Kevin McAllister
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Posts posted by Kevin McAllister
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27 minutes ago, JustinVH said:
I use a Bluetooth number pad and have it to the left of my keyboard. I am right handed but do all my view changes and number data entry on the Floating Data Tab with my left hand. I never take my right hand off the mouse and have reconfigured all my keyboard shortcuts that use more than just a single key to be left handed only.
Love this. I've often wondered about getting a number pad I could use on the left. Thanks for sharing!
Kevin
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23 hours ago, EAlexander said:
To be fair - I use the NUMPAD for 99% of my navigation, but others in my studio rely on that drop down. My students all have laptops, so they don't have a NUMPAD.
Curious about your NUMPAD. My keyboard has one on the right, and I've tried to use it for views in the past, but I try not to be constantly removing my hand from the mouse (I'm right handed). In the end I've found using the mouse more efficient since my hand is already on it.
Kevin
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6 hours ago, EAlexander said:
I just downloaded 2024 as a client is using it. Soooo much empty real estate on the right side of the view bar and yet, everything on the left is squashed in there. It's maddening! It would be great to have the ability to pull the vertical lines between the view bar groups and space things out as needed.
View and Visualizations - the things we go to most in my studio are now all the way to the left and snapping and scale - the things we use the lest are all the way to the right. I was so happy when the snapping palette went to a locked function in the lower right corner - feels like a real regression to move it back to the top. The icons I can deal with, but the general layout stuff is frustrating.
The placement of views way over to the left is difficult. I've added it to my right click menu and I'm trying to learn to use that instead. Now I wish there was an abbreviated view menu chunk that excluded isometric views....
Kevin
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2 hours ago, Peter Telleman said:
That works brilliant! Thank you very much, never used intersect solids before.
Intersect Solids and Solid Section are pretty powerful tools to learn. They can make some pretty complex geometry that can't easily be modelled in other ways. 😊
Kevin
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Hello,
Last week I had a random call from someone introducing themselves as my new Service Select Account Representative. Today I received advanced notice that my Service Select costs were increasing $580 over last year, an 80% increase from one year to the next. I must say I'm in shock. I've been a Vectorworks user for 30 years and a long time Service Select subscriber and I've never had a cost increase like this. I understand the need to raise prices over time but this seems very excessive, especially given the current financial climate.
The irony that I'm still using VW2023 because of the inflexible mode bar update is not lost on me.
Kevin
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Well worthy of a bump.
KM
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9 hours ago, JuanP said:
@Kevin McAllister Up through the 2023 product cycle, we referred to any release during a version as Service Packs. This coming 2023, Service Pack 8 will be the last time customers see the phrase Service Pack used. Beginning with 2024, all releases during a version cycle are referred to as Updates. This is a common terminology used by many subscription-based softwares around the world. Update better reflects the fact that releases during a version cycle for Vectorworks may contain bug fixes, feature updates, or even new features for our active subscription and service select customers.
I hope that clarifies.
Thanks for the info! Makes sense.
Kevin
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Hello all,
Can someone talk about the new terminology of "Updates" rather than Service Packs? I'm curious how it came about and what it means. And how do point updates (ie. Update 1.1) differ from full updates (ie. Update 2). There's clearly a new approach and I haven't seen it explained anywhere yet.
Thanks,
Kevin
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I've been struggling a bit with my transition to Vectorworks 2024. The compressed nature of the view bar is struggling against my muscle memory for items that used to be on the right hand side such as drawing views. I'm excited about the UI modernization but it needs a little more flexibility than it currently has.
C4D still has the best interface customization I've seen. The user has almost complete control over where things go and how they appear.
Kevin
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5 hours ago, MHBrown said:
I have 2023 SP7 and have downloaded VW2024, but how do I install it? It asks for a serial number, I put in the number I have, and I get an invalid serial number message. It is not invalid. I have paid my money. Why can't I install the new version? I can't find any "how to" information anywhere.
Any advice?
Mike
You'll need to log into the Service Select portal and get your updated serial number from there. VW has serial numbers specific to each new version.
Kevin
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Just now, fabrica said:
@Kevin McAllister I put a few similar tools together (long click to open) to shorten the top bar ...
I actually want to dock my palette as is - two rows aligned as I use them. Its generally organized 3d tools on the top / 2d tools on the bottom. Yes, I could change it to be organized as a single row, but I've used it this way for ten years or more so I know where to find everything easily. The horizontal palette uses up much less space than the vertical palettes at the side of the screen and is better organized.
Kevin
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Bumping this again. Still can't dock my horizontal palette across the top and have it hold its layout.
