Okay that title is a little facetious. But you should expect that from me by now.

There is a wonderful thread on LinkedIN that was started two weeks ago on the ArchiCAD Residential Designers Group. You need to be a member to view it, so a direct link to the thread is a little annoying to include. If you’re a residential designer who uses ArchiCAD, it’s a great group to join. Anyways, as always I digress. Here’s the title of the topic and the first line of the introduction post:

“Frustrating ArchiCAD things that need to be changed

I think we can all agree that ArchiCAD is a great program but there are some little things about it that are hugely frustrating and would be so simple to change. “

I agree 100% with that statement. If you read the discussion there are definitely some legitimate issues raised. And I hope more are discussed. I know the developers of ArchiCAD care about creating a great program. And they do care about what we think. But unless we share our issues, the developers can’t know our pet peeves and hopes for the future. And while it’s great to share our thoughts directly with Graphisoft, raising awareness of problems within the community will have a trickle down effect (or is that trickle up). Either someone from Graphisoft will happen to see the discussion, or someone with better connections will read it and pass along the critical information (and in fact someone from Graphisoft has already dropped into this particular conversation to share her thoughts and some hints about the future).

But…

Sometimes the answer lies not in fixing the program, but in fixing us. There have been quite a few ‘things that need to be changed’ discussed in the thread I mentioned above that were not problems with ArchiCAD, but a user not understanding the inner workings of ArchiCAD or a user just not being aware of a particular option (and I at least had a good solution for one of those problems). I mention this not to be a jerk. I write about it because this is AWESOME. This is the scenario we want to be in. I can’t teach ArchiCAD to be a better or smarter program (though I can share my hopes and dreams with people at Graphisoft). But I can teach you. If you’re open to learning and improving your skills then there’s nothing better than finding out that you (and not technology) are the weak link.

I’m not JUST a jerk

For the record, I spent the time to clarify all the issues that I could (and continue to do so). One happened to be solved by blog posts I wrote last year: this one about Invisible Beams Cutting Walls and also this one on Conditional Operators. Another issue happened to be explained by a post I had written but not yet published for BIM Engine. It’s since been published. And one more issue prodded me to write another post for BIM Engine. Here’s that post. This last one, which talks about using a generic .aat file to clean up and fix ugly Attributes via the Attribute Manager, is my latest pride and joy. Though this post about The Master Complex Profile is a close second. There was also a comment written this weekend which has giving me a great idea for a future post. I’ll hopefully write that one for BIM Engine either this coming week or the following. This forthcoming post will deal not so much with a problem within ArchiCAD, but a clarification of nomenclature, which I just geek out to because the right words make ArchiCAD so much easier to understand.

Expert or Novice, Join in

Whatever type of user you feel you are, add your thoughts. At least one more ArchiCAD guru has also joined the conversation (a GDL master). Maybe a problem you have already has a solution. Maybe it’s a real stumper that others are struggling with as well. Maybe you don’t have any issues with ArchiCAD, but have plenty of great answers for others. And maybe, just maybe one of these issues without a good answer will get moved to the head of the queue for ArchiCAD 17. Who knows. It might just happen.