Changing Layer Set Name causes Views to list it as Missing

[Eduardo Rolon]

Don't know if it is because I am running 10.5 or the latest patch that got pulled (1112) but I have noticed that if I change the name of the Layer Sets the already predefined View Sets start listing it as missing it.

Can someone please verify?

[Thomas Holm]

Are you sure this is a new issue? I think I've seen it before, and I don't think it's a bug. The views identify the sets by name. If you change the name, the old one's not there anymore, so there you are. Don't change the names. Duplicate the sets and re-set your views if you need to.

[Eduardo Rolon]

If that is the way it should be then it is a little inconsistent (IMO) since changing a layer name does not affect the layer set. Shouldn't the behavior be that since that Layer Set is already defined and tied to the View Sets then if you edit the title AC should know to update it and not list it as "Missing"?

Anyway changing the name back resolves the issue.

[Laura Yanoviak]

ejrolon wrote:
If that is the way it should be then it is a little inconsistent (IMO) since changing a layer name does not affect the layer set. Shouldn't the behavior be that since that Layer Set is already defined and tied to the View Sets then if you edit the title AC should know to update it and not list it as "Missing"?

This is because AC recognizes some Attributes by their name (Layer Combinations, I suspect), and others by their ID (Layers).

[Thomas Holm]

ejrolon wrote:
If that is the way it should be then it is a little inconsistent (IMO)...

Not the first time
But I think mapping by name is better than by some hidden ID. At least it's transparent - you know what happens and you can manipulate it. If such mapping is by ID (apparently with layers but not layer combos) I think the internal ID should be open and editable. But then again, that would make it similar to a name....

[Karl Ottenstein]

Laura wrote:
This is because AC recognizes some Attributes by their name (Layer Combinations, I suspect), and others by their ID (Layers).

More accurately: AC recognizes essentially all attributes by index number, except for layer combo names. There are 'other' names - such as model view options, dimension settings, etc. that we are not explicitly aware of index numbers for since they do not appear in Attribute Manager. But, IMHO all Attribute Manager managed attributes should behave consistently. (And, frankly, all of those other things belong in Attribute Manager so that you can move things across files and a CAD manager can deal with them in one central place.)

I just finished a week of training and had to emphasize this exception to the rule as we customized the combo names for the first draft of the firm's template and all views went bad. GS will say it is 'by design', but I say anything that causes a file to 'go bad' when a user does something 'normal' is a 'bug'.

Cheers,
Karl

PS The 'good' side of the current method, is that if a view has a combo "Plan-Floor' and you accidentally delete that combo (etc), if you create a new one with that name, the view will be linked to that new combo. The inconsistency of course is that this does not happen with fills, line styles, composites, profiles, materials, among other things...which link by the (generallly invisible) index number.

[Eduardo Rolon]

I agree with Karl, the change in my project affected only 6 views but I was going to rename another set and that one had 400 views and the only reason I stopped before doing that change was that I wanted to verify another thing on the View Sets and saw the "Missing" warning. Any change that affects the project and does not give feedback to the user is not well designed (and please find another way besides adding more pop-up dialogue boxes, the ones for deleting a section/elev marker are driving me crazy), in this case I found out but there was no way for me to know that the views were broken until it might have been too late to reverse the change.

One possible solution might be having the color of the icon on the View Set panel change;

green ->Ok
yellow -> verify
red -> problem

We are a visually oriented profession and during training it is easier to teach;

Before printing verify that all the Plot Maker Sheets are Green, if not verify and fix.

Than, first click the small triangle and wait for the Drawing manager to open and reorder the list and…

[Thomas Holm]

I beg to differ. (I agree on consistency, though)

I think all internal links of this kind should be openly visible. I think CAD management would be easier if all were linked by name, but I can accept an internal ID if it's visible. When it's not you have to resort to all kinds of tricks to order attributes like you want them, (some of those seen in this forum this week!)

I remember all the trouble I had when Plotmaker linked to files by the Mac system internal file ID (which the old Classic Finder used to keep track of files) - I could not duplicate a file to work on, because Plotmaker would still link to the original, even though I tried to hide it in various ways. The only way to fix it was to delete the original from the hard drive - then Plotmaker would prompt what to link to. This worked much better on the PC where no such system ID was available -there name and path was the link method, at that time not even optionally usable in Archicad/Mac.

So I think name links are OK. They should be used more, and consistently everywhere!. I also think a warning dialog when you change something (like a name) that may break links or other views or whatever that depends on this is OK. I'd rather have issue an extra OK click than to repair it afterwards.

But the color coded view icon is a good idea!

[__archiben]

Karl wrote:
GS will say it is 'by design'...

no - i reported it early last week and it's been confirmed as a bug . . .

~/archiben

[Thomas Holm]

~/archiben wrote:
no - i reported it early last week and it's been confirmed as a bug . .

Now when I for once think they've done it right!

Just hammer me into the ground, will you!