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ARCHICAD Training Lesson Outline
- Favorites Palette - basic usage, management, export/import for migration to another project or template
- Parameter Transfer using eye-dropper and syringe; options for controlling which parameters are transferred
- Parameter Transfer within a Library Part Settings window
FAVORITES
- Opening and closing the Favorites palette
- Adding a new Favorite
- Double-click to apply to Default or Selection
- Editing one or more Favorites
- View options in the palette
- Use of folders
- Filtering options
- Search options - text string; use space " " to see all of a particular tool type
- Use of Favorites from within a settings dialog
- Built-in limitations: Renovation Tag is ignored
- Selective use of parameter transfer to limit settings changes
- Troubleshooting issues with Favorites - library management
- Migration of Favorites to equivalent parts in new Library
PARAMETER TRANSFER OPTIONS
- Setting up the options
- Sorting by option type or tool type
- Duplicating saved settings
- Use with syringe
- Use with Favorites
Parameter Transfer within a Library Part Settings window
Method for usage:
Inside object settings, window settings or door settings dialog, navigate to a new part, and instead of simply clicking on the part, use the syringe tool keyboard shortcut (Command-Option on the Mac, CTRL-ALT on PC) and click. ARCHICAD will transfer as many parameters as it can to the new part, making it as similar as possible to the original style (includes size, surfaces, many other options that often are time consuming to set).
Use cases
- Switching window or door types
- Cabinets
- Migration of Favorites
ARCHICAD Training Lesson Transcript
2020 | 006 | Favorites Palette
Hey, welcome, everyone. Let me know that you can hear me and see me, and we’ll get started with the ARCHICAD Best Practices 2020 training lesson. I just put on a little more light, so you can let me know inside Slack here. Let’s see. If I can get this to come up – there we go. OK, Andrej, Tom, Chester. OK. It must be cold in Iceland. Chester is saying it’s no global warming over here. Alright so we are underway. [0:00:54]
I’m going to just check if anyone’s using the GoTo Webinar questions area. So, I see Bob George. Welcome. So, Bob, if you can join us on Slack, it’ll be a place where we can all see each other’s comments. To be part of the Slack communications here, go to bobrow.com/slack, and then you’ll see an opportunity to put in your email address, and then you’ll get a verification email, and you’ll be able to – within a minute or two – be here. I’m using the Slack app – separate application, but you can also access pretty much exactly the same thing within your web browser. [0:01:43]
So, anyway, hello, Dennis. Hello, Paco. Let me just reply to my wife who’s texting me here. So, let me just tell her that here. Alright. Let me put this on Do Not Disturb, and we’ll get underway here. How do I get this notification? So, running just a little bit behind getting all my pieces together, but we’ll get going in just a few seconds. [0:02:23]
Alright, so today we’re going to be continuing on. We’ve gone through 5 lessons so far. The course’s recorded lessons are shaping up. If you haven’t been visiting the course website, you should have access to that. You can send me an email to support@bobrow.com if you have any questions about just how to get in here. Now, one thing we’ll point out is that in addition to the videos, which you can review at any time, I’m putting in some training outlines of the things that I generally have up on screen as a reference. [0:03:09]
Sometimes some resource links, so here in the last lesson, I had some things about converting old files and library parts and access to old libraries, and then there’s a training lesson transcript, which you may not actually notice, if you’re just looking quickly. If you click on this, you’ll see that there is a full transcript, professionally done, of the contents, and it has timestamps, so if you skim through this, and you say, “Oh, this looks interesting here. How do we work with the Library Manager here?” You can say, “alright, that paragraph ends at 4 minutes, 24 seconds. It started at 3:47.” So, you could just jump to that part and see me talking about that particular topic. [0:04:01]
Over time, in the near future, I’m going to be setting up a search for it. I believe the search will do some basic searching, but I’ll be setting up some additional search options so that you can find it when you’re looking for a particular topic, where that was covered, or at least where it was mentioned. OK, so we’ll continue on now. What are we going to talk about today? [0:04:32]
Let’s go get the topic outline for today’s session, and just going to turn off my heater. OK, so we’re going to be talking about how to save your favorite settings. We’re going to be looking at the Favorites palette, the way that it is now working. I guess it changed maybe in ARCHICAD 19 – somewhere in there, so if you’re a veteran user, and you haven’t been using Favorites for a while, then this is different, and in any event, there are many things about the use of the Favorites palette that are subtle, even though basic usage is pretty quick and easy to get. [0:05:16]
I’m going to go over some of the subtleties and things that will help you get the most benefit from it. We’ll be looking at parameter transfer within a library part settings window. This is something that a lot of users miss because it is not actually within a menu or any icon. You actually have to use the keyboard shortcut for the Syringe tool to activate it, and you have to at least know that it’s available and when it would be an appropriate or very useful shortcut. [0:05:51]
We’ll also be talking about modules – typical rooms and arrangements that you can save inside the file or outside. So, I’ll switch over to ARCHICAD, and we’ll start going through just some of these basics here. As usual, I go very quickly through the real basics to make sure that everyone is on the same page, and then we’ll go into some of the more subtle things. [0:06:15]
So, let’s go over to ARCHICAD now. Alright, so I’m in the sample project here, which is a good context for studying these things. To open up the Favorites palette, we can go to the Window menu, Palettes, Favorites, and you notice that there was a little star icon there. That star icon also exists in the toolbar in the U.S. version, and you can add it to a toolbar in the international version. I will be talking about the work environment and how you can add toolbars and just more buttons up here that you find convenient, but for now, let’s just say if you’re in the U.S. version, you can click this button to close or open this on the fly. [0:07:04]
You can also set up a keyboard shortcut for the palette. You can see right now it’s listed here. I’ve got 3 fingers – Ctrl/Option+Command and the letter F, and I set up the keyboard shortcut in the work environment keyboard shortcut section. Again, I’ll be talking about how to use keyboard shortcuts and set them up in a later lesson, but I just wanted to point out that I can now just use the keyboard shortcut to open or close that Favorites palette. [0:07:37]
So, now that it’s open, how do we work on it or work with it? OK, if I want to – let’s say this is a back door here that has a French door, as I recall. If I want to add this to the Favorites, I can select an element here, and with the Favorites palette open, I can use the + next to the star that says New Favorite and then give it a name. I’ll just call this French Exterior Door. [0:08:09]
OK, so this text name can be changed at any time. You can see it shows up in the list here. If I deselect that, and at any time just double-click on it, I’ll be switched to the Door tool with the settings that make that particular door what it is. You can see here – I guess the view of it. Actually, it’s not a French door, is it? It’s more of a prairie-style glazed pattern. [0:08:42]
So, let’s say that I wanted to change the name here. We can access it here in the Favorites Palette here, or we can actually go to the Favorites Palette up here and highlight this, and when we highlight it, there’s an option to rename the favorite, or we have other options that we’re going to be looking at for redefining. So, let’s go to rename the favorite here, and we’ll call this Prairie Style. [0:09:14]
Now, I’m not sure if I’m 100% right on naming it that way, but you get the idea that you can name it any way you want, and you can rename it if you decide that it would be more helpful to have a different name. Now, that favorite exists here. You notice that when I switched to the Door tool that – well, actually, let’s just say that if I go to the Arrow tool here, you notice that these folders become greyed. It allows me to, for example, open up any of these folders, and I can look at doors, but I can also look at other things – say, columns. See different column types. [0:10:00]
When I’m in a tool like when I activate the Door tool, you notice that these folders become a different color. They’re not accessible because there are no doors within this Columns folder or within these subfolders. This is due to a setting within the Favorites Palette to filter to active tool only. If we turn that off, then we’ll see that even though I’m in the Door tool, we can see all the columns. [0:10:31]
So, this is useful when you want to be able to only see a certain type of tool, but certainly you need to be aware that you can turn it on or off because it can get annoying. You can say you’re looking for a cabinet, and say, “Why can’t I find any of the cabinets in my library?” It’s because you might be in another tool – the Wall tool or the Door tool might be the active default tool here. [0:10:58]
Now, in terms of the settings of a favorite, if I go back up to the top level here, the Favorites, this door – in addition to being able to rename it, if I right-click on it, I can edit it. So, what does that mean? I can actually edit the settings of the favorites. So, if I wanted to, I could go in and change it from 2’-6” in width to 3’ here, and now you’ll see this adjust a little bit for that particular favorite, so now the next time I use it, it will take effect. [0:11:42]
