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This is one of the stock OS X troubleshooting tips. It does actually solve some problems, and it doesn't do any harm.
Open the Disk Utility application in Applications : Utilities.
Select your hard disk name in the left panel. Select the First Aid tab in the right panel. Click the Repair Permissions button at the bottom.
It will take about 5 minutes, depending on the size of the disk. When the repair finishes, quit Disk Utility and restart the machine.
The label gives the height of a wall. It will typically be used for knee walls. It can be used in section or in plan. It will only work as an associated label; select the wall and check the "Label Elements" box.
The value displayed is the height of the wall in the settings. This means that for trimmed walls, you have to "Set wall height to highest point" when trimming, or manually set the wall height to an appropriate value. Tip: trim the wall using "highest point", then round the height UP to the next 1/4", 1/2", or whole inch.
See Also: Labels
Location - 13 Special Construction
From the Objects We Wouldn't Need If the Tools Worked Right...
The object makes a roof curved around the Z axis. That is, it's not a vault. Here's three of the four that are in use on Vassos.
The point is: If you use roof elements, you get a lot of extra lines. With this object you don't. You will still get a line where the object meets a regular roof, but I can't do anything about that. Instead of 16 extra lines, you have two. We do what we can.
The outer radius is controlled by the length parameter. The inner radius, as shown on the porch roof above, is controlled by the "Inner Radius" parameter. If this is zero, you get a point, as shown on the tower.
Naturally you can set the slope and the thickness. Currently the bottom edge is always horizontal; place a slab under it. You can set the three materials separately, as with a conventional roof.
The edge of the roof is detectable in plan, and there are editing hotspots for the arc degrees and the two radii.
The object can show a fill in plan. The fill orients itself to the slope. The fill is a cover fill, so its display will follow the display of the conventional roof fills.
Location: 06 Wood & Plastic : Structure
A 2D symbol for framing in section. It's been around a while, but I added a couple things.
Choose the member type (2x, TJI, LVL) and the spacing. The spacing can be customized.
In building sections (1/4" and 3/16" scales), the label or the joists themselves can be turned off. The label turns itself off when there's not enough room for it. The label can be dragged with in symbol. Turn the joists off when the section cut is parallel to the joists.
In wall sections (3/4" scale and larger), there are some more options. You can show TJIs sideways, which will show the top and bottom flange, along with the rim joist. For cut TJIs, you can choose to show the end joist as a rim joist or not. You can show sheathing on top of the joists. Finally, you can turn on the insulation symbol, so you don't have to draw the insulation separately.
L Wall2 and L Wall3 are for landscape walls.
L Wall2 shows in the floor plan, while L Wall3 does not. L Wall2 is hidden in the structure plans. We want to see landscape walls in the architectural plans for clarity, but we want to omit them from the framing plans if the aren't in the main contract/permit.
Location - 01 General : 6 Zone Stamps
This is a lot like the JAM8 zone stamp, which was a lot like the room name object.
You can select the room name and the floor finish. The font of the room name comes from the main settings of the stamp. The font of the material has its own setting.
One new feature is the option to show the room number along with, or instead of, the name. The number should generally be shown in the construction documents, in conjunction with the finish schedule. If the number is shown, the floor finish will not be.
The other new feature is the listing parameters for ceiling finish, crown, and baseboard for the finish schedule. These parameters are independent of elements placed in the room.
Since AC8, objects have had the ability to have nodes that edit parameters other than height and width. In GDL jargon, this functionality is called Graphical Editing. These nodes respond to the stretch command as well as the stretch button of the pet palette. Even though they can do things besides stretch.
Since AC8.1, editing nodes have been diamond-shaped instead of round, so you can tell them from the non-editing ones.
In AC9, they decided that wasn't clear enough, and now editing nodes can have a different color. (Options -> Preferences -> Miscellaneous) The default is green, and I haven't been motivated to change it. When you see a green, diamond-shaped node, try it and see what it does.
While editing with one of these nodes, a palette pops with the name and value of the parameter(s) being edited. (Some nodes edit two parameters at once.) If you type "N", the value in the palette will highlight and you can enter the value directly, just like typing "R".
In Library Manager, the History tab shows the libraries that have been loaded recently (since the last Clear or Clear All). This list is independent of any particular project.
Typically we use the exact same libraries all the time. But there are exceptions; sometimes you need the version 7 library, for example. If you've loaded that library recently, you can add it from the history tab instead of scrolling through the whole Local/LAN tree.
It's also helpful if you take projects home. When you open a project in a different location, the library manager will come up because the servers aren't there and your local ArchiCAD folder path is different. But the history tab remembers the local instances of the libraries, making it easy to load them quickly.
If you load a "wrong" library at some point, you can use the "Clear" button to delete it from the history so you're not tempted by it in the future.
