Configuration Editor

The Configuration Editor is the list of settings you fill in whenever something in Simplebim needs parameters — a tool, a dataflow step, an import or export, a settings dialog. The list looks the same everywhere; only the settings in it change, because each tool decides what it needs to know. This article explains how the list works and what each kind of setting does.

Three kinds of setting open an editor of their own. Those editors have their own articles:

• a query setting opens the Query Editor — Query Editor;
• an expression setting opens the Expression Editor — Expression Editor, and what you can write in it is covered in Writing Expressions in Simplebim;
• an object selection setting can take a selection string; its full syntax is in Selection String Format.

Where You Meet the Configuration Editor

You never open the Configuration Editor on its own. It is embedded wherever settings are needed:

• In a dialog with OK and Cancel buttons — the settings of a merge, an import, an export. OK keeps what you entered, Cancel throws it away.
• Inside another editor, for example the Dataflow Editor, where every step of a dataflow shows its own settings list. There the settings are kept or discarded together with the dataflow.

• In a window that shows the settings of something you are working on, such as the properties of a group.

  

Whatever the surroundings, the list itself works the same way. What differs is what happens when you are done, see Keeping or Discarding Your Changes.

Some settings — object selections, queries, expressions, measurements — take their lists and defaults from the model that is open. With no model open those settings still work, but their lists are empty or shorter.

The Editor at a Glance

1. Target section — some tools start with the settings that say what the tool works on — a target object selection, say. Those settings sit in their own block at the top, shaded in a different colour. Not every tool has one.
2. Settings — one row per setting: the setting's name on the left, its control on the right.
3. Headings — a bold line that groups the settings under it. Settings under a heading are indented.
4. Descriptions — hover over a setting's name or its control and a tooltip shows what the setting is for, when the tool provides a description.

Rows are added by the tool, not by you: the Configuration Editor never has an add button. What you can change is the value of each setting.

What Every Setting Has in Common

A default. Most settings come with a default value from the tool. For settings that you type into, the default is shown as a grey hint while the box is empty, and an empty box means use the default. Clear the box to go back to the default; type something to override it.

A description. Hover over the name or the control to read it.

A place in a group. Settings under a heading belong to that heading. This matters for the next point.

Conditions. A setting can be hidden until another setting has a certain value — the options of an export format appear only after you pick that format. A heading hides with its settings. See Settings That Appear and Disappear.

No checking. The Configuration Editor does not validate what you enter beyond what each control enforces. A number typed into a number box is used as it is; a mandatory setting left empty is reported by the tool when it runs, not by the editor.

The Kinds of Settings

Headings

A heading is a bold line with no control. It only groups the settings below it and hides when all of them are hidden. Its description, if it has one, shows as a tooltip on the heading.

Yes/No

A check box. Ticked means yes.

Choice

A drop-down list of the options the tool offers. Two variants:

• a fixed choice only lets you pick from the list;
• an extensible choice also lets you type a value that is not in the list. Use it when the tool says the list is only a set of suggestions.

The list drops down wide enough to show the longest option in full.

Text

A box you type into. Two conveniences:

• Drag and drop. Drop an object class, a group, a group category, a property or a property value from a palette onto the box, and its name — or value — becomes the text. Drop a file or a folder from Windows Explorer and its path becomes the text.
• The default hint. An empty box shows the default in grey and means use the default.

Number and Whole Number

A box for a number. A number setting takes decimals; write them with a dot or with the decimal separator of your Windows settings, both are understood. A whole number setting takes integers. Neither box stops you from typing something that is not a number; the tool will complain when it runs.

Measurement

A value box and a unit drop-down. The list offers every unit of the kind the setting measures — lengths for a length, areas for an area. When a model is open, the unit the model uses is preselected.

Changing the unit converts the value in the box: type 3 with m selected, switch to mm, and the box reads 3000. Convert, then adjust, if the number you have is in a different unit from the one shown.

Colour

A colour box. Click it to open the colour picker and choose. The tool's default colour is shown until you pick another.

3D Point

Three boxes, X, Y and Z, a unit drop-down of length units, and two buttons.

Pick (pipette icon) starts picking in the 3D view: click a point in the model and its coordinates fill the boxes, in the model's length unit. While picking, the button shows a ×; click it to stop without picking.