Now, to really understand favorites, let’s actually start applying or using some of the favorites that are in here. So I’m going to go and just set up a few favorites very quickly for different wall types. So, I’m going to go to an interior wall here, and we’ll just say that I’d like to – actually, I’d like to select it, and then go and add this, and we’ll call it Interior 2x4 Wall here, and let’s go and take this one, and what is this? [0:12:18]
This particular one is – bring this down here. It’s a complex profile. You can see the symbol here, so we’ll just go and save this one as Insulated Wall Profile. Now, you can name it anything you’d like, and you can organize these things however you wish. You may want to put the name of the tool or the type, like wall first, but since it’s going to have the symbol next to it, that isn’t as needed as it would otherwise be. [0:12:58]
You can also, of course, group these and put these into folders, which we’re going to be looking at. Now, if I’m in the Wall tool, and I double-click on the favorite like this – let me just move over here. Come on now. Trying to get my center mouse button – why is my center mouse button not working? OK. My center mouse button is not coming up here, so let me use the Hand tool to move over. [0:13:34]
When you have a magic mouse like this one here from Apple, it doesn’t have a center button. Now, there is an add-on – a little plug-in for the Mac operating system to enable that center mouse button and other keyboard shortcuts or other shortcuts for the mouse. It’s called Magic Mouse Prefs. I think that’s what it is. Now, I don’t know why all of a sudden this is not working here. Let’s see. I thought this is up here. I will just have to work around this and find out later why that’s – let me just see if I can with Magic Prefs here, and so let me just check this. [0:14:29]
So, Magic Prefs shows up here in the top here, and let me go to preferences and see if it for some reason has lost track of the preferences for that, and I’ve got it set for the one-fingered middle access click to be in that area, but for some reason, it is not triggering here. Let me just press down. OK, now it is, so maybe I just needed to start it up again and wake it up. So now, that will be a little easier. [0:15:06]
OK, so if I double-click on a favorite, then I can draw that type of a wall, and then if I double-click on a different favorite, it will apply that to the settings. Now, the first time that I make a change in a file, I’ve noticed in ARCHICAD 22 that it takes about 15 or 20 seconds or longer to be ready to go. You can see that it the beach ball finally changed. Now it should work much more quickly. [0:15:46]
Let me to go to the Insulator Wall Profile, double-click, and we’ll change to this wall type. So, by having the favorites available, you can very quickly have – let’s say you have 6 or 8 or 10 wall assemblies that you use all the time. You can have them set up for quick access. Now, in addition, if you select an element or one or more elements, and you double-click on, for example, a favorite, it will apply it. You can see how that wall changed instantly. [0:16:18]
Let me just have a sip. Now, when you are using the Favorites options here, there are various ways to control what it does. So, let me just back up here and say that if I were to go to – let’s see. What are we going to do here? I’ll take this 2x4 interior wall. I’m going to go and – let’s see, wall default settings. Now, if I double-click on this interior wall here, now you can see it’s set here. I’m going to create a new favorite. Instead of by selecting things, I’ll just go into the Wall tool and change this, for example, from the 2x4 to the thicker framed wall here – a 2x6, and I’ll go to create a favorite directly within this setting. [0:17:25]
So, I can go to the Favorites here and say that I’d like to add this. I’ve just changed it only to the thickness of the wall – different composite, and I’ll say this is going to be Interior 2x6 Wall here, and we can say, “Where is it going to be put?” So, it actually put that into the folder. Let me just delete that there, and let’s see if I can control that. If I go up to the Favorites – if I want this to be at the top level and then save it. You have to be in the folder that you want. [0:18:05]
Alright, so now we have this one here. Now, I’ve now defined it, and we say OK, and you can see it showed up after I clicked OK, so it got added to the Favorites Palette at that point. Now, we can select multiple walls – let’s say these. Several of the walls – say these are bearing walls, for example, as opposed to maybe this closet, which is not bearing, and I can go and double-click on Interior 2x6, and you can see how they instantly change. [0:18:49]
Now, when you’re changing an element, it will keep its anchor point, so what does that mean? Well, the walls are put in with a reference line. The reference line can be on one side of the wall or the other, or it can be the core on one side or the other or possibly in the middle. So, in this case, the core reference stayed in the same location, and the walls got thicker. [0:19:20]
So, this goes into the concept of anchoring ARCHICAD’s reference in a way that’s going to be most useful to you. So, when you’re drawing a building – let’s say that you have setbacks, and you need to make sure that your shell of the building is an appropriate distance from the property lines or that the length of the brick coursing or the blocks is a nice, even unit for the masonry. You’re going to reference where you’re measuring, and that would often be the core outside. [0:20:03]
In some cases, you’re going to be wanting to do measurements on an interior remodel, and you’re going to be specifying that your reference line is what you’re measuring, which might be the face of the walls on the inside of the building because that’s what you can actually measure. So, whatever you specify, that’s the anchor point, and when you change the elements using manual changes within the dialog box or using Favorites, the reference is going to stay locked, and the body of the element will adjust around it here. [0:20:45]
Now, there are some options for controlling how this gets applied and limiting the changes in certain ways. So, we’re going to be looking at that in a minute, but I want to actually just go over the basics of creating folders and moving things around in folders, because they’re pretty quick and intuitive, but if you haven’t done it, then it’s a good thing to review. [0:21:15]
So, you’ll see that when – I’ll just say I have nothing selected here. The only button that’s available right now in the Favorites Palette is the new folder. If I select any of these, you can see that there’s an option for the X, which will delete the element, and it’ll give you a little confirmation dialog. Do you want to delete it before it completes the operation? If I have nothing selected, then the only one is New Folder, so if I create a new folder, it simply will bring up a dialog and will say Walls here. [0:21:48]
Alright, so now I’ve got a folder called Walls. You can see that it’s got a grey indicator, meaning that there’s nothing inside there, or at least nothing that I can access, given the filters. Now, right now, I turned off the filter to active tool only, so even though I’m in the Wall tool, I do have access to all the folders here, even, for example, the Column folder, but this is grey because there’s nothing inside it. [0:22:18]
To add things inside it, I can click on one or more of these – shift-click or Ctrl+ or Command+click to select additional elements, and then literally just drag them into it. When I release, you can see now that they’ve disappeared from the top level, and this folder now is grey. When I double-click on walls here, you can see that these are visible within it. [0:22:43]
So, creating folders and, in fact, folders within folders, is easy, simply by dragging them in from one to another. So, for example, if I wanted to take this wall and put it into this one, I can just drag it on top. You can see now it’s indented inside that. If I want to take it out, I can move this around. Here you can see I’m putting it possibly into something. Here you can see when I’m putting – I’m not on top of an element. It’s putting it underneath. You can see the little bar – the line underneath there. So, that’s now moved it up one level. [0:23:26]
Now, the view of these elements has several variations. You can see this one is a list view, so you’re seeing the name and just the symbol. We can go to one where it’s showing a small preview for the walls like this. We’re not seeing very much. We can go to the larger preview and, in fact, this preview I found is, for certain types of elements that are white, it actually doesn’t show up very well. Let’s look at the preview for something like object here. [0:24:05]
We’ll go to Appliances, and you can see these previews show up nicely. If I go to the smaller version, we can see more of these elements, and still each one of these is a preview of the element type. Now, the preview here is based on what’s called the Preview and the Library Part Settings dialog. So, if I double-click on Dishwasher, I’ve now set up the Object tool to put in a dishwasher. Now, the dishwasher might have a different color – might actually, instead of having a white front, might have a stainless steel front or things like that. This is based on – if we go here and say I’d like to edit it, let’s just check this. [0:25:02]
We’re editing the Favorite settings right now, and let’s say that I go to the Surfaces, and we make the door panel, instead of this chrome color, let’s make it a red. Alright, so now we have a red one. I’ll just say OK. What this is going to do is save the Favorite settings that were in there with a slightly different – well, just a very different version. Ah, there it is. So, this is actually generating from the Object Part Settings preview, and it will give you some reminder of what this is. If I go to the larger one, then of course this becomes even more prominent. [0:25:45]
