The first phase in a Girder System Rating Project is to establish the framing plan of the girders and bracing in Layout Mode (the menu system starts in this mode in girder system projects.) File:New Project automatically leads the user through the girder system layout wizard upon the selection Girder System Rating Project. The user must select Generate:Girder System Layout after the series of questions for the layout input has been completed to generate the framing plan. When it is necessary to modify the girder system layout input, either to correct input or customize the generated layout, the user can go to Define:Layout where a menu will open to the various areas of layout related input, or simply edit the layout input by right clicking in the input window. The user then must Generate:Girder System Layout again to process any changes that were made. Note: it is essential to correctly establish the girder spans, horizontal curvature, and support skew to establish the girder spans while in Layout Mode since these cannot be changed after leaving Layout Mode. (Bracing can be moved, added, and removed after progressing past Layout Mode.)
The second and final phase of a Girder System Rating Project is Rating Mode to which the user switches the project by selecting Mode:Rating Mode once the framing plan layout has been generated. Girder and bracing dimensions, properties, and various other settings then are specified using the Define and Settings menus. When all five of Define:Layout, Slab, Loading, Girders, and Bracing have been defined (and correspondingly show a checkmark on the menu) the girder system can be reanalyzed with Generate:Analysis/Rating.