• TechNotes
• ArchiCAD10
• MAC
• open multiple files

Technote Under ArchiCAD 9, it was necessary to create multiple copies of the application in order to have more than one file open at the same time on the Macintosh platform. This is no longer necessary under ArchiCAD 10. The dialog box that comes up under File/ Open has a check box to "Launch a new instance of ArchiCAD" See page 68 of the ArchiCAD 10 New Features Guide, which is in the ArchiCAD10/ Documentation folder that was installed with ArchiCAD 10.

The file name of the open model is not shown at the top of the window, so it can be difficult to know which file you are working on or to switch from one instance of ArchiCAD to the other when multiple copies are running.

However, on the Mac, you can use the dock to switch from one file to the other. The first few characters of the file name of the .pln file are shown with the ArchiCAD icon in the dock. If you increase the dock magnification as needed so that these characters can be read (from system preferences), and if each file has a name that is different in the first few characters, this is a good way to switch between files.