Now, the Favorites Palette – I think you can make this wider, and you can see that you could have this arrayed with more components. This Favorites Palette that float independent of your screen, so if I actually drag this down like this, you can see that it is now not docked, and I can make it potentially bigger. If you have a very large screen or a second screen, you can drag that Favorites off to the side. If I put it back to being docked by dragging it over near the Tools on the left side, then it will come in with a standard default size, but again, I can resize that as I wish here. [0:26:37]
So, those are some of the manipulations just in terms of the formatting, the visual appearance, the flexibility to move this to a convenient location on screen, and, of course, the whole thing of having keyboard shortcuts to hide or show this on the fly is a great convenience. Now, let me just refer to my notes to see what I’ve covered here because I’m doing this on the fly here. So, I’m probably jumping around a little bit in a different order. [0:27:14]
So, we’ve opened and closed the Favorites Palette, added new Favorites, we’ve double-clicked to apply to the default, for example, before you draw a wall or two walls or elements that are selected. We’ve looked at how you can edit Favorites, and we’ve looked at some of the view options in the palette and the use of folders and a little bit about filtering options. So, I want to go into editing one or more Favorites a little bit further, and also into some of the filtering options, and then we’ll go on to search. [0:27:49]
So, let us see if there’s any questions here. For some reason, when I drag this from one screen to the other, it doesn’t refresh properly. OK, so I’m just looking here. “Anyone have BIM Object running inside ARCHICAD 22?” OK, so that’s an interesting question, Scott. So, we’ll see if anyone has any responses there about it. I don’t know a whole lot about BIM Object, but I gather there is a plug-in or an add-on that allows you to access additional library parts that are maintained on a web portal called BIM Object, and that certainly is a useful way to get access to additional components. [0:28:39]
This is what I love about the new Slack option for communication is that you all can be sharing notes here, whether it’s during the session or at another time. I get a report once a week from Slack for each of the workspaces that I’m in, and I noticed that in this ARCHICAD training workspace, about 1/3 of the messages were in the public space, and 2/3 were direct messages. So, what that tells me is that a lot of you are taking advantage of this to have messages back and forth with each other, which is fantastic, so please go ahead and connect and share your insights and your ideas and your questions with each other. [0:29:33]
OK, so we’ll look at this BIM Objects at some point, but I don’t want to get sidetracked in terms of the training. I’m glad you’re sharing some interesting notes about them. OK, and so Dennis says, “Can I ask if you’re able to place an .ifc file such as a downloaded Velux roof light into ARCHICAD as an object?” I know that you can import files of different types. I haven’t worked with .ifc saved elements as library parts. Perhaps, Dennis, if you can send me something or send me a link to a site that has some .ifc-based objects, I can look at that. [0:30:23]
So, we’ll take a look. There is the plug-in for bringing in Revit objects - they call them Revit families – into ARCHICAD that can be useful. Not quite sure about .ifc in terms of library parts. I know we can bring in .ifc project files – let’s say a structural model from a consultant, but I haven’t worked with library parts per se. So, we’ll see what this discussion brings up. Maybe some of you have done that. [0:30:23]
Alright, so we’re going to editing one or more Favorites here. When I have a favorite active, I can, of course, right-click on it to say Edit, so I can open up what this is, and I made the change here. One of the things that, of course, is part of any settings window, other than for doors and windows, is the layer. When I was working on some of the template development, I found that certain things were on a layer that I wanted to change the layer of those elements, and I found that you could go in and either selectively use the Command or Ctrl key or Shift key to select a bunch of elements and then go and edit them. [0:31:47]
When you do some rather distinct elements like, “This is a hood, but there is a bunch of other types,” I don’t want to change the library part up here because then all of them would become that library part, but I can change things like what layer they’re on. So, if I pick things – oh, they shouldn’t be on Mechanical. I’d prefer to put them on Plumbing or some other layer – maybe a layer that you’ve created for a particular purpose, you can do that. [0:32:19]
So, you can select from one or more Favorites, and you can go edit them and change just one attribute of them, whether it’s the layer or anything else. It’s a very quick way to manage and correct and update the Favorites there. Now, let’s go to my notes here. So, let’s look at filtering and search options. So, if I’m in the Object tool and I wanted to find cabinets, I can type in Cabinet, and with a file that has lots of favorites like we have in MasterTemplate, it can take several seconds to come up. [0:33:11]
In fact, you notice that it’s first of all coming up with just a long list that didn’t have the word cabinet in it, so ARCHICAD somehow switched its mode from files and folders to a text list, and then, after thinking about it for a split second, said, “Alright, let me show you the elements in the Favorites that have the word cabinet in it.” [0:33:36]
Now, we can see quite a few that have the word cabinet. Now, if we go to – sometimes, if we want to be able to find – let me pause for a moment. These are in potentially different folders here. You know, as I hover over this, you can see this says Base Cabinet, and it’s in a folder called Plumbing and Mechanical, and this one is in a folder called AMT Plumbing 3D. So, these are in very different folders. [0:34:14]
So, if we’re using the folder structure, which is an option when you don’t have the search string in there, then the folder structure will guide you into certain areas. Let’s go to, for example, Columns, and take out this word Cabinet. So, if I’m looking for a particular column type, I could go to this Column folder, but you notice that there are 4 columns here, and then there are folders with steel columns and wood posts and things. [0:34:49]
Now, if I wanted to find – let’s see. What are these? If I double-click on posts, this has the word Post here, so let me just go up one level and say, “I’d like to find posts.” I’m going to type in posts, and it’s going to find all of the favorites that have the letters “post” in them. Now, of course, some of them, and we’ll see in a moment here that it’s taking here and bringing up these walls and disappears, so now these all have the word “post”. There are some railing posts as well as some columns and even a post box here for an object. [0:35:30]
Now, of course, if I wanted to only show columns that were posts, then I could go and say, “Filter to active tool only,” and you’ll see in a moment that it will restrict its display of favorites to columns that have the letters “post” in there. Now, these are actually in different folders. If I hover over this, this is in Metal – Structural, and this one is in AMT Wood Posts. So, this is very useful to be able to find things, regardless of the folder. [0:36:05]
So, folders are very helpful for locating things if these folders are set up for your needs. You can say I just want to find the kitchen stuff, and so you have a folder with kitchen things, and they can be objects, and they can be electrical, and they can be lights, and they can even be labels and things like that that you have set up under Kitchens, so that can be fantastic, but on the other hand, if things are dispersed into different folders, then using the text search can be helpful. [0:36:39]
Now, here’s a trick. If I take this out, it will show columns in a particular folder, but if I just type a space – just a single space here, so in a moment I’ll just highlight it so you can see. Now, it’s finding all of the columns in the favorites. You know, they don’t have to match the letters post. They can be in other places. So, if I go, for example, to Objects here, it’s going to be a much longer list, but it’s going to filter to Objects, and with the space, it’ll give me all objects, regardless of the folder. [0:37:25]
So, use this selectively in terms of when it’s going to be helpful, but these are now – you can see that. I’ve just got a space up here. It’s now all of the objects. You can see the icon for it – the Object tool. So, these are some ways that you can manage the favorites and find things when you need them. Let’s see if there are any questions or comments about this. [0:37:59]
Maybe just as a quick poll, how many of you use favorites regularly in your work? How many of you use them so much that you wouldn’t want to live without them? They’re just a very helpful thing that you use routinely. I’d like to know that, and maybe if you have some additional comments like what you particularly find them helpful for, that would be interesting just to see. [0:38:32]
Alright, so Jerry says, “Use every day.” Andy says, “Just starting. It’s good timing that you have this lesson.” OK, and let’s see what else comes in here. So, Tom says, “Always use favorites, but in ARCHICAD 18.” So, in ARCHICAD before – I think it was 19 that may have changed. The Favorites Palette existed, but it was much more limited, so Tom, are you not upgrading to a later version, or are you still working? You’re in ARCHICAD 19? OK, not sure if that’s just meaning that’s when it changed. [0:39:19]
OK, so I do encourage all of you – particularly if you’re in this class, to be using the latest version of ARCHICAD that you can because in general, it keeps getting better and easier to get projects out the door. Reggie says, “Always using favorites. I then don’t have to think about layers, settings, etc., levels and stories.” OK, and Andrej. “I’m using them daily, but I’m not using the Favorites Palette.” [0:39:47]
