SHCanada2

1 hour ago, basketballman said:

Beautiful rendering but don't want to drive up my sidewalk to my horrible garage driveway design

This is where I think these things are not really AI, or the I is severely lacking. If almost every human on the planet can spot the driveway problem but it cannot, all it is really doing is pattern matching, and then replacing.

Although one has to wonder how it "decides" to add a new window

might want to post the plan. 

3 hours ago, robdyck said:

Awhile back I had made a feature request for an elevation line that would allow different heights at each end and with straight line interpolation along the line. 

I would also suggest a rectangular region, for every driveway out there...at least out here

@Renerabbitt thats what I do as well to populate some globals. And then I do not have "do" anything per se, prior to printing.

But in the other video you have above, I think you show going somewhere else, and then indicating people have to click it prior to printing.  

Why do they have to click before printing? I had assumed you needed to populate the globals on that page, but maybe it is just to be sure the globals are for that specific layout/plan, and not another which may be open?

.

27 minutes ago, Renerabbitt said:

it stays active for the session. I really only go into it when I print.

if you open up X17 and then open a .layout or .plan file, don't you have to go run that macro to read in the CSV, in order to see all the into on the plan/layout, irrespective of printing?

I can see the global variable use case for having the option for both layout and plan, you only have to run it once...its just that, I assume, you have to run it every time you open the plan or layout file if you want to see the info. Where if we could write to text macros it only ever need to have to run twice(once for the plan and once for the layout if one needed it on both) . It would not ever have to run it again when I open files, or print...because it would now be stored in the .plan and/or .layout file in the contents of text macros.

Me thinks I am not being very convincing.

i do not have that issue. my C drive is at 340 GB which includes files from X14/15/16/17. Although I did not move files from those versions into X17. I have 1842 .plan files

3 hours ago, Joe_Carrick said:

That's essentially what I'm doing.

I have macros that read/wright my text files.

When I read one I assign the $Global variables wihich are then used in text boxes.

5 hours ago, Renerabbitt said:

we can define globals from a text file currently. Thats how I am doing my designer and client information

I was suggesting CA give us the ability to write to text(non evaluated) macros instead of global variables when you import data from reading a file. That way the information is stored in the CA file, and the import only has to run once or however often you want to bring in the info, vs writing them into global variables which means, I assume, they constantly have to read from the file and put them into globals. Rene, if you reopen that plan, do you have to go into the project information everytime? I assume so by the text you have:

just imagine if you could write to the CA text macro instead of the global variable, you would not have to do that constantly. it would be one and done.

I was suggesting this also as a way to populate that form instead of putting a bunch of GUI functions in the form. For example if you wanted a 2 level hierarchy, then give us a category of macro called "user data form", and allow a level structure to be specified, say /client information/address.

and then create another text macro with /client information/name etc. and then when you close that form CA just writes to those macros contents.

and please help us all out and put in another suggestion in the suggestion box for a sloping terrain region feature...to avoid all this

1 hour ago, Renerabbitt said:

I would need a rename/add/delete in section c on that image

or it they just let us add them through the TMM as a category of text macro, then all of the management could just be done there. And the ones of that category would show up on that form.

And if they let us write to text macros, then joe could just read his text file and write to the text macro contents

And if we were given a function to write to the contents of a text macro, then detail configurators (like the one you have?) could also be persistent, and the values chosen saved with the file's text macros, and be available instead of having to go to CAD details each time the file is open or where ever the configurator is located.

And we could then have the global variables written to text macros, essentially storing results of calculations, without having to constantly go to the sheet that has the calculation.

It's not world peace and doesnt make me breakfast, but it would certainly avoid the %xxx% that show up on my layout because I didn't go through all the plan views, triggering the calculations and solve the "need more custom fields" at the same time

2 hours ago, Michael_Gia said:

Do you guys just create custom macros for these labels? Or something else? 

Text macros. If you have to type them in anyway, you can just type them in the TMM dialog.

Only downside is organization. For instance you can type it all into one text macro, but then you cannot format specific parts of the text, say underline, in a rich text box. Or you can have individual macros and then you can underline, bold, etc each one. Downside to this is having to go into each text macro and type them in.

In my view, CA could just create a category for text macros that they then show on the form you show. I put in a request awhile ago

4 hours ago, DBCooper said:

If you are using an old one that is designed to go into a cabinet, I don't think it will work.  

it(countertop) worked for me, just doesnt look correct in 3D with the 6in offset,

CA also told me to relogin as I had it happen to me as well

5 hours ago, Designers_Ink said:

f you open the cabinet DBX, select the appliance, you can regenerate the 2D and it will show properly again until they get it fixed.