Paste reads three numbers separated by tabs from the clipboard — three cells copied from a spreadsheet, for example — and puts them into X, Y and Z, in the unit currently shown. Anything else on the clipboard is ignored.

The unit list works like the one of a measurement: changing it converts the three values.

List of Values

A box that holds either one value, which you can simply type, or several values, which you enter through the List Editor:

• Click the list button at the right end of the box. The List Editor opens in place of the settings; type one value per line and click Apply Changes. With two or more values the box reads 3 Items and can no longer be typed into.
• Click the × button to clear the box, whether it holds one value or a list.

Drag and drop works as for a text setting while the box holds a single value.

File and Folder

There are three settings of this family. All start with a file location drop-down on the left — see File Locations — followed by the controls below.

File to open — a path box and a … button that opens the Select file dialog, filtered to the file types the tool accepts. When the tool accepts several files, the box also has a list button: pick several files in the dialog, or enter their paths in the List Editor, and the box reads 3 Items.

File to save — the same path box and … button, opening a Save as dialog. Right-click the box for a menu that inserts [MODEL_NAME], a placeholder replaced by the name of the model when the file is written — handy for export to [MODEL_NAME].ifc.

Folder — a folder box and a … button that opens the folder browser. The folder box is only there while the location is This PC; for any other location, the location itself is the folder and the box disappears.

The path you pick with … is stored relative to the file location when it lies inside it, so the setting keeps working when the location is moved or points somewhere else on another machine. You can also type a path, or drop a file or folder from Windows Explorer onto the box.

Object Selection

The setting that says which objects. It starts with a style drop-down, and the controls to the right change with the style. The tool decides which styles it offers; a tool that only works on groups, say, offers only Object Group and Raw Value. At the far right there is always a Preview button (eye icon): click it to select the objects the setting currently describes in the 3D view and the palettes.

All selects All elements, both assemblies and parts. No controls to the right, just the explanation.

Topmost selects Topmost assemblies and single elements. No controls to the right.

Parts selects Assembly parts and single elements. No controls to the right.

Object Class selects the objects of one class. To the right: a drop-down of the classes that have objects in the model; start typing to narrow it, or type a class name that is not in the model.

Object Class List selects the objects of several classes. To the right: the same list with check boxes.

Object Group selects the members of a group, of several groups, or of all groups under a category or parent group. See below.

Object Selection selects a fixed set of objects, remembered by their GlobalId. See below.

Raw Value selects whatever a selection string says. To the right: a text box; see Selection String Format.

Drag and drop works on the style box and the class and group boxes: drop an object class from a palette and the style switches to Object Class with that class; drop a group and it switches to Object Group with that group and its category.

Object Group

The group row has, from left to right, a category button, a parent group button, the group drop-down and a list button.

The group drop-down lists the groups that have objects in the model, with <all groups> first. Pick one group, type a name — including a name that is not in the model yet — or leave <all groups> to take every group.

The category button turns into a drop-down of group categories. Pick one and the group list is narrowed to that category; with <all groups> still selected, the setting takes the whole category. The × in the drop-down removes the filter and brings the button back.

The parent group button does the same for parent groups: it lists the groups that have child groups, and the group list is narrowed to the groups under the one you pick. A parent group overrides a category.

The list button opens the List Editor for several group names, one per line. Back in the row, the group box reads 3 Groups and gets two extra buttons: a logic button and a ×. The logic button cycles through three ways of combining the groups, shown by its icon:

• OR — selects the objects that are in any of the groups;
• AND — selects the objects that are in all of the groups;
• NOT — selects the objects that are in the first group but in none of the others.

The × drops the list and brings the single-group drop-down back.

Group names may use * and ? as wildcards — Level * takes every group whose name starts with Level.

Object Selection

A fixed list of objects. The row shows Drop Objects Here until it has objects, then 12 Objects. There are three places to drop objects from a palette, marked by their icons.

Set (the label itself) — the dropped objects replace the list.

Add — the dropped objects are added to the list.

Remove — the dropped objects are removed from the list.

The × button empties the list. Objects are remembered by their GlobalId, so the selection survives reloading the model and applies to other models that contain the same objects.