So, you can get access to favorites in the settings dialog, whether it’s the Wall tool or the Window or Object tool by clicking the little star icon in the bottom – no, in the top section, I believe. Alright, so Diane says, “Not using favorites as much as I should.” OK. Alright, so thank you for feedback there. So we have – it looks like 35 people on the call and 6 or 8 of you responded. Thank you for participating and giving feedback. I would like to see even more participation. I think it is interesting to get a wide variety of perspectives here. [0:40:42]
Feel free to respond about favorites even as I go on for the lesson. Alright, so we’ve shown different ways that you can manage the favorites in terms of creating, editing, filing them away in folders, and searching for them. Now we’re going to look at how you can manage them from a larger sense of having them available in different projects and in your template. So, the favorites that I’ve got here can be exported by going to the gear icon and going to Import/Export. [0:41:30]
So, when I go to that option, it says, “Do you want to import?” You have a button to import, or do you want to export? First, let’s do export. It’ll say either a single file, .prf – which you could say is preferences file, or a folder, and in that folder, you’ll actually have named files, each one that defines a particular favorite. So, you can do it either way. [0:42:02]
You can export all of them that are currently defined in this project, or, if you click the checkbox, you can say selected favorites only. Right now, I’ve got just one highlighted, and so that’s what it would export. On the other hand, let me just close this. If I select a few of these, and I shift-clicked, now I’m going to go and Command+click on some other ones just to show. Now, we have about 8 there, and if I do the Import/Export, Selected Favorites, it’s going to be – here’s 9. [0:42:37]
On the other hand, if the last click I do is on – let’s say that we’re in the Arrow tool, and my filtering allows me to see more things, and do I have that space bar in here? Yeah, let me take that out, so I’m just disabling the search bar. Now, after it thinks about it, it’s only going to be showing the elements that are in the particular folder that I’m in because it’s going to stop the search or the matching here. [0:43:15]
So, in a moment here, we should see it change. Let’s see. If I click on Beams or Columns, yeah, now it’s showing here. So, if I select, possibly, even – if you want to select multiple things, you can’t do it in this upper section of the window, but you can go up a level, and then you can select it in the lower section. You can select folders like this. If you wanted to select multiple things from the top level, you can do that. [0:43:46]
So, for example, the MasterTemplate special group of items – AMT could be selected along with this new Walls folder, like that. So, now if I go down here to Import/Export and say, “Selected Favorites,” we’re going to see 119. Some of them are buried within this AMT special folder in subfolders, and then, of course, there are the new ones that I created in walls. So, when I click Export here, I can put this wherever I like, so let me just go to my Downloads folder, and we’ll create a new folder. [0:44:28]
I’m not exactly sure. I can’t remember if it’s going to create a folder automatically with the .xml. I’ll just say Favorites, Export, .xml. So, .xml is – I forget what it actually stands for. I think the ML is Markup Language. So, it is a structured form of marking up or making note of some data. So, each of these files will be a text file. Generally, you’re not going to read that as a human being, but ARCHICAD can read that into another project when you export it from one. [0:45:06]
So, let’s say create this and choose. I’m in a folder here, so it did drop all of those loose. It wouldn’t all be in my downloads folder. I’ll say to choose that, and it should have export it instantly. Let’s go to my files and folders here, and we’ll go to Downloads, and here’s the folder that I just created. I open this up, and yeah. In fact, it did put it into the top level – wherever I was telling it to put it, so it’s very good that I actually created a folder. [0:45:44]
Now, I don’t generally recommend doing it as an .xml, simply because I don’t have a use for all of these individual things. I use the .prf format, where it just puts them all into one file, but this can be useful if you want to selectively add favorites into another file because it’s just a little bit easier to select things based on the names of them. Now, let’s just see the other way that we can export here. I’ll just move this off to the side, and let’s export this here. We’ll do the same thing, but to a file. Selected Favorites, so it would be that same one. Export, and just put it up at the top level of my Downloads because it’s just going to be a single file. [0:46:44]
Then I’ll say Favorites, Export .prf file. Of course, it has the ending .prf as well, but let’s do that, and we’re going to see that there is now a single file that has all of that data that we had here. So, let’s see how you would import it. So, if I go to the same command here and say Import, then we can go and say I’d like to import either a .prf file or, if I can select it – I think I can select the folder, and it’ll do everything within it there. [0:47:27]
So, there’s options here, enable Favorite file. OK. I don’t think this is – It’s interesting. It looks like maybe you can select ARCHICAD projects to import the favorites from. Let’s just see that. I don’t recall seeing that before. Let me go to my – actually, there should be something in the Downloads here for ARCHICAD project files. Got a lot of things here, so Favorites. Oh, that’s Favorites file. Let’s go to ARCHICAD projects. OK, so now it looks like I could go to project file and say to open it. [0:48:19]
It’s now thinking about that project file, and I guess it’s going to allow us to import the favorites from another project into this project. I’ve usually been more selective and exported from the Favorites Palette to a file and then imported into another file. Now, while this is spinning because it’s taking a little time to open that ARCHICAD project file, I’ll tell you a few things that happen when you import so that we can very quickly review it here. [0:48:55]
First of all, it does give you the options when you do a .prf or when you’re doing the ARCHICAD project file to select these individually. Let’s see. If we go here, this allows you to sort, but I don’t see a way to – maybe if I just have several selected, and I click here – OK, that is nice. You can select a bunch of them, for example, even all the way to the bottom here and uncheck it. So, now it’s going to be – it wouldn’t be importing anything, and then it’s saying, “Oh, I only want the zones.” So, we can say to give me just the zones and check it. [0:49:41]
So, this is a way of bringing in favorites from a particular file, so all of these zones here – let me just say Import. It’ll also bring in folders, if there are any. So, let’s go ahead and say Import, and we’ll see what it does. Let me just close these up here. So, these were, I believe, some zone favorites, and it didn’t actually complain about the favorites or mention it. I wonder if we have the Zone tool – if we go to the Zone tool, if there are any zones that came in. [0:50:33]
So, I just did a space, so now it should show me all zones, regardless of the folder, and yeah, so all of these are in here, and if I hover over this or click and then wait for a minute, we’ll see what folder it’s in. So, this is in the – let’s see. This is a folder here. That doesn’t have a folder. That’s interesting. So, getting a little bit sidetracked here, but I want to point out that the export and import is controlled using this palette. [0:51:20]
You have options for saving out as .xml files, so you have a whole bunch of little things to manage or to select. You can save out as a .prf, and when you import, you can select any of those options for import. Now, one of the things that I didn’t show you here is if we were to bring in favorites from where there were duplicates, it would ask you how you want to deal with it. In fact, I think when I did the project file, you may have noticed it had the word “overwrite” next to that. [0:51:54]
So, let’s take a look. I’m going to go in and start up another instance of ARCHICAD here, and while it’s starting up, I will explain some options. So, when you’re importing the favorites, if it encounters a duplicate, and you haven’t told it otherwise, it is able to append that favorite, but it will change the name slightly, so perhaps you’ve seen this in some cases, whether it’s downloading files from the Internet or within ARCHICAD when you’re dealing with importing through Attribute Manager. If you have a duplicate, it may say such and such in name or the number 1 or 2 after it. [0:52:45]
So, it basically will keep the main part of the name and then add a suffix that makes it have a unique name. So, here we can see that this is the standard GraphiSoft template – U.S. template – and I’m going to go in and import a file here. See, here you can do a folder, and you can do this, but if I import a file – let’s say that .prf file – and I say to open this, when it’s a simple file like this, you saw how it came up just instantly. Then, there’s this option for whether you want to append, which means to add it to the list, or if it found a duplicate, there would be an option to overwrite. [0:53:33]
Let’s see if there are any duplicates here. So, none of these match ones that are already in there, so if you had some duplicates, ARCHICAD would show you the option to overwrite or append. Append would bring it in but give it a new name with a suffix, and overwrite would say that I’d like to update this. I’ll say to import this, and we’re going to see in a moment. You can see AMT Special. That was the folder that it brought in, as well as a folder called Walls, and of course this has got those three walls that I created earlier. [0:54:13]