This layer sort of "forks off" from the layer S Slab.
Use it for framed structural decks (TJIs, 2x12s, etc). Continue to use S Slab for concrete slabs.
Why? Because decks aren't slabs. Yes, they're both made with the slab tool, but layers represent project elements, not tools. As much as possible, layer names should represent real things.
Where does this leave the layers A Deck2 and A Deck3? Right where they were. Model the deck surface on A Deck3. Model the structure of a deck on S Deck. Place 2D elements representing the (architectural) deck on A Deck2.
"Some elements were deleted because of bad parameters (n)" Where n is a number. The number is usually 1, and is never very big. I saw a 7 once. The conventional wisdom is that the elements in question aren't actually project elements, but are corrupted temporary entities of some sort. Bottom line: Don't Worry.
"This project is in use by [Somebody]" Buttons: Open with exclusive access, Open as read-only, Don't Open. It's possible that someone else has it open. Make sure they don't. Usually, the somebody is you, and this warning is the result of a crash occurring before the first auto-save. If this is the case, "Open with exclusive access".
"Unable to read temporary section file [ID]" This sometimes occurs when a ArchiCAD crashes with a section open. It represents a complete non-issue. The section itself is fine, it's the temp file for the section that has the problem. When you rebuild the section, the temp file gets fixed. Do a find & select for the section by its ID and rebuild it. You will get the warning every time you save until you rebuild the section in question. You will also see a dialog warning you about saving the file with the unreadable data. For this dialog, you should always "Save Anyway". This should remind you to find the section and rebuild it.
"Cannot find some Library Parts or Macros." While saving an archive. The proper response is "Save Anyway". Then you'll get a report window saying what's missing. Currently there's a problem with some library part that wants a macro named "Arial". Yes, that's a font. I know. If this the only thing missing, don't worry about it. If there are others, try to find them on the Carrot, load them, and then re-save the archive.
Problem: When dragging roof handles, they would sometimes end up at an arbitrary point, rather than where they were dragged.
Other problem, which only emerged after reinstalling AC: Attempting to pan with the scroll wheel would zoom instead.
We tried everything*, including wiping the disk. The fresh system fixed the panning problem. We were bringing in the work environment when we discovered that the trouble was caused by the User Preference Schemes segment of the RND Profile. We re-exported the scheme to the Onion.
Fortunately, that scheme is easily rebuilt. If the shortcuts or the Info Box had been the problem, I would have been very sad.
Moral: If you see weird behavior in ArchiCAD, try switching to a standard Work Environment profile. If that fixes it, recreate the needed profile and trash the old one, and don't reinstall your system!
* Unrotating the grid. Looking for pattern related to shift constraining. Trying different files, and new roofs. Trying to reproduce the problem on another machine. Checking permissions. Saving locally. Saving and reopening an archive. Trashing the prefs. Trashing the caches. Creating a new user and seeing if "he" has the problem. Reinstalling ArchiCAD.
It's odd that neither trashing the prefs or creating a new user solved the issue, since the Work Environment is in the prefs. But we tested the cause carefully as we brought the WE back, and it's definitely the culprit, probably in combination with an underlying system problem.
UPDATE: The precise setting that caused the problem is the "Pet palette movement" under User Preference schemes -> Dialog boxes and palettes. "Follow Cursor" was the culprit. Switching to "Jump to preferred position" fixed it.
A particularly self-starting member of the ArchiCAD community, Karl Ottenstein, has developed an add-on called QuickDisplay, which allows us to assign keyboard shortcuts to various display options. The commands are toggles, which means you can strike a key turn the Section Depth (e.g.) on, and then strike the same key to turn them off. He has generously allowed this add-on to be used free of charge. Here is the ArchiCAD Talk topic where mad, righteous praise is heaped upon him.
Here is Karl's page with full instructions for the add-on. I will summarize the high points.
Get the file from 3 Resources : Add-Ons. Place it in your local Applications : Graphisoft : ArchiCAD 9 : Add-Ons. Launch or relaunch ArchiCAD.
Your Display menu should now have a QuickDisplay submenu at the end. Here you will see commands for toggling various display options.
Naturally, and I hope obviously, you don't go to this menu to activate the commands. That wouldn't be much of a shortcut would it. The commands have to be on a menu in order to have shortcuts assigned to them.
As you can see, I only have shortcuts assigned to two of the commands, Section Depth and Line Weights, on F4 and F5 respectively. I toggle the others much less and I don't need a shortcut for them. You can do whatever you want.
I have updated the RND Keyboard scheme with these two shortcuts. You can import the updated scheme at Options -> Work Environment. The scheme is located at 3 Resources : Work Environment : RND Profile : Shortcuts.
For information on assigning shortcuts, see the ArchiCAD Reference Guide, page 153, or ask for help.
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