Hello David,
I understand your differents problems.
I was an old tekla user and when i go to advance steel it was really hard to understand/learn the way to do of advance steel.
The key is to complete you knowledge by using this forum,
we are here to help you, to show you how advance work.
Other key is to try by yourself, what options make what in drawing. i know it's time consuming, myself i made this work partially on my personnal time (i've got this chance, and i'm passionate of trying by myself).
When i check my first drawing sheet it was absolutly freefight with advance and with his DrawingStyle and Auto-Dimensions.
But i've tried, i've ask question and 2years after, i can answer to lot of question, i help others colleagues and i've set my company standard.
After all that i don't say Advance is the full power of the steel detailling software world, at ths point you said right with the lack of option about controlling and adaptability of drawings (especially options available in the document manager)
you're maybe on the 18version, this version is few buggy but on huge point (as dimension stability), but modelisation is good, much faster, much easier.
Drawing are currently in improvement time, focus of the dev time are made on drawing stability.
i think we're on the good road to make this software as good as other.
You have to not to forget that AS is a vertical product of autocad and this since 2012 (since advance V11 by my mind) and was buyed by autodesk from graitec since 2015.
Advance steel work on top of autocad, and some limitation of advance is due to autocad limitation.
By the way with advance you have the "power" of autocad behind, (i don't know sds2) but in tekla you cannot create a fast drawing in 2D for approval and have a DWG viewer/editor you have to go to DRAFTSIGHT or get an autocad licence, this is a good point too.
And last bonus, since 2018 you can have Advance Steel in a pack with REVIT/3DS/ROBOT/AUTOCAD (AEC COLLECTION), sure AS isn't at the level of drawing of tekla or SDS2 but with this collection, different bugs and lack of explanation is (i think) compensated with this full possibility of this package.
Again, don't hesitate to post on this forum about your question "how can i do ?" we are here to help you and we can guide you with you will about your workflow.
Antoine
AMG Fechoz
Serrurerie & Equipement Scénographique
www.amg-fechoz.com