So, that’s the basics of managing favorites. Let’s talk about some of the troubleshooting. We’ll go back to my notes and see. I think this is where I need to go here, so we have looked at the filtering, the search options, the use of space, use of favorites within a settings dialog. OK, so we have a few things here. OK, before we get into the troubleshooting here, let’s go into some of the limitations of the favorites that are built in as well as the ability to selectively restrict or change how the favorites are applied, and then we’ll go into some of the troubleshooting issues with favorites. [0:55:04]
So, we’ll go back to the sample project here, and so in this project, this is a remodeled addition. If I switch from – we’ll go to here. Let’s see if I can make the favorites narrower, and here we go. OK, so now I have access to the renovation palette in the quick options area down below. Now, if I switch this to, for example, existing plan, we’ll see the arrangement down here. This wall is an existing wall. It’s going to be removed. There’s actually a wall up here that popped in as well that’s going to be removed. [0:56:03]
So, if I bring up the renovation palette, we can see this information displayed in just a moment. I’m going to go Window, Palettes, Renovation, and we’ll be going into renovation project management in a later part of the course, but basic usage is that elements have one of three tags: existing, existing to be demolished, or new, and when I select an element, we can see what it is. In fact, this is to be demolished whereas, if I select this wall here, and it’s an existing one that’s going to remain. [0:56:54]
Now, these favorites here – if I go into the Wall favorites, when I was eye dropping the favorites, and let’s go take out that space here so that it’s only going to show me the favorites within that folder. So, these favorites that we’re seeing here do not carry the renovation tag with them, and in fact, when you have the default settings of any tool, whether it’s the Wall tool or Windows or Doors, or anything else that you place into the model, there is no setting for the renovation status. [0:57:49]
Now, you’ll see Renovation: Use Palette to set default. So, basically this is controlling – as I draw a new element, is an existing or a demo element or a new element here? So, what that means is that if I draw this wall now, it’s going to be an existing to remain. If I switch this, this is going to be the same type of wall, but it’s going to be demolished, and I can’t actually switch to the new because right now, I’m showing the existing plan. [0:58:24]
Now, if I switch to the plan status, obviously, this one remains, this one disappeared, and now I could draw something that was new here and switch back and forth. Now, the reason why I wanted to just take a moment to go over the basics of renovation is that when I use the Favorites Palette to set things u pretty, it does not carry across what type of renovation element it is. [0:58:57]
So, if I select this demo element, and I say, “You know what? This demo element should be a 2x4 wall,” it’s going to switch it to a 2x4 wall, but it is still a demo element. If I select this here and do the same thing, it’s going to be a 2x4, but it’s an existing to remain. So, now if I switch here to plan status, we’re going to see the same thing that we had before where the existing one is still showing. The demo one has disappeared, so using the favorites here – even though it changes, in this case, the wall type, it doesn’t change its renovation status. [0:59:42]
So, the really good thing to know about that is when you’re either placing elements or tweaking them and modifying them – let’s say that we decided, “Oh, you know what? These walls really don’t need to be bearing walls here,” so I’m just going to switch them to the 2x4. I don’t have to worry about whether this is set up for renovation or new. I don’t have to worry about that. If I’m in the existing plan, if I decided that all of these should be bearing walls, I could switch them to 2x6, and you can see they all get thicker, but this one still is going to disappear when I go to plan status because it still remembers that it’s a demo. [1:00:32]
So, it’s maintained separately from the favorites. Now, in a similar fashion, we can also choose whether the favorites carry over all attributes or not. Now, what do I mean by that? I demonstrated this in some recent webinars, so you may have been on that, but let’s take a look in 3D at this model, and we’ll explore some of the things that go to here. [1:01:11]
So, we’ll look at parameter transfer as a general concept and then how it applies directly within the Favorites Palette. If I eye drop – let’s say that I eye drop this window here, and I use the syringe to inject it into this window, we’ll see, “Ooh, OK. I didn’t quite – let me just undo that and make sure I’m actually in.” Eye drop the window. You can see that. Now we’re in the Window tool, and then I can hover over this one with the syringe and inject it, and you can see how it changed to be exactly like that other window. [1:02:08]
That is the use of the eye dropper here and the syringe without any modification. It transferred all of the settings. On the other hand, if I wanted to change it so it had dividers like this, but I didn’t want to change the size, then I can – when I use the syringe, and I hover over it, I can click on Transfer All Settings, and then, instead of just going ahead and transferring all settings, it gives me some choices. These are premade or preset options, which I can adjust or create new ones using the Element Transfer Settings. [1:02:52]
So, if I click on Element Transfer Settings, we’ll see that list that I just had on screen here. Each one of these has different variations here. So, when I click on each one of these, you can see how certain things are changing. Now, transfer all settings. You can see it is showing checkboxes for all of the things except for a couple right here. [1:03:21]
So, for the window one, a very convenient one to create if you don’t have it already is something that excludes changing the elevation of a window when you use the favorite or when you use the Syringe tool from an eye dropper. This means that whatever your common height for all of the window headers are for this particular section of the building or this project will not be modified when you apply these settings from the eye dropper. [1:03:55]
We can see that this is unchecked. Let’s see. That’s height, top, offset – where is it? I guess if I go here to Group By Tool, this is a good way to see it. If I go and say, “Alright, well, when I’m in the Window tool, what options are there?” So, in the Window tool, if you’re using the eye dropper and syringe, you can carry over the size of the window and – let’s see, the variety of settings here. So, this one is set up to exclude elevation, height, size, and anchor. [1:04:43]
So, the size is obviously here. The anchor would be – is it center or left or right aligned? The elevation and height – let’s see. Not sure why we’re not seeing that in the window settings here. If we go back to Group By Setting, look at all other settings here. So, the window or door – all other settings – OK, so I apologize that I’m not explaining everything as clearly as I would like. [1:05:25]
The height and top offset is one that’s excluded from this preset. That’s basically where the – no, that’s actually 4 different tools. You can see that it’s grey here, so where is the window height? So, this would be – alright, I’m going to pause for a moment and look here. So, I know that this is in here, and this is top link, not linked to story. Alright, I’m going to leave this unexplained at the moment and just keep on with the concept. [1:06:26]
So, this particular favorite preference is going to selectively transfer information about the window but ignore changing the elevation, which is where it is in space vertically, the height of the window, the size of the window, and the anchor. So, if I say OK on that, this is now – if I say I’d like to transfer into this window the settings from the other window without these modifications, we’re going to see that it kept the size, it kept the top height of the window, but it brought over the other settings of the window. [1:07:12]
Now, let me just undo this, and let’s say that we had saved this particular window as a favorite. So, I’m going to select this window here, and we’ll go and add this as a favorite, so Window With Mullions here. So, maybe that’s not the right term, but I wanted to say this has got some glazing bar divisions in there, and now if I were to go and use the Syringe tool on this window – actually, if I select this window here, if I double-click on this, it’s going to change it in this way that’s global, but instead of double-clicking on it – and I’ll just undo that, if I right-click on it, I can use the Apply Transfer settings and use that same option that I showed on screen to exclude these parameters while switching. [1:08:19]
So, that is the way that the Parameter Transfer Settings, which you can create and manage using the eye dropper and syringe, also apply exactly the same in the Favorites Palette when you right-click on it. So, that right-click option here allows you to choose which of these transfer settings, including Transfer All settings. If you wanted to redefine the favorite, that’s something we haven’t shown. We’ve looked at editing it where you open up the settings and change it, and I’ve shown you Rename. [1:08:56]
You can create a duplicate that would be similar to start out with with a new name, but you can then edit the separate copy as you wish. Let’s look at Redefine. So, let me just say that this particular window is a certain size. If I have this one selected, and I right-click on it, I can redefine this to be that larger size. So, what does Redefine mean? So, if I now select this and say I want to use this setting here and apply – Transfer All Settings, now what’s going to happen is that the window that I’ve got selected is going to be changed to match this favorite, and if I transfer all settings, it’s going to become a much bigger window like that, and obviously inappropriate there. [1:09:53]
