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Option for capital letters in unit formatting

In the list of available labels for units (specifically in the Length category for Imperial units), it would be nice to have an option to label feet as "FT" and inches as "IN", each with both letters as capitals. The company for which I work, and from my experience many other companies, use capital letters for almost all of their text. As such, it would be quite handy to have the labels in capitals as well. This would be useful for schedules set amidst text. For example, my projects have lists of building code requirements, such as "Setbacks" and "Maximum Building Height." Next to these categories, there are schedules placed in which a user provides the answer in the Project Info menu. For Building Height, if I type in a number, let's say 45, the schedule will show the number with the units label I have chosen in the Field Formatting. Currently my schedules have lowercase letters amidst uppercase text, which looks a bit odd (see the image below). If the units label had an option of uppercase letters, this schedule would not look peculiar but would blend in.

 

Sample of schedule amidst text (Building code information)Sample of schedule amidst text (Building code information)

Comentarios
Advocate
Advocate

TLDR: Stop using All Caps.

 

Perhaps you as well as the rest of the construction industry (I'm in the UK and it's the same here) should consider doing away with All Caps altogether?

 

I'll provide some bedtime reading, below, for why you should do this but consider why we use All Caps on drawings:

Drawings were initially hand drawn and All Caps was used to ensure clear lettering no matter who was writing it. Then we moved to computers for creating drawings and everyone carried on doing what they were doing and printers/copiers were not of the quality we are used to today so it was still necessary for extremely clear annotation.

 

Fast forward to today - printers provide crisp, legible lower case text at minute sizes and yet we still do everything in All Caps. I truly believe it is a hangover from when it was necessary and it is unnecessary now!

 

On top of all of this, as below, All Caps is harder to read than Sentence case!

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_caps

https://uxmovement.com/content/all-caps-hard-for-users-to-read/

Collaborator
Collaborator

@CFNBen , I agree the industry would benefit from retiring all caps. Not once did I advocate to continue this tradition. When I freelanced I used lowercase letters and it was quite refreshing and worked well with the software. But there are plenty of people who don't want to change their ways (those who hand-drafted in the '80s and before) and have authority over employees, so... it would be nice to be able to cater to them in this simple way.

Advocate
Advocate

Fair! Apologies for the assumption. I get defensive on this subject due to 90% of the industry hanging on!

 

I would say to Autodesk that they should leave it as is to force people into retiring all caps rather than bending to the old way of doing it.

 

As you rightly point out, the people who are hanging on are the ones with all the power. They don't have power over Autodesk so let's weaponise them in this fight, no?

Advisor
Advisor

I have to disagree with that philosophy.

Much as I'd also love to see UPPER CASE go away, it's up the the industry to enforce that.

I do NOT (yes, I'm shouting there) want Autodesk to decide which standards we should use.

We may happen to agree with this particular "standard", but what if they choose other standards we don't agree with? 

Advocate
Advocate

I agree with your philosophy but don't see another option for getting rid of lower caps. This industry is a joke in terms of willingness to change.

 

I also don't believe that Autodesk changing something from right to wrong so the industry can change by itself is the right way to do it.

Collaborator
Collaborator

As I usually find, conversations on a smaller scale, such as groups of employees talking with their boss(es), are a good way to enact change, rather than larger scale changes such as giant corporations in an industry enacting change with seeming hegemony. At the same time, when people entrenched in the industry for decades, such as the aforementioned bosses, stop their ears to their employees' suggestions for beneficial updates in industry standards, it is difficult to use conversations to effect change. Naturally, the employees will look to other methods, some of which may be quite effective but dubious in the goodness of their other consequences.

I understand the tension and do not have a solution. As it stands, I still want this idea considered but I understand and respect others who hold dissenting views on the benefits of this idea, such as yours, @CFNBen.

Codes often require 0.1" minimum text size. If you give them lowercase letters, that 0.1" will be measured to the x-height, meaning you will need your fonts to be set at 0.18" or so. That's a massive font size. Uppercase allows you to use smaller font sizes that are still scannable and reproducible, while meeting code. I personally do not uppercase titles and larger labels. But normal text body in uppercase as a rule.