Macro for floor heights

[Sageland]

I spent the afternoon working on a macro for the height of the ceiling on a 2 story. I am not sure that I understand macros very well, but I think that they could save time.
I started with a macro that Gerry had posted quite a while ago. It worked great for a single story, but when I used it on a 2 story, I got a height of 18'3".
Here is what I came up with.

roomht = (ceiling_elevation - floor_elevation)
roomht = roomht.round.divmod(12)
"Clg Ht. " "#{roomht[0]}'-#{roomht[1].round}''"

Scott, I hope that I will learn more in a few weeks in the workshop.

[gteacher]

Your program works just fine. Suggest you post your plan?

[johnnyprc]

For the life of me I am trying to understand how such a macro could save time? I'm puzzled.

[dshall]

For the life of me I am trying to understand how such a macro could save time? I'm puzzled.

You must be kidding.

[lbuttery]

Johnny:

think of a macro as a recipe

so consider baking a cake
the recipe has 10 steps

each time you bake a cake you have to manually do the 10 steps

with a macro you make one click and all 10 steps are executed
precisely the same each and every time

kinda makes baking a cake - a piece of cake


Chief's Ruby macros are not that powerful yet
but for creating labels and a few other functions they can still save steps
and provide info extracted from the model

Lew

[johnnyprc]

I guess I was trying to understand how a macro for ceiling height could save time if all you do is enter a value - that was the point. I can understand how complex macros could be helpful, but as you say Lew simple basic macros don't seem like time savers. Am I wrong?

Maybe I still don't get it??

[billemery]

Hi Johnny,
Initially a simple macro may not save time; but, for example, if the ceiling height changes, I don't have to go back and manually change it. It updates automatically. I don't know about you, but most of my mistakes happen when I make a change, and there are loose ends that get overlooked.

Also, if I have a hundred windows that need notes like header size, header height, egress, tempered; I would rather have the window properties make those decisions than trying to do it manually. Again if a window's properties change, the note note on the plan will change automatically.

We are thus far limited mostly to text macros in plan which is extremely restrictive; but they have given us enough to make it worthwhile in terms of accuracy and productivity. I hope for more in future releases, but Chief has been less than willing to relinquish control any truly meaningful scripting.

[johnnyprc]

That makes sense Bill - thanks.

[perryh]

I put an auto macro for the ceiling heights right in my room labels, along with floor heights. These macros are already in the program but in inches, but that's ok for me. I can instantly see if any floor or ceiling heights have moved. I like it very much.