There are many joints (seems to be most of them) that do not work correctly in one or more aspects when a member has mirrored status and thus do not give a truly mirrored result when you mirror a member along with its connections.
Similar issues occur when a joint is applied to end 1 or end 2 of a member - i.e. the connection at each end of a member should be a mirror of each other without having to change any settings.
This means general setting out, plate offsets, bolt offsets, bolt direction and so on.
...the default bolt direction is also often incorrect considering it is important for erection bolt lists.
Joints are another case of things being developed without due control by someone with adequate detailing experience or without considering how the software works as a whole.
Unnecessarily splitting bolt groups in joints (like separate groups each side of a web in an endplate joint) is another example of this since it results in more bolt/hole labels in shop drawings and thus an unnecessarily cluttered and poorly presented drawings.
When developing joints for the UK for a 3rd party developer years ago (I still use them!) we ensured consistency in all areas no matter if the members had mirrored status or whether the connection was at end 1 or end 2.
...and as few bolt groups as possible etc for the best drawing output.
We didn't have to go back and fix things like this - all joints were designed like this from the start based on sound steel detailing knowledge.
Extremely detailed specifications were written leaving nothing to chance and the newly coded joints tested to comply with said specifications before being released.
Why is this not happening?
...so all these things are quite easily possible - it just needs to be considered and dealt with in the joint code.
...and should have been done in ALL joints when first coded!
Here is an example of an old joint that works well compared to a more recent joint where these things have not been fully considered:
https://autode.sk/2Hd4BfZ
This is just one example, but as already stated, there are issues in many (most) joints.
You should be able to just copy and mirror joints without having to continually change settings to make it correct to the original joint.