This is how I currently use it floating in the drawing -
Because this is what I get when I try and dock it -
Kevin
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On 8/18/2023 at 7:55 AM, Kevin McAllister said:
This looks awesome. I"m guessing @Stephan Moenninghoff was involved.
Can I dock a tool bar across the top yet? I've used horizontal tool bars forever and this has been my biggest wish....
Kevin
Docking tool bars at the top is still a bit of a dud. Here's my current toolbar and what happens when I dock it. It should be able to dock without changing its aspect ratio or reflowing the tools. I also tried docking more than one palette next to each other but that's not possible either. Tool position is important.
How I like my tools organized (undocked to do this)...
Vs. what you currently get when docking....
The idea of rearrangeable tiles extends to the mode bar where everything is justifying left instead of being able to be placed where a user wants it across the mode bar.
Kevin
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The link to the Vectorworks page has been gone for a long time. Just like the link to the Bug Submit page 😊
Kevin
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7 hours ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:
Hello @Kevin McAllister,
In VW 2024 in the Publish dialog there is a column for the Sheet Layer stacking order. If you sort by it you should get the same result as the navigation palette.
Let me know if this helps.
Best Regards,
Nikolay Zhelyazkov
This is so exciting! I've installed it but I haven't setup my workspace so I'm not using it yet. Here's some incentive to make it happen sooner. Thank you!!
Kevin
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There's some degree of irony that I first published this wish in 2015. This still frustrates me every time I use the Publish dialog. I have no idea why the sheet order in the Publish dialog and the sheet order in the Navigation Palette Sheet List work differently. Why can't this be made consistent?
Here's today's example. First the publish dialog sheet layer list (which is a dog's breakfast) -
And my sheet layer list in the Navigation Palette (nicely organized) -
Could this at least make it on the Road Map?
Kevin
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18 hours ago, Tom Klaber said:
Design Layers -> Layers
Sheet Layers -> Sheets
Renderworks Textures -> Textures
Definitely needed. Renaming Renderworks Textures to Textures is way overdue. And being able to display the Tab Style as Text Only for things like the Navigation Palette is pointless with long names like Design Layers and Sheet Layers......
Kevin
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Serial numbers have appeared in Service Select and the current download version is Vectorworks 2024 - SP0.
Kevin
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4 minutes ago, uglycat said:
So will anyone answer if windows gets the new UI improvements other than just the dark theme?
I"m sure it does. The Vectorworks interface is the same across both platforms. The only reason why dark theme was different was because on a Mac it's operating system based.
KM
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5 minutes ago, zoomer said:
I thought AO is part of the scene lighting setting.
I usually do RW Global Illumination Renders,
so I activate my Ambient Light (but set it to zero) just to get access to AO.
(30-50%, distance 0,5 m)
AO also works in Shaded Mode.
In VW I use AO mostly for Shaded Mode as my RW Renderings were usually
done in C4D where AO was a separate Render Effect (?)
It is part of scene lighting but its controlled differently depending upon the render settings of a sheet layer viewport. Renderworks render setting styles control it directly. For shaded render mode you need to set it by clicking the Lighting Options button for the viewport itself. Shaded render doesn't have direct controls using the Background Render Settings button like Renderworks does.
KM
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55 minutes ago, Tom W. said:
I agree. Although not sure what would be more logical: to include these settings as part of VP Styles or allow Shaded RW Styles as I've seen requested a few times e.g.
In its current implementation it would need to be part of Viewport Styles, since its an option for the viewport under Lighting Options....
KM
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20 minutes ago, Tom W. said:
Isn't Ambient Info controlled by the Renderworks Style? Or do you mean we need an option for Shaded Renderworks Styles?
I mostly use the Shaded style (formerly OpenGL), which doesn't control ambient occlusion. I think ambient occlusion is only controlled by Renderworks rendering styles. Its all a bit of a dogs breakfast of organization. Likely why people wished for Viewport styles, to bring it all under one umbrella.
Kevin
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Do viewport styles control lighting options like ambient occlusion? The inconsistency of how this is controlled by render settings is one of the reasons why render styles weren't a successful as they should have been....
Kevin
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51 minutes ago, James Russell said:
However I've also found people aren't aware/appreciative of the slightly hidden 'sticky suspended snapping' shortcut (done by a quick double-tap of the ` key), which I've probably committed to muscle memory in lieu of your suggested GUI/interface change.
I definitely use the sticky suspend snapping, which is what prompted the wish 🙂 People who trace over a lot of bitmap scans will understand the need for both......
Kevin
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Snap to Lever Arm - or fix rotation lever arm length in the Rotate tool's HUD
in Wishlist - Feature and Content Requests
Posted
I'm all in on this one. Often drawing arcs to get the intersection point.
Kevin