Command and Control ARCHICAD - Part 4

This is the final article in a series of four #justthetip articles showing you how to master the primary keys you need to Command and Control ARCHICAD. The key we will examine today is not one that is traditionally thought of as a shortcut key at all… the Spacebar.

The Spacebar has two types of function - the Magic Wand and as a toggle to invert a command.

Magic Wand

Back in the olde days late last century there was no Magic Wand Tool. There was however, the aptly named ‘Spacebar click’... a lot of imagination went into that one ;-)

Back to the present day, here is where you will find the Magic Wand in ARCHICAD 20 with the BIM6x Work Environment applied:

The Magic Wand is a massive time saver in day to day ARCHICAD as it will let you trace a linear or polygon element and apply a new element(s) to it.

For example, you may have the outline of a floor slab drawn with the Slab Tool which can be used to create Wall’s using the Magic Wand with the Wall Tool. This will take the current settings of the active Tool, and create the new elements with those settings.

This technique is waaay quicker than manually creating geometry and can be used with most of the 2D and 3D Tools.

Quick Selection Toggle

Quick Select is the ‘Magnet’ icon that is visible when you have the Arrow Tool active (or are holding Shift as shown in the second article in this series)... IF the following button is active in the Toolbox:

If you see the Magnet appearing, holding Spacebar will temporarily disable it. Conversely, if Quick Select is NOT active, holding Spacebar will temporarily enable it when the Arrow (or Shift) Tool is active and the cursor is over a filled element.

A typical example where I personally use this feature a lot is to select furniture elements that have a Slab visible below them or a Roof element above. The video at the end will show it in better detail!

Element Snap Toggle

First of all, we need to check if Element Snap is on or off. Here is the button shown in the on position:

In short, when you are moving elements around a space, you might notice some black highlights appear on key points such as corners, midpoints or hotspots on Objects. The example below highlights the active Element Snap on the chair that is being copied… but as you look around the object, you will see the other available options:

These can be used to Snap to other elements… but in a busy model with lots of data in the view, they can actually get in the way and the wrong point might snap. When you see the points appear, pressing Spacebar will move between the active Snaps. Don’t worry, it is much easier to see and understand in a video!

As with the previous articles, we have linked a video to explain the process in more detail...

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#justthetip, spacebar, command, control

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