Work Environment Profiles

If you have customized and saved multiple schemes, you may want to store and apply them together: in this case, combine any of the schemes into a Profile, and store the Profile under its own name. Using the ARCHICAD interface, you can export and import Profiles to use on other computers. In this operation, profiles are.xml files which refer to the schemes (also.xml files) contained within them.

Notes about Profiles:

Profiles themselves do not contain settings; they are just a collection of schemes.

A profile does not have to contain all six scheme possibilities.

Once you start working, you don’t have to apply entire profiles at once; you can apply schemes one by one.

You can save a Custom scheme as part of a profile, but the Custom scheme will be given a name when the profile is created.

Schemes named “Custom” cannot be exported.

Apply a Profile

Do one of the following:

Use Windows > Work Environment Profiles, and choose a profile from the list to apply it instantly

Use Options > Work Environment:

Click “Work Environment Profiles” (the top item in the list at the left) to open the Profile Options dialog page.

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From the list of Stored Profiles, choose the desired Profile. Double-click to apply the profile, or click the Apply Schemes of Profile button.

Profile Options

To assemble any combination of schemes into a profile, go to Options > Work Environment and click “Work Environment Profiles” (the top item in the list at the left.) This opens the Profile Options dialog page.

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Stored Profiles displays the list of available Profiles.

Note: A lock icon next to the profile name means that the file is read-only; the profile is locked. It is not possible to edit or delete locked profiles.

Clicking on any of them displays, in the window below, the Schemes stored in the selected Profile.

Default Profiles in ARCHICAD

ARCHICAD is shipped with default Profiles: Standard, Visualization and Layouting. When you first start ARCHICAD, the default Work Environment Profile is set to Standard.

These predefined profiles are designed to get you up and running with ARCHICAD. Naturally, you or your office CAD manager can reconfigure these profiles as needed.

The Standard profile is designed to reflect the workflow in common architectural practice. Menus, commands, palette layout, and toolbar visibility are optimized to give you easy access to the tools and functions you need to build up your Virtual Building. The Standard toolbar and Mini-Navigator toolbar (for easy switching between windows) are visible, and your Toolbox displays each tool individually.

The Layouting Profile places commonly used layout-related and publishing commands within reach. The Layout Book menu now appears, the Toolbox is minimized to show only the Documenting tools, and the Navigator/Organizer is located at the left edge of the screen. Two specialized toolbars are now visible: “Layouts & Drawings”, and “Standard for Layouting”.

The Visualization Profile is useful when you reach the stage of setting up and creating output from 3D images, such as Fly-Throughs and PhotoRenderings. The 3D Visualization menu now appears, so that all commands related to the 3D window, 3D navigation and 3D output are collected in a single menu. The 3D Visualization toolbar provides quick access to many of these same commands. In this profile, the Navigator is not displayed, and the Toolbox displays only Selection and Design tools.

Set as Default

Click this button to define the selected profile as your default profile. Henceforth, this profile will be applied if you choose “Default Profile” from the Set up Work Environment pop-up when starting ARCHICAD, or with the New & Reset All command.

New Profile

Use the New Profile dialog box to define a new profile.

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Enter the name of the new profile in the field. Each profile must have a unique name.

Select the Schemes of the Profile: Choose the schemes you want the new profile to contain. Highlight each scheme type, then choose the scheme you want from the drop-down list at right. If you don’t want a particular scheme to be defined as part of this profile, choose “Undefined” for that scheme. When you apply the new profile, the “undefined” scheme’s settings will remain “as-is” or default. Any scheme in the new profile set to “Custom” will be stored as a scheme (and given the same name as your profile), and will be saved as part of your new profile. If you don’t want to include this scheme, set it to “undefined”.

Apply Schemes of Profile

Click this button to apply the Schemes stored in this Profile.

Export Work Environment Profile

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Select a Profile and click Export. Enter a folder name in which to save the profile data. (By default, the folder name is identical to the profile name; but you can choose any folder name, and the folder can contain multiple profiles.)

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Click the Browse button to choose a location for the profile folder, then click Export.

 Import Work Environment Profile

Click Import.

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From the appearing dialog, click Browse to locate the profile folder you need. If the folder contains multiple profiles, choose the one you want from the list, then click Import.

Note on Profiles with Identical Names: You can import a profile that has the same name as a profile you already have, but ARCHICAD will differentiate between them by displaying the date and time the profile was created.

Note: While you can import/export Work Environment schemes among computers using varying operating systems, this is not recommended, because - due to the differences between Windows and Mac - some of the imported shortcuts, menus and Workspace schemes may not correspond to your system standards.

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