So, the redefinition just says that I’d like to make this favorite different than it was originally set to be, and you can redefine it based on something that you’ve got selected in your environment. It’s not as common to redefine it based on another element here, but definitely what I’ve seen is if I have an element placed into a model, and I placed it with a favorite and then realized, “Oh, I forgot to change something. I want to make something a little different,” I can tweak it, say, “Ah, that’s good,” and then, with it selected, go here and redefine it, and that will update it to have the later version. [1:10:39]
Now, one confusion that I’ve seen people have with favorites is that if I change the favorite definition, does it change the element. The answer is no. The favorite definition is used to bring up some settings and possibly to apply settings on the fly to one or more elements, but these elements are independent. I can change them at any time. They’re not attached to the favorite, and if I change the favorite by redefining – as you saw a minute ago, I redefined it to be this larger size here, it didn’t change any of the other elements in the project. [1:11:17]
So, these are settings. They are not controls over elements in your project, so that’s what I would call good and bad. It’s powerful, and it has limits. So, let us see if there are any questions or comments there. OK, so Christian wrote a few minutes ago, “I’m trying a couple of different scenarios, having all of my commonly-used objects in my file off to the side of the project area. Everything is there, but it all shows up in 3D, so there is a downside, and it shows up in BIMX.” [1:11:57]
The workaround, Christian – two workarounds when you have that. One is you can just do a marquee around your building, and so when you’re going to 3D, you can then say to show me what’s within the marquee, and so the stuff that’s off to the side gets ignored. A little bit of a nuisance because you have to have the marquee every time that you want to go to 3D, but it can be helpful. [1:12:23]
You can also potentially use a cutting plane. So, a cutting plane is something that allows you to selectively cut off part of your 3D space, and that’s something you can actually retain through different iterations. You don’t need the marquee, and then the other way is what I do in MasterTemplate, where there’s a whole lot of other stuff off to the side, but it’s in a hotlinked module, and the master layer for that hotlinked module is turned off or hidden, and so all of the stuff off to the side that you could eye drop just disappears while that one layer is kept in the hidden status. [1:13:10]
So, Christian, you also are using a separate file with all your favorites and hotlinking it to the file you’re working on, so that’s similar to the MasterTemplate. OK, so the palette here – we just talked about the pros and cons of the Favorites Palette versus having the kit of parts – a set of elements off to the side. The Favorites Palette is available, regardless of where you are in the project. It’s just a floating palette or a docked palette. [1:13:46]
It can be quickly jumped into using folders. You can find different things. There’s a lot of benefits to it. On the other hand, as this list gets longer and longer, it can get cumbersome, even though you can organize it into folders, and I think that you can’t necessarily have as much information related to the elements as you can in Interactive Legend, as I call it. [1:14:19]
So, we’ll look at Interactive Legends in another session to see some of the ways that they are similar to favorites and some of the ways that they are different. OK, so Paco. “In the latest version of ARCHICAD 20, I’ve greatly improved the management of favorites. Using favorites helped to model faster with the same graphics in your project. It’s my opinion.” Yes, I agree. [1:14:44]
Scott. “The latter is what I was referring to with office favorites. I have it with MasterTemplate, AMT 22, but have not gotten around to exploring all of the work that Eric has put into it. It’s a hotlinked external file,” so I didn’t mention that. That is definitely – I like having it in the environment, and of course, there are pros and cons to every one of these time-saving methods. [1:15:11]
Alright, so Ken Brooks says, “Sill header height.” So, is that in the parameter transfer here? If I go there to Element Transfer Settings and Sill Header Value. Interesting, so Sill Header Value, window or door. So, there are sill/header value. Thank you. Thank you, Ken. That is where you would turn that off. You can see that this is turned off. Transfer all settings has it turned on, and the grey doesn’t mean that it’s not available for a particular tool. It means that it’s been turned off, and so that is where that is, and you can see size here. [1:16:02]
Now, sill and header value – I think the reason why it’s described using that terminology is that in your door or window settings, you have a choice, whether you’re anchoring the sill or the header. For windows, it’s very common to say that the top of all my windows are the same, so even though some are smaller and some are larger, they all line up on the top, and they may line up close to the same or at the same height as the top of the door. [1:16:35]
For doors, generally, I find that people prefer setting the sill – the base of the door at the top of finished floor or something in relationship to the floor, and that way, if you have shorter or taller doors, they still are all sitting relative to the floor level as opposed to changing – floating up and down. So, you can always move doors and windows up or down in your model as you need to. With split-levels, sometimes that’s a very important consideration, but in the favorites, you will generally want to use the header for windows and the sill value for the door, and that’s why they put it in here. [1:17:27]
In fact, the favorite is basically saying, “Whatever is set in that favorite, you prefer sill or header and have a certain value. Do you want to transfer that or not?” So, that’s something that you can say you want to exclude the elevation value of the sill or header here. OK, so thank you, Ken Brooks, for sharing that reference so that I could complete that explanation there. [1:18:01]
Now, we are at an hour and 20 minutes, and as usual, I’ve gone into more depth on things than I had wanted, so we’re going to leave out modules for the next session, but let’s see here. I’ve talked about the renovation tag being ignored, talked about the parameter transfer options here, and in fact, we looked at the options here, and I showed you how you could sort by option type or tool type. [1:18:39]
I didn’t look at duplicating the save settings, so we’ll take a look at that. That’s very quick, and then I did show you how you can use it with favorites – how you can right-click on it and say which one of the parameter transfer options we want, and with the syringe – when you’re hovering over something, and you’re pressing down with the syringe, you can choose the option to use a different parameter transfer setting or to open up the parameter transfer settings dialog, where you can manage it. [1:19:11]
So, the settings dialog is where we’re going to be creating new variations. So, let’s see how that works. So, we’re almost done with that whole section there. So, I was showing, when you have the syringe, how you can go and click on the option that is the most recent one you were using to select either a different option or to go to the element transfer settings. [1:19:37]
Another option here, and if I just hit Escape on my keyboard, it will disappear. Another option is under – let’s see, Edit, Element Settings, Element Transfer Settings. So, this is where you can access that dialog, independent of having that syringe open. Now, basically, if I say that this is good, but I want something that will be similar but a little bit different, I’ll say New, give it a name, and I’ll just say Test. [1:20:18]
Now, this is showing up here in the list, and it’s the same as everything else – as the previous ones, but let’s say that I do want to have it take the sill and header value. So, maybe I don’t want to change the size of the window or door, but I want to make sure it changes this, or actually, maybe better is let’s include the size. So, now I can say that, in this test, the window or door will change size, but it won’t change the sill or header value. So, this one now exists, and if I hover over this, you can see that clicking on this test is now available. [1:21:06]
So, element transfer settings allow you to create as many variations of this as you find useful. If I click on Test here, it’s going to change it, and you notice that it did change the size, and it left the top unchanged, in terms of the position there, because that was excluded in the parameter transfer settings. Now, if I go back in here, either by clicking next to the syringe to the Element Transfer Settings or going to the Edit menu option, I can go and say, “You know, that test one – I don’t need it. I’m going to delete it.” Are you sure you want to delete this? That simply removes it from the list here. [1:21:51]
So, New will create a duplicate that you can modify and give you a chance to name it. Delete obviously will remove it, and just by clicking on any of these, you’ll see the name up here, and that’s how you edit the name. So, I think we’ve gotten all of this. Oh, and finally, if you create some of these options that you like that aren’t in another file, you can use this button here to export the selection, and I think you can select several. You can export, and it will ask where you want to do it. It will create a single .xml file, which will basically contain those settings, and then you can import an .xml file here – whatever one you’ve saved into here. [1:22:36]
So, this is the way that you would migrate your preferences for element transfer from one project to another. So, let’s go back to my notes here. We’ve covered all of these, and we’ve covered all of these here. So, the final thing that I wanted to cover was troubleshooting issues with favorites in terms of library management and migration of favorites to equivalent parts in a new library. [1:23:10]