I tried that and it did not work

FYI:

I opened up an existing plan and the dishwasher in cabinet now looks like this:

had to go into the dishawsher in the cabinet and offest -6

to give:

i dont have to go into my locker to use X17.

I'm also not crashing

17 hours ago, Michael_Gia said:

meh, not impressed. 

I agree, the one guy states it well, no one puts all of the details in the actual model, so you are left with work to do, its just a matter of where to do that work.

The make a rectangle around the section you are interested in detailing, and it auto creates a callout, is nice...if you make details using the model

great video, especially with the as built tidbit.

For the question of "should I rename" the .plan file when copying a project. If you dont and have the same plan name open for multiple project, and multiple views open, the names on the  tabs become smaller and more difficult to differentiate. As such, one might want to rename

I did put in a request to have the option when copying a project, to specify a name and then that cascades to the plans and layouts in the project. Easier said then done though as CA would need to know whether to prepend or replace

9 hours ago, decorators3 said:

Gee that's strange.. so if i go to x17 can i still revise a plan that was done  x16? by  reopening  x16 even though I have 17?

yes,

but if you want to place a new object from a catalogue not yet available in X17 you cannot...or at least that is my experience. I search for something in the library, it comes pack with something, then I go to download the catalogue...and it says the catalog is unavailable

Not all catalogues are available on x17

1 hour ago, Steve_Nyhof said:

I would be totally down with this if it gave me what I wanted

you could post your project to freelancer.com. You need to tell them what the CA backup looks like, how often it creates one, that there are multiples, and that you want a service that extracts them from the zip file and then, I assume, you want them placed into a directory structure based on the name of the CA project. or if just one big directory, then tell them that. But that will be the key piece of the puzzle. And then tell them if you want it triggered by a newly created CA backup within x minutes of it being created

And then you will need to tell them what to do if the plan file is already there, do you want it overwritten or a new one generated. Do you want them to compare the two first to see if they are different before making that decision

3 hours ago, Steve_Nyhof said:

f they need to be worked on months later, I go to my folder organization on my D: Drive, like I always have, and double click the Project file to Import it back into the PM. If Chief can automate this through a backup and/or trigger I would love that, and I think others would also

You(or someone) could probably write a script or windows service that makes just the plan and/or layout backup to a directory. The simplest way would be to extract from the CA backup automatically

1 hour ago, VHampton said:

For example, I already organize my projects by client, keep plan and layout files in clearly marked folders

I can see why if you do this seperate folders between plan and layout, the new PM is not making it any easier.

I always had mine in the same folder, so I see no real difference in the PM project view today. A PM project is just what I used to have for a folder.  But it would be easier to navigate if there were folders within the project that I could move off copies of the plan that I use as a versioned plan, to

1 hour ago, VHampton said:

and automatic file linking,

I sent in some improvements on the naming. I find the options on the right click confusing as to what they will do.

2 hours ago, Steve_Nyhof said:

I think my point was clear above. I was done with the plan. I no longer was working on it, and in my process I do not need it to take up space in the PM. I have plans completed 40 years ago. Why would I want to store that in CA? 

good point, yes even I  will likely clean house every once in awhile, and may do it by project export, but in pondering it now, I will more likely I will just take a copy of the CA backup and store if off on disk, and then delete them out of PM. If I ever need a plan from 5 years ago, I will probably then go in and unzip it. For me when I am "looking" for a plan I did, I typically look at the PDFs because it is faster, and those are already in a directory. so in the future I will find the PDF, see the timestamp and then find the CA backup that I copied off, which is newer than that timestamp.

 I do about 40 plans per year, so maybe every December copy off a backup and delete files out of PM that are older than 4 or 5 years Currently I am not bringing X16 files into X17. If I need to make changes I am doing in X16. So for me, this copy off and delete process will not happen until probably 4 or 5 years from now. but never know maybe next year at this time there will be too much clutter

Currently I have 8 projects, so it is not cluttered enough to have filed them via the folder tags. So it will be interesting to see how I am doing next year, but half my work is doing variations of existing, so that will all be in X16

I'm not sure I am understanding, why are you exporting a project if you want to work on it? why not just make a backup copy of the plan file in the project?

For me I think my workflow will be:

1.keep all projects in PM. Let CA backup in the format CA chooses (zip file of everything). This backup is for the sole purposes of disaster recover, i.e. disk failure

2. if I need to checkpoint, I will do what I did before, which is make a copy. And I will let it stay in the project as copy(x). CA now lets you make a copy while the file is open, so that is a nice improvement.

I do not anticipate ever needing to look at a CA backup file, except in a disaster. And I do not anticipate to ever need to export.

For those with multi computer environments, then an export would be required

1 hour ago, Gawdzira said:

It also happens when I open a pdf and hit the print function

not a CA problem then? maybe it is looking for a network printer that does not exist