Matthew Giampapa

Well the basic SolidWorks package costs what? $3,995? Since the basic VectorWorks package is $895.00. I think you will probably get more with Solidworks, but I think that using the functionality that you do have is a lot easier in VectorWorks. The real question you need to ask is how will you use / learn either package to be more productive. In this respect I think VectorWorks wins hands down. Solidworks is not nearly as easy to use IMHO.

Well I may not be an unbiased observer, but I think that you (defjef) are making a flawed comparison here. Software does in fact become obsolete. VectorWorks 8 was not designed to run on Windows 2000, Windows XP, or MacOS X. Changes in the operating systems can and do effect software over time. Unlike cars, software becomes obsolete because of the environment it is used in. For example, the AutoCAD r14 support in VW8 was great when AutoCAD 14 was a common part of the environment, but now that most users are on AutoCAD 2000 or 2002, it no longer functions as "well" as it did. Unless you are willing to freeze the environment in which you are working, then yes, parts will break. Nemetschek has a great policy, they give out free support longer than they are required to. NNA provides an upgrade path that is much less expensive than your original investment, and if you are unsatisfied for any reason within 90 days they allow you to return their product. Just try bringing a car back to the dealer after a 90 day test drive. Now you knew full and well that when you bought the program you were purchasing it as it currently was, with an 18 month commitment by the company to help you resolve problems with the software. Any updates or additional features added by a point release are just icing on the cake. Now in this regard I think NNA also deserves a round of applause. Free OS X support, a free viewing program for clients, and the 3D PowerPack has been a great deal for VW9 users. IMHO 9.5.3 certainly is a huge improvement over 8.5.2 in every way. If you want to compare it to the 9.0 release, you should at least be fair and compare that to the original 8.0. There is nothing forcing you to purchase a program at the .0 release. Many people wait for initial problems to be worked out with later point releases before they buy. In fact, if you are utterly dependant on your CAD package I would encourage you to wait until the word on the street collectively nods that the upgrade is ready for your needs. Yes, no one likes using a service for YALMF, (Yet another low monthly fee) but NNA is not forcing you to. When you purchased VectorWorks you saw exactly what you were entitled to and had 90 days to make an informed decision. Now if you want other improvements that have cost NNA $ to design and implement, why are you entitled to those without updating to a newer version? Now why was I here? Oh yea to leak^H^H^H^H give jnr an idea when a bug fix would be out... Jim, given that the NNA has not yet released either the Spotlight or Mechanical add-ons for VW10 yet, and that the website states... quote: VectorWorks MECHANICAL 10 is currently under development and is scheduled for release late 2002 and ... quote: VectorWorks SPOTLIGHT 10 is currently under development and is scheduled for release early 2003. My bet would be that a service release will be rolled out with both of these products. So assuming that everything runs at least a month late in NNA land, I would guess that a 10.0.1 release would come out with VW Mechanical 10 around ?January?", and possibly a 10.0.2 when VW Spotlight 10 comes out say ?March?. That?s just a guess based on what NNA has publicly said, I don't have any other info to go on. For all I know they may have a fix sooner, or not release any fixes with the other industry series products. All I know for sure is that the recent trend has been to include all the VW programs on one CD. If your going to update the core program, that would be the most opportune time.

If I recall, most of the crashes relating to a change of colors were due to problems with video drivers. In most cases they were remedied by updating a video driver, or turning the acceleration down in the advanced settings tab. (Display control panel -> Settings tab -> Advanced button -> Troubleshooting tab -> Acceleration slider)

Try turning off the AutoSave feature in the preferences. By default 15 minutes is when that is supposed to kick in. You may have another program running that is conflicting with it.

Rich, VectorWorks 10 should now have the ability to import and export the hatches from autocad files. I presume that a hatch from a Microsation DWG or DXF should work as well.

If your tablet will talk to either the Mac or Windows tablet API, you should be in business. Just remember, VW is not a pressure sensitive app. (It still will work to digitize drawings thou)

Bruce, that was to work around a windows bug where adding fonts in a certain order would cause a font to permanently drop out of the font list. (This was a windows only issue) We have seen a bunch of problems with older fonts on OS X when they do not conform 100% to the true type standard. Apparently MacOS X is very picky about what fonts it will play nicely with. If you have any old fonts that you have just been copying from Mac to Mac, try removing them and contacting the manufacturer to see if a more up to date version is available. (Just like any software, there are usually bug fix release to fonts as well) We have seen this problem in particular with Tekton and Mr. Hand.

By subtrate he means to subtract the inide of the letter from the outer shape. In VectorWorks 8, the TrueType to Polyline command would leave letters as two super imposed polylines so when you extrude them, they would be a single filled in letter. This was fixed in VW 9 and later so you shouldn't have to worry about that step.

