Open Call for Beta Testing - New Reference Notes (Refnote) Schedule Features!
By Amanda Marin on Tuesday, 11 June 2024
Posted in Site & Hardscape
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Hi Everybody!

We've been doing a lot of work behind the scenes to check off a long list of wishlist requests for the RefNote Schedule! It's now at a good point, but we'd like to try something new and open it up for Beta testing for users.

In the current update version 20.57 is a hidden command, REFNOTESCHEDULE_NEW.
Type this into the commandline, and you'll see the new interface.


August 19, 2024 Edit: This feature is now out of Beta and live, moved over to the main RefNote Schedule button in the RefNote Manager. Thank you to all those who helped test this for the 3 months that it was in Beta testing, and provided valuable feedback so that we could make sure the new schedule options were as seamless to regenerate old schedules as possible. For anybody who'd still like to provide feedback, please open a new ticket in your Land F/X Portal to describe any further tweaks you think would be beneficial, ideally with before, after, and desired examples in a DWG file or screenshot. Please understand that we're past the beta testing period and won't be making a Legacy command for this based on the feedback we got during testing, but will do everything possible to accomodate your needs for this very valuable time-saving tool!

It's been reformatted to be more like the plant schedule options, and switches to the table-only format with or without gridlines plotting.

Screenshot 2024-06-11 at 10.32.41 AM.jpg


Key Improvements:

  1. Symbol and Code now in separate columns
  2. Photo column now an option
  3. Lengths now have a symbol option, and it works with layer linetypes or railing blocks.
  4. Improvements to the alignment of cell contents, including correcting the issue with overlapping block callouts.
  5. MUCH better amenity block scaling, even for custom amenity blocks.
  6. Revised Speace below Description logic.
  7. New "Sort By" Division or Object option.
  8. Column Widths now in popout, allowing room for future improvments.
  9. Refnoteschedule_new with Work Areas now allows for an All Work Areas option, like plant schedules.
  10. Ability to Edit an existing schedule (created with REFNOTESCHEDULE_NEW - editing/regenerating old schedules with the old command is still pending.)


Otherwise, it should do everything the original schedule did.

Keep in mind that with these changes, your schedule might change slightly in dimensions, but we've tried to keep it as similar as possible.
These improvements also allow Refnote Division column widths to apply to even non-plot-gridline schedules now.

Please test this out on a copy of your plans with Refnotes already in them. You can provide feedback in this Forum post, or by creating a new ticket and specifically mentioning that you're Beta testing the REFNOTESCHEDULE_NEW command. Please screenshot errors and provide the steps you took to get it. Ideally, send in the drawing that gets the error in a ticket.
How to Submit a Technical Support Ticket

Even a quick test and specific feedback, positive or constructive, will really help us make sure the eventual transition to the main RefNote Schedule tool is successful.

Thanks!
- Amanda

Edit: More new hidden schedules for beta testing! They'll be live in update version 20.60 and newer. These all rely on the above primary Refnote Schedule as a base.
refnoteschedule_new
irrigzones_new
sheetindex_new
projectlist_new
spotelevschedule_new
northeastpointschedule_new
civilsurveylegend_new
zoningschedule_new
conceptgraphicsschedule_new
detailreport_new
keynoteschedule_new
lightingschedule_new

All the straight to Excel detail reports:
detaillist_new
detailcategoriesreport_new
detailprojectfolders_new
LOVE THE WORK DONE TO THIS. Aesthetically makes the schedule look quite similar to the plant schedule. Some thoughts below.

- Is it possible to add an option to remove division titles altogether?
- The column widths function seems a bit buggy. Cell values don't show up really or let me type in the values. Is the intention that the default values here are what is input into the preference set and then the user can modify?
- What does sort by object type mean? Assuming it's just going from notations to lengths to amenities to areas?
Kevin Pfeiffer
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5 months ago
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Kevin,

Thanks for the notes!
Regarding the division titles, I'd love to see an example of what you have, to get a sense for the issue. About the best method I can think of allowing this, would be to have the division headers turn off when you turn off Title. But I'd like to see a good example case to fully grasp the issue.
For the column widths, you are correct, that is the idea, for instance one might want to make a schedule narrower for a particular project, or make the symbol column wider, etc. I'm not sure what could be misfiring for you. Maybe there's an error at the command line?
And the sort options, you are exactly correct. There is the obvious desire to sort everything by Division and number, but when displaying symbols the schedule can look rather chaotic, switching between hatches, blocks, and lines. So sorting by object type keeps all the hatches together, regardless of division or number, and so on. If you have a suggestion for a more intuitive label, I'm all ears. It may be more appropriate to call it "Entity type", but that feels less intuitive to me, albeit more in line with proper CAD terminology.

