A common complaint we have had as users is that there are too many tools that do similar things and there is no obvious rule as to which to use. The advantage we have had previously is that we have had Structural specific tools in the structural toolset. Now w have them all dumped under Modify and we are back in the same situation.
Went to look for Unite Member and couldn't find it. Unite Solids jumped out and if you use it you corrupt the element. No warning.
Join Element (not members?????) was next and works. Only reason I noticed is that I have member lines turned on and if you use Unite Solid, the member line of one of the members disappears.
Can we either move the tools into the correct group or name them differently. Alternatively, some error boxes would be a big help. Don't let Unite Solid select a member. We have had similar alerts with cutting tools in the past.
Hi Sean,
The tool you found, Join Elements, is actually part of that UI simplification project. The reason it uses the word "Elements" instead of "Members" is that it was designed to join multiple linear ABD elements types - beams, walls, ducts, etc.. IOW, it's a common Join tool. The only caveat is that you need to search for "Join" and not "Unite", since the "Unite" tool has been part of the solid modification toolset for years. However, these tools have never excluded building elements since someone, somewhere, probably has a perfectly valid reason to use them.
I understand Steve, but from my point of view it's easy for users to pick the wrong tool and we're back where we were before. From my point of view, this is where I'd rather have these tools appear at the end of the Structural\discipline ribbon than into another combined interface that we wouldn't use half of the tools. JMO.
Not that I've tried, but I suppose you could customize the ribbon to move that tool from Modify to Structural.
But out of the box it doesn't make as much sense because the Join (and Break) tool is not specific to Structural - it applies to Structural, Architectural and Mechanical, so is located in a common tab.