Yes, if VectorWorks does not see the dongle, then it does fall back to demo mode. I'm not framiliar with keypro dongles since we do not use them here. You should contact your distributor to staighten this out. If the dongle will not work on more than one machine, there is a high probability that it is either broken or mis-programed.

The cost to upgrade from 8 or a version prior to 8 is $100 more than if you are coming from the same version product combination in version 9.\ We will pass along the request for a simple spreadsheet as well. (But they havn't given us a chart with all the costs yet either.)

If you are using OS X, click the green button the resource pallet. On OS 8 and OS 9 this will look like a miniature maximize widget.

Path objects can be any linear type object. This includes lines, arcs, circles, polygons, polylines, and nurbs curves. Profile objects can be any of these except a nurbs curve. (Actualy a nurbs curve can be used as a Profile as well, but it must be flat on the plane.) The most commong thing that causes a extrude along path to fail is a repeated point along the path, or points along the path in very rapid sucesion.

Your probably right Chirs... Just so things get duplicated too often. You may want to tack any additional ideas to http://www.nemetschek.net/cgi/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=16;t=000480.

Shadowing is much the same in VW 10, the ray traced shadows are quite sharp. However, you may want to try "Custom Renderworks" with shadow mapped shadows. These are somewhat softer in appearance.

quote: Originally posted by 7parella: quote:Originally posted by Matthew Giampapa: C4D translation is still in the works on the other end. If you can hold on until tomorrow I can get a more offical estimate for availability. cool! any news? Actually, I had to pass this off to the marketing departmnet to find out exactly what we can say about the C4D translation. Stewart tells me that they will be able to issue a statment soon, but they need to clear up some details. Sorry it's taken more than a day...

RenderWorks 10 requires that you are running VectorWorks 10. You can not mix and match VectorWorks/RenderWorks versions. They are far too tightly integrated for that to be possible.

Leo, Install Apple's QuickTime software from your VectorWorks CD. QuickTime is required for Image Import/Export and the creation of animations from within VectorWorks.

Josh, VectorWorks "forgetting" its serial number is quite normal. The program stores it's serial numbers in it's preferences file. Now that you are running 10.2, you effectivly have a new system folder / preferences folder. Since VectorWorks didn't find a prefs file in ~/Library/Preferences, it asked you for the numbers again and created a new one in the new OS X location. As for Renderworks going missing, it sounds like you moved the "RenderWorks Library" file out of the VectorWorks folder. Even though it looks like an extension, it does not belong in the extensions folder. It should be in the same folder as VectorWorks. (If you can't find where you moved it, just reinstall VectorWorks and RenderWorks from your CD.)

Mat, To my knowledge there is no key that will let you cycle through smart cursor cues. It is simply a function of which point it detects first. You might want to set your snap radius a bit smaller than the default 5 pixels. This may make it easier to get the correct snap. As for constraining objects to horizontal or vertical, that would be the shift key.

Well, by definition this means that the 3 machines are not "identical". The trick is find out out why... As a first course of action, go in to ~/Library/Preferences (where ~ is your home folder) and throw the VectorWorks Preferences file into the trash. This will reset VectorWorks to the factory defaults, and clear your serial number. If this fails, I would then see if this machine has the same problem printing from MacOS 9. Please let us know how the printer is hooked up, what model printer it is, and what version of the driver you are using... Otherwise there are some other standard troubleshooting options you can try. - Reset PRAM, hold command-option-P-R at startup untill the system repeates the startup chime. - Create a new MacOS X user account and try to print logged in as that user. - Check to make sure that both systems have the same fonts installed. There have been a number of cases where a corrupt font has caused isses in VectorWorks for OS X. If you have installed any fonts that did not come with the machine, remove them and see if you can print.

Yes, in VectorWorks 10, the value that this script is adjusting is now accesable from the preferences dialog.

Is the glass half full or half empty? VectorWorks 9 serial numbers can be entered in upper or lower case. The dashes are optional. There are no o's in any serial number. VectorWorks 10 serial numbers follow the same rules. Additionaly anything entered as an O(h) will automaticaly be entered as a zero. (I belive I's are handled the same way, but will have to check) If you never want to enter a serial number more than once, on the Mac you can make a copy of your preferences file and save that. On Windows you can backup the registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Nemetschek\". [ 09-24-2002, 09:25 PM: Message edited by: Matthew Giampapa ]

Nuke em till they glow, then shoot em in the dark!

The 9.5.3 beta release does not solve the issue with the dongle drivers yet. Once new dongle drivers are available that fix this they will be part of the final 9.5.3 release. Try this link for the updater instead. Since the new web site was put up we have been having a few problems with some pages. http://download2.nemetschek.net/nnapub/mac/UpdateToVW953b2.bin

In VectorWorks 9 you could hold down the control key while moving a pallet to prevent it from docking to the side of the screen. In VectorWorks 10, the docking feature has been made into a prefference you can turn on and off in the preferences.