace it with 'Bar'. Optional: Use the Replace button to find and replace in one go. I usually don't use Replace All unless it's a very straightforward case with a lot of instances. Also note the checkboxes.)
In the title block object, only the master script and 2D script need to be changed. But while I was in the neighborhood I added some years to the relevant values lists in the parameter script. (Values lists offer the user choices for a given parameter.) I did a Replace All of
'2010',
with
'2010', '2011', '2012',
taking care to remember that last comma.
Save as, not Save. Actually, you should save as before you make changes so you don't forget.
More: Structure of Objects, and the Object Editing Environment
Put the abbreviation in the Short Name parameter. If the parameter is empty, the full name is used in plan.
Another idea would be to hard-code standard abbreviations for typical room names.
Download (AC11)