So, we’ll finish up with that by looking at a file. Let’s go open up an older version – this AMT 20 sample project. So, this is an earlier version of that same building. There are some differences from the current version where things were reworked. Some more things were done in 3D. Some more details in terms of railings and things like that were changed, but let’s just first of all open up that project using the migration assistant. [1:23:53]
So, the migration assistant – when you migrate a project, will automatically give you the ability to migrate ARCHICAD libraries. So, we’ll go ahead and migrate this library. Now, when I migrate the library either instantly when I open the file or later, when I use the Migrate Libraries button, it will load the current library. I’m in ARCHICAD 22, so it’s loading the 22 library, and it will load a folder that supports older libraries – the earlier versions of ARCHICAD. [1:24:27]
Now, the favorites – in the project model, elements will automatically migrate to the later library if ARCHICAD says, “These library parts are very equivalent, and we don’t expect any issues at all using the new library.” This happens when GraphiSoft simply carries over older library parts into newer libraries saying, “They’re good. We don’t need to change them.” [1:25:07]
Sometimes, they create different versions of these library parts, ones with more options or that support some of the new technologies that they’ve introduced in later versions of ARCHICAD, in which case they maintain in the Migration Libraries legacy versions of the parts, and those legacy versions still will work, for the most part, but they are deprecated. It’s the technical term meaning it’s not recommended that you use them if you’re starting fresh. We recommend that you use the updated ones. [1:25:48]
Alright, so we’re going to ignore a couple of the routine warning messages here and get into the meat of the question, which has to do with favorites. So, we’re seeing that in this migration, some parts are duplicated because, for example, in the embedded library that is in this project, there are some texture files that are in the migration library. Let me open this up wider from ARCHICAD 18. [1:26:25]
So, I set up this sample project to only need to use the current ARCHICAD – in this case, the ARCHICAD 20, and not need any of the migration libraries. So, when I’m loading the migration library from, in this case, the folder that contains all of the migration libraries, we have some duplicates. So, let’s look at how we can remove this issue. [1:26:52]
You’ll notice that, in Library Manager, reloading the currently library – 22, the migration libraries, which is a folder that contains multiple subfolders, and then of course we’ve also got the embedded library here. Now, given the duplicate that I was referring to is in the 18 migration library, I could say, “You know what? I don’t want to load this.” [1:27:23]
Now, I can’t really X this out because reloading the top level that contains all of these things, but what I could do is say, “You know what? I’m going to remove the migration libraries entirely, just from my active loading, and just add into the migration libraries here. I can add In, say, the 21 migration library and add in the 20 migration library. So, now I’m basically saying, “If you had everything up through 20, and we’re moving to 22, all we need to do is support legacy parts from 20 and legacy parts from 21, and then we should be good.” We won’t have any duplicates. [1:28:14]
Let’s reload this and see what happens. You can see everything was loaded successfully. So, this is an important understanding that the automatic migration of libraries can cause these warnings because it’s loading more stuff than it needs, and you can manually say, “You know what? All I need are these – in this case, 21 and 20, to be loaded.” So, now all of the favorites will work just fine having done that, but let’s look at something in a moment here. We’ll look at cabinet because I know that there were some changes in the cabinets going from 20 to 22, and so I’m going to find the ones that are cabinets, and I’m going to look to see if they’re using the old library. [1:29:28]
So, if I hover over this – first of all, you see this one that says Base Cabinet 20. So, it is named based on the fact that it was in the ARCHICAD 20 library. The object, if you look carefully below that, says Object Basin Cabinet 21. Oh, interesting. So, that means that when that project was opened or in use, this favorite was using the 20 library, but when it migrated forward to 22, it automatically went to 21 but said, “You know what? The 22 cabinets are a little different, so I’m not going to switch.” [1:30:12]
So, this is out of date. If I use it, I’ll be using a legacy part from 21. Let’s look at another one here – Base 1 Door. This is, again, a library part that was in the 20 library. It automatically went to the 21 library and then did not go to 22, and I also see something you may notice. It says Layer Missing, and this is a serious issue but easily resolved, and so we’ll deal with both of these types of things. [1:30:51]
So, first of all, if I go to Base Cabinet 20, it’s on a layer P Plumbing Fixtures, so it’s on the Plumbing Fixtures layer, but it’s using the older library parts. So, let me go right-click on it and say to edit it. I’ll say, “You know what? This part here is in the migration library here, and I would like to switch my favorite to use the 22 library.” So, I’ll go to Basin Cabinet here, and you can see that there are 2 loaded in the library. There are 3, actually. Actually, it’s taking time to load all of these things from the web. [1:31:43]
These 2 are both favorites, probably in Base Cabinet 20 and Basin Cabinet 20. They’re probably both of the same element, but here’s the Basin Cabinet 22. Now, if I click on this, you’ll see it looks totally different. So, this object favorite settings would – if I just said OK, it would just suddenly be a rather different favorite, so I’m going to cancel that and go back in and say to edit, but be a little bit more selective about this. [1:32:18]
So, when I am in the library part here – whether it’s in an object favorite or if we have an object selected in the model, if I hover over another part and use the syringe with the keyboard shortcut Command+ or Alt+Ctrl, depending on whether you’re Mac or Windows, and I click, what you’ll see is we are now in Basin Cabinet 22, but it looks the same. It doesn’t look like this one. [1:32:56]
So, this is a fixed preview of the library part. This is the actual settings that are in this favorite, and the same thing would happen if you were to pick a cabinet in the model, and you used this parameter transfer that I just did, it would keep all of the size information. It will keep all of the other parameters that you see down here, including, in this case, the surface appearances of things, and try to match it as closely as possible. [1:33:28]
There’s just a subtle, tiny change in where the bowl of the sink was. I noticed just a hair that it moved back, but generally, this is going to be a very comparable part. So, I’ll just say OK, and what that means is that this particular favorite, now when I hover over it, you can see that it’s using Basin Cabinet 22. However, it’s still called Base Cabinet 20, so that’s just a name. If I right-click on it and say Rename, I could just say Base Cabinet here. [1:34:04]
Now, if there is another one with the exact same name – Base Cabinet, then it would complain or would put a 1 after it. I’m not sure which it would do, but it might even make this grey, meaning you can’t give it the same name as something else, but since this is a unique name, I’ll say OK, and this has now been updated. So, this is now using the current library. Now, if I double-click on this and go and click to place it, there’s our cabinet. [1:34:36]
Now, look what happens when I double-click on this Base 1 Door here. You notice that the layer says Missing. So, this is the second one on the list, and you saw the layer is missing. Now, if I click here, it says the former layer of this tool has been deleted. Please choose another layer. So, this is a different issue for this particular single door cabinet. I can go ahead and choose it on the fly. I’ll put it on such and such layer, but really, we want the favorites to be fully usable. [1:35:10]
So, I can right-click on this and say I’d like to edit it, and we’re going to see here’s our Single Door 1, and this is right now in the 21 migration library. So, I’m going to go now to Base like that, just to find that and maybe Base-1 Door. So, there’s another one that is like that. Alright, so there’s only one here that’s from the 21 here, so let’s just look at cabinets, and we’ll see if we can find the one that would match that in the 22 library. [1:35:53]
So, we have the Basin Cabinet. So, this is just a Base. This is Cabinet Base. So, these are structured a little bit differently, so I need to figure out which one is the equivalent cabinet base here. Cabinet Base Single Door 22, so this is Cabinet Base Single Door 21, so this is the one that we want to switch it to. So, this old favorite using a legacy element – I can use the Syringe by holding down the keyboard shortcut Command+Option or Ctrl+Alt, click, and you see it’s not quite the same. [1:36:41]
It got a little smaller visually because it added in a tap. What I need to do here is manually go and turn off that tap. Let’s just see. I think this is Counter, and turn off the tap. Also, I don’t think it had a sink. So, this is now a favorite, or this has now been switched to use the new library part, manually coordinating a couple of the settings. It should still be the same size as the earlier favorite. It is definitely using the same parameters for the surface, so I have now updated the library part to be using a current library part and, at the same, I can go and ask which layer it should be on. [1:37:37]
