Window And Door Schedule

[chief58]

"macro" or "macros" is there a way to show window and door sizes in the schedules as 13'-0 x 8'-0" or 13' x 8' rather than 13080 version x7 or previous

[Gawdzira]

Dimensions tab will show it in inches.

[chief58]

Alan I want to show it in feet inches if I can do that, I know I can do it in the default dimensions but want to show feet and inches in my window and door schedules if that is possible

[GerryT]

is there a way to show window and door sizes in the schedules as 13'-0 x 8'-0" or 13' x 8' rather than 13080 version x7 or previous

Yes you can but only by using a Ruby macro as a default label. Unfortunately , Chief makes using Ruby so difficult, most never bother, But, at present there is no other solution. -- Perhaps you may want to add it to the suggestion thread as this comes up about every other month now.

 

It's really not difficult and you only need do it once if you add to your template.

 

 The steps are:

 

1. make up a macro to convert ins to ft-in then format width and height by using it. If you prefer, you can do this in one macro.

 

2. Add that macro to the window or door default label in defaults.

 

3. the new default label macro will be used only with new windows/doors. If you have existing objects to change, you'll need to delete or add the label macro separately.

ft-in.zip

label.zip

[CJSpud]

Thanks Gerry.

 

Ray:

 

Would you please include "macro" or "macros" in the key words for your thread?  I am thinking this might make searching for posts on macros a bit easier (maybe ???).

[chief58]

Gerry thanks for the help but when I comes to marcro's I am lost, I downloaded what you sent but that is as far as I got with it don't know where to go from there to put in in my schedules, I will have to read up on marco's when I get a little time

[DRAWZILLA]

Thanks Chief for giving us a great tool that very few know how to use.

[GerryT]

Thanks Chief for giving us a great tool that very few know how to use.

This is the great mystery. Why would Chief invest thousands of man-hours in a project of such boundless potential then cripple it to the extend it becomes impractical to use? I can only guess of a possible “purge” in direction in mid-stream and we lost.

The system, as designed, is not difficult to use and is well within the capability of the average designer to understand and use as attested by similar “low key” features in other competing software. Unfortunately, there are so many deliberate roadblocks incorporated so that every possible usage is prevented by some stupid limitation.

Creates a tremendous amount of frustration and the impression that it’s not “worth the effort”. I’m not sure this is the impression that Chief (marketing?) wanted in order to kill a feature of this potential – but I agree with this conclusion.

At this point, I expect it should be removed & replaced with something else?

[DRAWZILLA]

I would think that Chief would have at least created a lot of macro's that users could use on every plan, and save time. The arrow dis-connect is a big problem for not using that type of macro, for me. I do use as many as I can though, thanks to you and some others. I think The people at Chief could create pages of macro's to use, at least Create them if we ask for them on an individual basis until they build up pages of them, to include with a new version.

[GerryT]

Your point is well taken and the fact is that it would be EXTREMELY easy for Chief to do. Just include a script file within the SCRIPTS directory containing a number of user methods (defs) which could be used within macros. I pointed this out in another thread.

 

Unfortunately, there are so many other limitations that I expect there would still be limited usage & value. Simply put , this is an area that Chief does not want to open up as I expect that they don't see any way of "marketing" it.

[DRAWZILLA]

I guess there are not enough people like me that really need this stuff to save me a lot of time on every plan I do.

[rlackore]

I guess there are not enough people like me that really need this stuff to save me a lot of time on every plan I do.

I'll bet there are a lot of people who would use CA's ruby implementation if it was well documented and easier to use. I have no experience with ruby, but coming from AutoCAD I can attest to the tremendous value in providing a scripting language with access to the internal variables and commands; with AutoCAD it created a huge third-party industry to create and sell AutoLISP and ARX routines to extend AutoCAD functionality. I invested hundreds of hours in developing scripts and menus to "customize" how we used AutoCAD. If Chief would give us something usable, I think it would be an extremely valuable tool.