Raw Value

A text box with the selection string that the other styles produce behind the scenes — class-name:wall, group-name:"Level 1" category-name:Storeys, special:topmost and so on. Use it for what the other styles cannot express, or to paste a selection string from elsewhere. The syntax is documented in Selection String Format.

Switching to Raw Value shows the string of whatever was set up in the previous style, so it is also a way to see what a style produces. A raw value that one of the other styles can show is reopened in that style the next time.

Query

Two buttons. Edit Query opens the Query Editor in place of the settings list; the button reads Edit Query (empty) while no query has been defined. Preview — only shown while a model is open — runs the stored query and selects the matching objects, without opening the editor. Building the query is covered in the Query Editor article.

Expression

The expression is shown with syntax colouring — green properties, blue functions, dark red text — and cannot be typed into directly. Click fx to open the Expression Editor in place of the settings list.

While a model is open the expression is checked where it is shown: the piece the expression engine cannot accept is highlighted white on red, the same way the Expression Editor highlights it. The check is repeated whenever the setting that gives the expression its scope changes — for example the object selection the expression applies to — so an expression can become marked, or unmarked, without being edited. Open it in the Expression Editor to read the message.

Settings That Appear and Disappear

A tool can attach a condition to a setting: show this only when the format is IFC, only when the "Rename" box is ticked. The Configuration Editor checks the conditions against the current values every time you change a setting, and hides and shows rows accordingly. A heading disappears when every setting under it is hidden and comes back when one of them is shown.

A hidden setting is not gone — it keeps its value and is stored with the rest — it is just not needed with the current choices. If a setting you expect is missing, look for the choice that switches it on; the tool's description of the surrounding settings usually names it.

Keeping or Discarding Your Changes

The Configuration Editor keeps your changes in the list as you make them, but what makes them stick depends on where the list is:

• In a dialog, click OK to keep everything you entered, or Cancel to throw all of it away. Cancelling also throws away anything applied in a sub-editor while the dialog was open.
• Inside another editor, the settings are kept or discarded with whatever that editor edits — a dataflow is saved with the values of all its steps.
• In a window that shows the settings of something, the window's own controls decide.

Two things that do not change with the surroundings:

• Apply Changes in a sub-editor only puts the query, expression or list back into its setting. It does not save anything by itself.
• There is no undo for individual settings. Retyping a value or clearing it to get the default is how you go back.

Troubleshooting

A setting I expect is not in the list.
It is probably hidden by a condition: another setting has to have a certain value first. Look at the choices and check boxes above it. Headings vanish too when all their settings are hidden.

The box is empty but the tool still uses a value.
An empty box means use the default, and the default is the grey hint shown in the empty box. There is no way to store "nothing" for a setting that has a default; type a value instead.

I typed a number and the tool complains it is not a number.
The editor does not check numbers. Look for letters, a stray unit symbol, or two decimal separators. Both a dot and your Windows decimal separator are accepted in a number setting.

I changed the unit and the value changed with it.
That is intended: the unit list converts the value. Pick the unit first, then type the value.

The Preview of an object selection selects nothing.
The style describes objects that are not in the model: a class name typed by hand, a group that does not exist here, a category filter that leaves no groups, or a list of GlobalIds from another model. Switch to Raw Value to read the selection string the setting produces and compare it with what the model has.

The category or parent group I picked disappeared after I changed the group.
A parent group overrides a category, and both filters only narrow the group list. Use the × in the filter's drop-down to remove a filter deliberately; it does not go away on its own.

The path I browsed to looks shorter than what I picked.
The path is stored relative to the file location shown on the left, so the location's own folder is left out. Together they are the full path.

The folder box is gone.
A location other than This PC is selected, and that location is the folder. Switch back to This PC to type or browse to a folder.

An expression setting is highlighted in red although I did not touch it.
The expression is re-checked when the setting that gives it its scope changes — typically the object selection above it. Open it with fx to read the message, or fix the selection.

The OK and Cancel buttons of the dialog have vanished.
A sub-editor is open — a query, an expression or a list. Click its Apply Changes or Discard Changes first; the dialog's buttons come back.

I applied a list and the box says "3 Items" and will not let me type.
A box holding several values can only be changed through the List Editor. Click the list button to edit the values, or the × to clear the box and type a single value again.