Well, I think this should be on Plumbing Fixtures, or possibly we would want to put it on Mechanical/Equipment/Appliances. Since it’s not a plumbing fixture – it doesn’t have a sink, it probably goes on to the equivalent Appliances, or actually maybe this is going to go onto Floor Fixtures, Railings, and Lower Cabinets here. So, this is a lower cabinet like that. [1:38:05]
So, we just need to make sure that we’re putting it onto an active layer that’s available. So, I’ve used the parameter transfer to get most of this across, manually found the differences here, changes the layer, and said OK. So, now, if I double-click on this – oh, now this one. We have another issue that has come up here. [1:38:36]
If I edit this, it’s saying that the home story is incorrect. Now, I don’t know how that happened, but I do need to fix it so that when I double-click to place the favorite, it doesn’t give me that message about placing something on an unseen story. So, again, I’m editing the favorite. I’ve got everything else working. I’ll say OK, and now, if I double-click on this, you’ll see that it’s set to put it onto this current story, and I can drop it in. It has just two parallel lines because this one is set to be put in a row. [1:39:18]
So, if I put in a second one, we’d have 2 cabinets with no line in between them. So, you can see these favorites might require some updating. You’ll see various warning messages that you would need to check when you migrate a project and their favorites forward, or when you migrate a template and the favorites forward. [1:39:44]
For example, this one is now good. The object is in the library, and it says Cabinet Base Single Door 22. When I go down one thing here, again, we have the layer missing, and it’s a double door cabinet. So, we would need to update that – both the layer and the library part. Now, if I didn’t update the library part – if I said, “Alright, I don’t have time for that,” we can still use the older library, but we would need to fix the layers. [1:40:17]
So, I need to here and say to edit this, and just at minimum change it from the layer that’s missing to – let’s see. What do we have here? Floor fixtures here. OK, so we’ll say OK. Now, this issue of the missing layer was actually present in the earlier file. In other words, this file, when I brought it forward, kept all of its layers, and the issue with the favorites was there from an earlier iteration, an earlier migration of the favorites that was not caught. [1:40:58]
So, when you bring a file forward or a project or a template, the layers are still there. You shouldn’t see missing layers, but if you’re importing favorites from one file into another, it is possible that the favorite is set for a layer name that does not exist, and so then you would need to edit the favorite to set it to use a layer that’s available. The migration of the project library references is something that will happen when certain objects get updated by GraphiSoft, and a certain percentage each year will be candidates for that, where they make the cabinets. [1:41:50]
I’m just going to imagine that they had ones with Cabinet with Sink and Cabinet Without Sink, and they just decided, let’s make one cabinet and just have a checkbox that says, “I want a sink, and I want a tap” or not. So, that’s probably what happened in 22 is they simplified which parts you need to use by making them a little bit more flexible. [1:42:14]
Now, let’s see. To finish up, if I go to the File menu, Libraries and Objects, and Library Manager, and let’s just say that I take out these libraries and say that I believe I’ve migrated everything. Now, we haven’t, actually. We’re going to see some issues, but let me remove them, at least temporarily, and reload and apply. What’s going to happen is that it’s going to look at the model plus the favorites, and it’s going to report that there are some things that are missing. [1:42:52]
So, it says, “From the ARCHICAD library, these are things that are missing.” So, I could bring these into this project. Remember in – I think it was the last lesson. I used the archive file format to save a copy of a library in a format where you can grab individual library parts and put them into the embedded library. So, you could go and find – here’s 100 parts. It would take a little while to do it. [1:43:24]
There are ways that you can maybe bring in groups more quickly, but if we were to bring these in, then we wouldn’t have to load the migration libraries. They would all be supported in the embedded library. Better is to swap things in your file before you unload the libraries, like I just unloaded it as a test, but let me just show you, then, how you migrate the favorites or the issue this causes with the favorites and with parts. [1:44:01]
I’ll just say OK, saying, “Yeah, I know there are some problems.” We’re going to see some elements that are now showing as dots here. The dots mean that these elements are references in the project file, but it can’t display them, and we’re also seeing these question marks in the favorites. The question mark, like this Base 2 Door, remember? It’s saying it’s looking for a library part that is missing called Cabinet Base Double Door 21, which was identical to the one that was in the 20 library originally. [1:44:39]
So, if I go here, and I say to edit it, you see that it’s not available in the loaded libraries? I don’t know that I can go in here. Let me just see if I can inject it into here. No. When I inject this in here, it didn’t carry across all of the parameters, so I can’t successfully migrate and keep the look if the original part is not available, and in the same way, if I go to this element here- whatever that is, let’s see if I select this element. [1:45:22]
Here’s this Cabinet Base Double Door 20. It’s not available here, so I can’t see any of the data about it, and I can’t then migrate it to a later project – later library. So, if you see question marks in the favorites, you’ll need to make sure you load whatever is missing in your environment so that they are available. Again, I’m going to go back to the File, Library Manager, and say that I’d like to add, in this case, the 21 migration library and add the 20 . By the way, I think you have to do this one at a time. You can’t select more than one. [1:46:18]
Then, I can reload and apply, and we should be able to have everything back in place and then clean these things up. So, if we want to have a clean, migrated project with favorites, you’ll need to go through the favorites for things that are missing. You can make note of some of the ones that were missing. You can see they’re gradually changing their status here, and then go find each one of these. [1:46:55]
Now, there were something like 100 in this particular file, probably because I also had this huge number of parts off to the side in the Interactive Legends. A normal project – the number that would be missing when you migrate forward and don’t load migration libraries would likely be much smaller, so to back up and just say what I recommend for Best Practices, for the short term and for any specific project that you’re in the middle of working on, if you migrate it forward into a later version of ARCHICAD, and you use the migration of the libraries, in general, it will work pretty well. [1:47:43]
You may get some warnings that there are duplicates. If you are clever like I did and say, “Oh, all I need are the 21 and 20 libraries, but not these other ones,” I was able to pretty quickly get it so there were no warnings, and I could just go on working, but for something like a template, where you want to have a good, clean base for all of your work, it is worth going through your favorites and going through anything that you’ve built into the model to make sure it’s only using the latest version of the library. [1:48:20]
So, that’s what I do with MasterTemplate every year is systematically go through and update all of the references to use the latest library, with minor exceptions, so that as a basis for creating new work, you don’t have any ongoing issues that accumulate. So, let’s see if we have any comments, and I know I’ve again done a 2-hour session here. [1:48:52]
Chester says, “I have to go.” Yeah, it’s pretty late there. It’s probably 11 or midnight there. OK, and Andy’s typing, so let me know if you have any questions. I think we’re ready to finish up, but I will read. “Can you please remind me how to export favorites from a project file?” Absolutely, so when you have favorites up here, if you go to the little gear icon, you can press down on it, and there’s an Import/Export option in the palette. [1:49:30]
Select that, and you can then choose either export or import and save out either one file, which is what I usually do, or a folder of files, and then you can import into another project or your template. So, Andy says, “That’s perfect.” Tom says, “Good night.” Alright, so I think we’ll finish up. Thank you all for joining me today. We’ll have another session on Wednesday, and we’ll be going into – I guess probably the Interactive Legend, just the basic concept, the setup of the Interactive Legends, and the usage. [1:50:14]
These are things that are built into MasterTemplate but you can definitely put into your own template regardless, and you can supplement MasterTemplate’s built-in ones with your own Interactive Legends. This is one way of saving groups of elements that you can bring in, and I will also show you how you can work with module files to have separate external files that maybe are commonly used kitchen groupings or office furniture layouts, and when you bring in these groups of elements, you can then move them around. They’re all now just in your working environment, and it’s much easier to lay out a new kitchen or a new office from a starting point in most cases. [1:51:06]
So, thank you all for joining me. I’ll be back on Wednesday, and then Thursday for the coaching program, and if you haven’t seen my notice from earlier today about the ARCHICADtutorials website, please check that out when you get a chance. Setting up a new central location for free ARCHICAD tutorials that I’ll be adding all of my tutorials to and curating and posting the best tutorials that other experts create and provide. [1:51:42]
So, thank you all for joining me. I’ll be back later this week. [1:51:47]
ARCHICAD Training Lesson Index by Julie Caliri