Ten Years of ArchiCAD Talk Forum
Happy Tenth Birthday ArchiCAD Talk Forum!
All I can say is wow and thank you. I owe pretty much my entire career to the ArchiCAD Talk Forum. What I learned from the forum in 2006 and 2007 set me up to become the ArchiCAD ‘expert’ that got me my second job in an ArchiCAD firm, which led to me being on a BIM for residential panel, which led to me starting the Minnesota ArchiCAD user group, which led to me becoming the Graphisoft representative in Minnesota. And when I started as the rep, I thought it’d be a good idea to start a blog…and here we are today. I’ve said it before, and it’s worth saying again. Thank you to all my ArchiCAD Heroes, and everyone else who taught me on the forum over the years (I got to meet a few of you last week in San Diego). If you haven’t read my ArchiCAD Heroes post, you should. We have some giants among us.
Here’s to Ten More Years of ArchiCAD Talk
Social Media sites wax and wane. Various comment threads ignite with interest then get lost behind an avalanche of new discussions. Long before Facebook, LinkedIN, Twitter, and YouTube there was the ArchiCAD-Talk Forum. Before we were all blogging about ArchiCAD, there was the ArchiCAD-Talk Forum. When all our sites go dark, get forgotten, or stop being updated, there will be the ArchiCAD-Talk Forum.
The best of bloggers can’t sustain their output forever. Onland’s last update was in November 2010 (and James started before the Forum). I still periodically check, hoping for a new post. What do you say James? Maybe someday I’ll get distracted too (though not before I match and exceed Onland’s number of posts: 679). But even then the ArchiCAD-Talk Forum will remain and be going strong.
The Original Welcome
Take a moment and look at the welcome post from the ArchiCAD Talk Forum.
It’s amazing how much has changed in our ArchiCAD world since late 2003. And how many of those original faces are still out there helping us all.
Where you on the Forum in the early days? Or in the lost times of the old pre-ArchiCAD Talk Forum message board? Share your thoughts and comments below. Do you owe a big learning debt to the forum? Share those thoughts below as well.
 I love talking about how much I love the ArchiCAD-Talk Forum. I don’t spend as much time there as I once did, but I need to fix that. Subscribe to my blog to read more of my wild ramblings on everything from BIM and Design to the Future of Architecture and Technology: Shoegnome on Facebook, Twitter, and the RSS feed.
I’m not sure if the welcome post I link to was the first post but unless someone says otherwise October 27th, 2003 was the beginning of a major pillar of our community.
Eduardo
My first Plotmaker problem, was loving using AC08 on my Powerbook G4 17″ (OS X 10.3 Panther) until I was informed by the old timers and Djorde in particular (if I remember correctly) that AC08 was the worst release ever.
http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=1082&highlight=
Link
I just read that first welcome post started by Akos. I had forgotten that I used to pay $10 or so every month to remove the annoying flashing banner ads from the old archicad forum hosted on escribe. Good memories. We used to get emails every time someone posted (imagine that!) Some of the old timers may recall when one subscriber went on leave for a couple of weeks and every time someone submitted a post, everyone received his autoresponse email. It was made worse when people would reply showing their annoyance. The forum was clogged up with this guys autoresponses. Poor fella didn’t live it down for years. We’ve come a long way but it’s a shame we can’t view an archive of those old escribe discussions, even just for nostalgia. Cheers, Link.
Kim Harris
Thanks for the reminder Jared. I was on vacation when it changed over so took a while to subscribe to the new forum. (No, I was not the one with an auto responder).
I remember that, Link!
I still have a span of the message board emails archived in an ArchiCAD-Talk folder in Mail!
Cheers,
Kim
Vistasp Mehta
Given that the training I got in ArchiCAD was exactly zip, the fact that I stuck to the software at all was only because of what I was able to learn from this forum and from the stalwarts there. A lot of the old-time regulars aren’t around much any more — for various reasons — but their their selfless contributions remain.
Thank you all!
Victor Silva
Congrats, from the http://www.linkBIM.com team for the excellent BIM work.
