After completing all possible inputs in the wizards, the user must enter detailed mode to complete any remaining inputs. While users could skip straight to detailed mode, most beginning to intermediate users and most advanced users will agree that the wizards should be utilized to their maximum.
In order to use the detailed mode, users must go to the Mode menu and select “Detailed Data edit”. From there, users may view several modules as discussed in the introduction. At this point, a user may create, delete, or edit existing components. For simplicity, we will start by discussing component creation.
Creating, Copying, Linking
Creating components in eQUEST is simple. In fact, users may create components using multiple methods, and there are multiple options when creating components.
To create an item, a user must first select the corresponding module (i.e. select the Building Shell module to create a Window).
Once in the appropriate module, there are two common ways to create a new component:
1) Right click the Project name and select the component to create 2) Locate an existing component, right click the component, and select “Create Another...”
After selecting the option to create a new component, eQUEST prompts the user for additional details. In General, these are “Creation option” and type.
Types differ based on each component, but the creation option feature stays consistent within eQUEST. The three common options are:
Create from scratch: This option allows users to create a new option that does not use values from existing components. When creating components from scratch, eQUEST prompts the user to enter the required values.
Link to an existing component: “Linking” to a component creates a clone of that component. However, these components are “linked” and therefore, changes made to the original component will automatically update in the linked component. (However, changes made to the linked component will not affect the original component, so users must distinguish the two)
Copy an existing component: This creates an independent duplicate of an existing component. Since no link exists, changes made to the original component after copying do not apply to the copied component, which differs from linked components
NOTE: When linking and copying components, users may see a “create and link/copy all assigned components”. Checking this box creates duplicate components (for simplicity we will call them sub-components), of the existing item. For instance, if a construction type is copied and this box is checked, all materials in the original construction will be copied and given default names (with the user option to rename them). Often, this box remains unchecked, as the user does not need copies of existing (sub-)components.