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Attributes of drawings placed in PlotMaker
Written by László Nagy
The following table shows how the various attributes of drawings placed on a PlotMaker Layout behave. As a new feature in PlotMaker 3, Views defined in ArchiCAD can be imported and placed in PlotMaker in addition to the existing PlotMaker file hotlink. This is called the Project Hotlink. Attributes have a slightly different behaviour in case of a Project Hotlink than with File Hotlink. The notes at each cell contain specific information.
| Attributes of placed drawings in PlotMaker | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where is attribute information stored?* | Project Hotlink | File Hotlink | |||||
| Starting value after import** | Updating | User Modification | Starting value after import | Updating | User Modification | ||
| Pens & colors | In layout (can be different for each drawing) | Set from AC at time of first update | NO*** | Enabled | Set from file at time of placement | NO | Enabled |
| Line types | In drawing (no information stored in layout) | Set from AC at time of first update | YES | Only in drawing¹ | Set from file at time of placement | YES | Only in drawing |
| Fills | In drawing (no information stored in layout) | Set from AC at time of first update | YES | Only in drawing¹ | Set from file at time of placement | YES | Only in drawing |
| Layer Combinations | In layout (can be different for each placement of each drawing) | Set from AC at time of first update | YES | Enabled² | Set from file at time of placement | NO | Enabled |
| Layers | In layout (can be different for each placement of each drawing) | Set from AC at time of first update | YES | Enabled² | Set from file at time of placement | NO³ | Enabled |
| Drawing scale | In layout (can be different for each placement of each drawing) | Set from AC at time of first update | YES | Enabled² | Set from file at time of placement | NO | Enabled |
* 'Can be different for each drawing' - in this case if one has several placements of the same drawing,
changing pen attributes in one placement of a drawing changes pens in all placements of that drawing.
'Can be different for each placement of each drawing' - in this case, changing Layer or Drawing Scale attributes of one placement
of a drawing will not change these attributes in other placements of the same drawing.
From R2/v2 on the texts displayed in the Option menu will provide help with this. Depending on whether one selects a placed drawing
or something on the layout, the menu text will change to 'Layout Layers', 'Layout Line Types' etc. or 'Drawing Layers', 'Drawing Line Types'
etc. so the user will have a clue about what attributes in which part of the layout he/she is modifying.
** When a view of an ArchiCAD Project is imported into a PlotMaker layout, the program first just imports it and places it, then it immediately proceeds to update for the first time this newly created hotlink. All starting values of mentioned attributes will be updated only at the end of the update process. If the user interrupts the first update process, no attribute information will be loaded and the placed drawing will only have a placeholder on the layout.
*** In PlotMaker 3 R1/v1 Pens & Colors in Project Hotlinks do update when the placed drawing is updated. However, this is different from the way it used to work in previous PlotMaker versions. So from PlotMaker 3 R2/v2 on they will not be updated: changes made to Pens & Colors in PlotMaker will remain intact just as in previous versions.
¹ In case of a Project Hotlink, Line Types and Fills can be modified but first the link has to be broken. To break a link change to 'Drawing Usage' display mode in the uppermost pop-up palette of the Navigator Window in PlotMaker. Select the desired Project hotlink from the list and click the 'Break link' button. From there on that drawing will be treated as an individual placed drawing and by opening it, these attributes can then be modified.
² User modification of Drawing Scale, Layers and Layer Combinations is enabled with Project Hotlinks just as it is and was enabled with File Hotlinks. However, with Project Hotlinks this actually is a bug and they shouln't be modified by users since these attribute informations will be overwritten by data from ArchiCAD with the next update of the placed drawing. This can be potentially confusing as the user may have a layer set visible in PlotMaker and later hide it in ArchiCAD. When the Project hotlink is updated the content of hidden layers will not be seen in PlotMaker although the layer was set to be visible in PlotMaker prior to the update. With later versions of the program this will not be enabled so there will be no confusion possible.
³ When the updated File Hotlink contains new layers, those new layers that are visible will be merged into the drawing.
Page last updated: Thursday, June 10, 2004