--J
Jeremiah Farmer
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5 months ago
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Thanks for the detailed response.

- Removing division titles - see my attached JPG where I went into the table and manually removed the division title rows. Basically we just want the schedule to be a list of our refnotes. We find the division titles take up real-estate on the page and can be redundant.

- Column widths - see attached JPG of the glitch I'm talking about where it doesn't show at first. If I resize a table column it shows up with my preference set defaults.

- Sorting options - totally makes sense. Sorting by division makes most sense to me. Not sure we'd have any want for something further. Object type is cool though. We typically want to stay alphabetical though (AKA divisions)
Kevin Pfeiffer
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5 months ago
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Kevin,

Awesome, thanks for that.
From that example, it does seem best to have the division titles turn off with the Title checkbox, rather than having to add an another checkbox under the Division dropdown. We'll discuss and come up with something.

The column width issue is just due to the scrollbar appearing! The width of the grid control is just off by a few pixels, that should be addressed for today's update.

Today's update also has a lot of other tweaks and fixes, so to you and others, keep up the testing!

--J
Jeremiah Farmer
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5 months ago
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Kevin, we've been discussing the request to have an option to not include division titles.
I have to say, I think we need more feedback from more users needing this same thing before we add it as an option.

Background: Part of our UI decisions involve pruning out options that just aren't necessary for good construction documentation standards, and seeing if something can instead be solved with a better style or workflow. We don't want to clutter the UI with options that might encourage less clarity. This can sometimes butt heads with more open customization, so we like to thoroughly discuss things and sometimes challenge requests to, in the end, maybe get something even better by pinpointing the root of a request.

I can see why you don't want division titles. You have so many divisions and so few things in each division that it just results in a division title every other line.
However, in your example without division titles, myself as a person just reading your plan for the first time like a contractor might, your 2-letter division codes are not very clear as to the contents. It takes a lot of extra time to read between the lines.

Maybe this could be better solved by finding an organization system that doesn't require quite so many divisions? Where more refnotes would be grouped under a single division title.
I'm testing with having a division C for concrete, and incorporating your 2nd letter as a subcategory but that's a different kind of wishlist item - allowing Letter divisions to have letter subdivisions.

I'd like more feedback from more users on division titles in the new refnote schedule.
Amanda Marin
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5 months ago
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Totally makes sense from an UI stance, want to keep it clean.

From my stance, the refnote description column would always fill in that need for a contractor to understand what they're looking at.

All CP items will express that they are concrete paving with a description like "concrete _____". Don't really need to have a header that says "Concrete Paving". Creates redundancy / double documentation.

If BR-01's description was only "red", BR-02 only "tan", and BR-03 only "mortar set" then it'd make sense to have a header of "Bricks". But even in your own documentation, you describe it as "brick red", see attached.

I get this is splitting hairs / a philosophical discussion, apologies. The result however is on many project where we have 40+ unique refnotes the schedule balloons off the page and we have to go in and hand edit the schedule each time it's made.
Kevin Pfeiffer
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5 months ago
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Make sure to attend our live Ask Us Anything Webinar that's spotlighting this new Refnote Schedule upgrade.

Ask Us Anything! Spotlight on Refnote Schedules: Register for the July 12, 2024 live webinar or watch the recording afterwards.

You have many ways to give feedback on this new feature before it goes live in a month:

  1. Reply in this forum post.
  2. Submit a ticket with your drawings describing a unique situation where you'd like to see the new version perform better. Click here to learn how to submit a ticket.
  3. Attend the live webinar and ask your question.