Your BIM knowledge is power and heard with great respect all around the world, including Portugal.
Thank you Jared!
Srinivas Nagoti
Great to hear that its been 10 years, It greatly helped with my career. Thank you all.
Laszlo Nagy
Hi Jared,
I myself also recently noticed while doing my admin tasks at ArchiCAD-Talk that the Forum is 10 years old now.
Thanks for commemorating the event.
It is good to look back and see how helpful it has been to so many people.
Everyone who posted during these 10 years to voluntarily help their fellow ArchiCAD users is appreciated.
Looking forward to your similar post in 2023. 🙂
Laszlo Nagy
ArchiCAD-Talk Moderator, Site-Admin
Jared Banks
Mark your calenders now. October 27th, 2023 is a Friday, so we can spend the whole day talking about it and sharing. And Laszlo thank you. You’re a big part of why the past ten years have been such a success.
~/archiben
Thanks for reminding me Jared. I must get back there some time soon…
(James, I too await more of you ironical musing…. 🙂 )
Djordje
10 years already? 🙂
The new format was a blessing and a curse at the same time. Moderating the email list for years before the current forum was … let’s say interesting 😀 Especially for the auto responder that Link remembered, who was so ashamed that he unsubscribed, and came back to the Forum years later in pressing need. Of course the first response to his question was “Did you turn your auto response off?” 😀
Not that it got any easier with the new forum, as more and more people joined and the discussions ranged from the absolute basics to intricate GDL and CNC connectivity – sometimes hard to manage, and remember that there are the ones just discovering the joys of the Virtual Building. Laszlo knows what I am talking about.
What remains is the sense of the community – although I must admit I am still in ArchiCAD Talk rehab and not there – and of a good place where help is always a post away.
My name is Djordje Grujic and I was the ArchiCAD Talk moderator.
Duane Engel
Jared,
Question for you. Using AC22…I like using the Complex Profile tool for creating full height exterior walls for multistory buildings all as one wall. My question is do you do this as well and if so how do you handle the wall tags for each level since I have different wall assemblies on some of the levels? Others I’ve spoken with stack there walls to resolve the wall tag issue. This seems like more work and less efficient to me. Is there a way to customize the wall tag tool? I currently have a 4 story building with underground garage and 3 different wall assemblies within the same profile.
Jared Banks
Hi Duane! I am generally against using Complex Profile Walls to create full height exterior walls for multistory buildings. I find there are enough glitches and special conditions that it’s not worth it. Plus as you mention, tagging is an issue. It’s much cleaner and easier to manage to have stacked walls or a composite wall for the full height main structure and then a skin of a complex profile wall for the cladding.
If you stick with the complex profile wall, to tag the wall properly you’d have to create a system of ARCHICAD properties that you’d select from manually. So better to break the wall so that the tagging can be automated.
Glenworth
Can anyone help me out please. I have 2 squares of different dimensions. The smaller square sits in the middle of the larger square. I want to use the Morph tool to cover the area between the larger square and the smaller square, not the center . I dont want to use the Boolean expression ‘substract’ which is tedious. I want the short cut command where i can click in the area.
Jared Banks
Here’s an old video I did that should help: https://youtu.be/vvULnFQBei0
Jeff K
Since Graphisoft destroyed their Archi-talk forum and replaced it with the disaster of a forum that only seems to be there for people on phones to use, discussion/info has been sparse. The few times I have tried to find anything there I have just left out of frustration.
Do you have any insight or pull to suggest they scrap their current forum setup so info can actually be browsed and found? Going back to something like the old layout is sorely needed.
Off to the AC subreddit….
Jared Banks
I completely agree with you, the old Archicad-talk forum was far superior. I doubt anyone will be writing a blog post in a decade waxing poetic about the greatest of the new archicad community page. I’ve had conversations with people at Graphisoft about the shortcomings of the new community. I have no idea if changes will be implemented, but one can hope (though honestly I’m not expecting many changes). The disappointment of the Archicad-talk replacement is one of the reasons I started the Archicad Users LinkedIN group.