Short Form Discovery Tutorial

Rob

Informations

• Publié par: Thiok
• Nombre de lectures: 20
• Langue: English

Extrait

Explore Some of SpecLink's Short Form Features in Fifteen Minutes or Less

This is a brief set of instructions to help you more easily and quickly understand some of the key advantages of BSD

SpecLink's Short form tab using a simple “step-by-step” approach. Please follow the steps below to see how SpecLink’s short

form specs can help you dramatically speed up your editing tasks and reduce your specification production time while, at the

same time,

automatically

(through intelligent data links) help you minimize errors and omissions.

1. Open the

Sample

project by clicking on File | Browse; pick

sample.spp

from the list presented then click

Open

.

2. Explore the

Tree Panel

:

a. There are three tabs in the Tree Panel. PerSpective is used for performance specs early in a project, the Short Form

specs are used for schematic design and design development or for abbreviated construction specs on smaller

projects, and SpecLink is used for detailed construction specs.

b. In the Short Form tab, expand (clicking on the “+” sign) the Product Specifications folder to see the 16 section

documents available, corresponding to the 16 divisions of the 1995 edition of MasterFormat.

c.

For evaluation purposes, you can open and edit only X02 – Site Construction. The titles of all other sections are

grayed out.

d. Open Section X02 in the Document Panel by clicking on its title in the tree.

3. Explore

Navigation

:

a. In the

Document Panel

, your cursor should be at the title of the section.

b. On the menu, click on Document | Show Text Levels | to Level 1 (or on the toolbar, click the

Show 1 Level of Text

icon). The text collapses to show only the major article titles, corresponding to individual sections on the more

detailed SpecLink tab.

c.

Next, click on 02300 – Earthwork, then on

Show 2 Levels of Text

to expand the document to show major topics.

d. Then click on

Show All Levels

to expand the document fully. Notice that unselected text is grayed out, while selected

text is dark and automatically numbered.

e. Experiment with the scroll bar or use your mouse wheel to move around in the document.

4. Explore the

Notes

windows:

a. The yellow icon in the N (Notes) status column indicates availability of a Master Note. Click on any paragraphs with a

yellow N icon and see the note change. There are almost a thousand notes in SpecLink’s Short Form tab that are

designed to assist you in making selections appropriate to your project.

b. You can add a Project Note to any paragraph. To open the Project Notes display, on the toolbar click on the blue

notebook icon for

Toggle display of Project Notes

. Click in the blue area of the display and enter a note. Notice that a

blue N icon appears in the Notes status column. This is a great feature for leaving reminders to yourself or

instructions for other specifiers.

c.

You can close and open the Tree Panel, and when it is open you can close or open any combination of the Project

Tree, Master Notes, and Project Notes. Experiment by clicking on the

View

menu and toggling displays off and on.

You can also toggle the displays from the corresponding toolbar buttons.

d. With both the Tree Panel and the Document Panel toggled on, experiment with resizing the panels. Move your cursor

to the vertical separation between the panels. When the cursor changes to a double-headed arrow, click the left

mouse button and drag the vertical bar left or right to resize the panels.

5. Try

Selecting

master paragraphs to add to your project (and de-selecting to remove them from your project):

a. To add any grayed-out (unselected) paragraph to the project, click once on the status button in the S (Status) column.

The checkmark indicates a user selection. Notice that no paragraph will become active unless its parent paragraph is

already active.

b. Click again on the depressed status button of a paragraph that is user-selected (checkmarked). Notice that the

checkmark toggles to an X (user excluded), and the paragraph is grayed out. Click again and the status button

toggles to neutral. One more click selects the paragraph again.

This makes last minute changes a breeze compared

to other systems and methods.

6. Try

Editing

master paragraphs:

a. Click anywhere within a paragraph to edit it by entering or deleting text. Notice that when you move the cursor from

any user-edited paragraph, a blue icon appears in the O (Origin) column, indicating a user edit.

b. User edits do not actually change a master paragraph; they merely conceal the master paragraph with an edited

version in the user's Project Overlay. To toggle back to a master paragraph, click anywhere within the user-edited

paragraph, then from the

Document

menu, select

Restore Master Paragraph

. Notice that the icon in the Origin status

column changes from blue to yellow, indicating a master version of an edited paragraph.

c.

Click again on the

Document

menu, and click on

Restore Paragraph from Project

to toggle back to your edit.

7. Try

Adding

your own paragraph to the section:

a. To add a paragraph below an existing paragraph, click at the end of the paragraph, press Enter, then type.

b. To add a paragraph above an existing paragraph, click at the beginning of the paragraph, press Enter, then type.

c.

Notice that your new paragraph is grayed out when you enter it. You can select the paragraph by clicking once on its

Status button. If you want new paragraphs to be automatically selected, from the

Tools

menu toggle on the

Auto-

Select New Paragraphs

command.

8. Exploring

Links

:

a. As you move through the section, you will notice that many status buttons are colored. A green button means that the

paragraph has been automatically selected by a link. Yellow triangles mean the paragraph may be relevant, and red

octagons (stop signs) indicate the paragraph has been excluded by a link. Links help you reduce errors & omissions.

b. Click on an active paragraph with a green link icon, then from the

View

menu, click on Links (or click the Links toolbar

button). In the Links dialog box, on the Source Links tab, notice that one or more paragraph IDs appear with green

arrows. Bold text indicates the link is active. The bold Source paragraph(s) indicated are the source of the link(s) that

have selected this paragraph.

c.

Go to one of the paragraphs indicated on the

Source Links

tab. In the Links dialog box, click on the

Target Links

tab.

There you will see a green arrow indicating an active link to the original target paragraph.

9.

Preview

Your Edited Section: Click on the Print Preview button at any time to see how your section will look in print.

a. Note that only selected, active text is included in the printed document. However, if you use this document on a future

project, all unselected text is still available because in SpecLink no master text is ever deleted.

b. Change the page format for your whole project in one place. From the

Tools

menu, select

Customize Styles.

c.

You can also experiment with changing margins, layout, headers & footers.

10.

BSD SpecLink

has many more productivity features. For assistance, browse the User Manual or call us 800-875-0047.

It's really that simple! After following these steps, you have demonstrated how much easier it is to create and edit abbreviated

specifications while dramatically reducing your spec production time.

The material selections you make while using the Short

Form tab are also linked to the more detailed specifications on the SpecLink tab, pre-selecting text to assist you in editing your

detailed construction documents. See the Software Orientation section in the User Manual (Chapter 3), for tips and an overall

overview of SpecLink at:

www.bsdsoftlink.com/support/speclink/03-orient.pdf