A quick 10min test is all it takes! Open a past project with refnotes, grading elements, concept graphics, lighting or zoning, and use the temporary beta testing command!

refnoteschedule_new
irrigzones_new
sheetindex_new
projectlist_new
spotelevschedule_new
northeastpointschedule_new
civilsurveylegend_new
zoningschedule_new
conceptgraphicsschedule_new
detailreport_new
keynoteschedule_new
lightingschedule_new

All the straight to Excel detail reports:
detaillist_new
detailcategoriesreport_new
detailprojectfolders_new
Amanda Marin
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4 months ago
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I am having some struggles with column widths as well. I find the location to adjust them, yet they do not seem to be displaying properly for me. No editable text appears.
I would also love to be able to adjust the window size for area refnotes as well. We tend to want to bump the window size up for client interactions.
Thank you!
Mark Morgan
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4 months ago
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Mark,

You can use the Space below Description setting to specify additional lines of row height, which will cause the area hatch to grow as well.
For the column widths, if you can post a screenshot of what it looks like, that will help us determine what is off.

--J
Jeremiah Farmer
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4 months ago
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Jeremiah,
Thanks for the great response. My screenshot of my column width issue is precisely the same as Kevin's above in #6745. I get a pop-out, but nothing is editable. Updates applied. No change.

Thank you,
Mark
Mark Morgan
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3 months ago
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Mark,

This has been addressed, and will be part of the update tomorrow.

--J
Jeremiah Farmer
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3 months ago
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Update this morning did not change anything on 1 workstation, will try later on a different one to test it there.
Results same as above screenshot.
Mark Morgan
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3 months ago
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Hey Mark, Jesse with Land F/X here. This should have been fixed, and the update should have released. Could you confirm that you can see the column width adjustments?
Jesse Conner
3 months ago
Hi Mark, there's no new update this morning yet. You must have installed Update 20.66 from July 30.
Amanda Marin
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3 months ago
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Jesse,
The update seems to have addressed the issue for me. Thank you!
Mark
Mark Morgan
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3 months ago
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Love the new schedule options. One more wish I have is the option for rounding areas and lengths. Maybe options to round up to nearest 5 or 10.
Clay Munson
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3 months ago
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We've found that rounding is very subjective and best used in excel sheets with clear notes to the contractor that the quantities are rounded in the bid sheet.

Otherwise, it can be confusing that the quantity in a schedule doesn't match the properties on the objects in the drawing.

-Amanda
Amanda Marin
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3 months ago
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I love the symbol and code have their own header now, however with this symbol column it now appears that we are unable to have the blocks at plan size? Is there an option for this and I am just missing it? Also when I generate the new schedule the code blocks are coming in much larger than they should, please see attachment. The element I am concerned with is the area hatches are no longer consistent in size when a schedule item has multiple lines within the description compared to a line time with very little description. Is there something that can be done to provide the same consistency that the original schedules had? Lastly, is there a command that we to regenerate existing schedules without updating them to the new version, similar to when the planting schedules were revised?
Thank you,
Wes
Wes Quayle
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3 months ago
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Wes,

The symbols are scaled down as necessary to fit in the column. To get them at plan size you would need to increase the width of the symbol column.

The callouts are now the same size as in the plan, which was a common request and makes sense. The new Header option for callouts allows a much cleaner schedule with less space.

Hatches now dynamically fill the entire row, which we felt is much better for consistency and looks great when including photos. You can set the Space after Description to increase the height of the narrower rows. We have no plans to go back to all hatches being the same size.

We also will not be issued a Legacy command, as the output is so similar.

—J
Jeremiah Farmer
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3 months ago
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We work on a lot of trail projects and include a 10' wide white polyline on top of an aerial. We usually end up drawing the line as a LF reference note then change the width to 10' so it will show up before printing. It would be nice to assign a polyline width to a LF reference note and it show up in the schedule accordingly.
Brian
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2 months ago
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Brian, this kind of request is actually something we hope to address in a future Railing tool improvement, so keep an eye out for that! If you can provide any examples of how you'd want it to look, that would help a lot to influence that development project.

-Amanda
Amanda Marin
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2 months ago
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