PeterT

Have you tried: PROCEDURE SetDrawingRect(paperWidth :REAL; paperHeight :REAL); Is this what you are looking for?

grahamc, This can be done quite easily with VectorScript. Just create a new script in the VectorScript plug-in editor, choose "Command" for the type (this is the default), give the script a name, like "Print B & W..." or something similar, and paste in the following code: SetPref(10, TRUE); DoMenuTextByName('Print',0); SetPref(10, FALSE); Save the script, and using the Workspace Editor, and add this script to your workspace in the file menu. Put it right below "Print...". Now when you want to print in color, choose "Print...", when you want to print in Black and White, choose your new menu item, "Print B & W...". If you print this way more often than not, you can reassign the key command ("Command-P") to the new menu item. I know this works in VW 12.5. I do not know about VW 2008 or 2009, but I am pretty sure it would still work if you upgrade. Maybe someone else can confirm that they did not change anything in VectorScript that would break this code. If you have never used VectorScript before, this is just one example of the many things you can do with scripting.

If by "Huge" you mean thick instead of long, go to File/Document Settings/Document Preferences/Dimensions/Dimension Slash Thickness. This will globally change all slash thicknesses in that drawing file. If you mean long, and not thick, dimension slashes are controlled by the "Dimension Standard" being used, which displays on the Object Info Palette. If you select your dimensions you can change them to a different standard in the pull-down list on the OIP. If you already have a dimension standard that draws correct slashes in a new file, just select one of these, and see what standard is being used. If you change the bad dimensions in your imported file to this same standard, they should change to look the same. You can also go to File/Document Settings/Document Preferences/Dimensions /Dimension Standard, and choose the dimension standard you want future dimensions to be drawn with. This is also where you create your own standard if you are not happy with the ones offered, or edit any existing custom standards. To do this, click the "Custom" button. Here you create a new custom standard, or select and existing one if there is one, choose "Edit", and in the custom dimension dialog box, choose the slashes, and in the bottom of the marker pull-down choose "Edit". Here you can set the slash length for your new dimension standard and save it.

Your script runs O.K. in version 12.5. I do not have v.2008 to test it, but it appears that you variable n is not being assigned a value between 1 and 255 which would be needed for the Insert or Delete calls. Pos('.',Area); is probably returning a zero. I know that the HArea function is obsolete as of v.12.5. Perhaps this is the problem?

With my mouse, pushing the space bar pans, and pushing the "C" key zooms. Ahh, the simplicity of a one button mouse........

Raymond, Thanks, that was a rookie mistake. My brain just could not see it. I wrote the plug-in a long time ago, but did not notice the problem with it until recently. It took a lot to get back into the plug-in to search for the error as the full code is 750 lines. I now have the plug-in commented much better so the next time I have to mess with it, I can find the offending section faster. And thanks for pointing out that I should get the subroutine call out of the IF THEN clause entirely. You gave me several examples of how I can shorten my code quite a bit. Some day, I need to go back into many of the scripts I have written and clean them up.

The 3D poly code is only part of a much larger plugin, but I have reduced it to just the 3D poly portion. I have tested this stand alone portion, and as I stated before, if the parameter OpaqueGlass is TRUE AND FillPat(1) is called, the Draw3D Glass subroutine draws two 3D polygons instead of one. Procedure Glass; {Parameters: Width: DIMENSION Height: DIMENSION HeadHeight: DIMENSION OpaqueGlass: BOOLEAN } VAR Width: REAL; Height: REAL; HeadHeight: REAL; OpaqueGlass: BOOLEAN; {---------------------------------------------------------------------} PROCEDURE Draw3DGlass; VAR x1, z1, x2, z2: REAL; BEGIN x1:=(-Width/2)+2; z1:=HeadHeight-2; x2:=x1+Width-4; z2:=z1-Height+4; ClosePoly; BeginPoly3D; Add3DPt(x1,0,z1); Add3DPt(x2,0,z1); Add3DPt(x2,0,z2); Add3DPt(x1,0,z2); EndPoly3D; END; {---------------------------------------------------------------------} BEGIN {Main} {Set attributes} PushAttrs; FillFore(0,0,0); FillBack(65535, 65535, 65535); PenFore(0,0,0); PenBack(65535, 65535, 65535); FillPat(0); PenPat(2); PenSize(1); Width := PWIDTH_OF_WINDOW; Height:= PHEIGHT_OF_WINDOW; HeadHeight:= PHEAD_HEIGHT; OpaqueGlass:= POPAQUE_GLASS; BEGIN IF OpaqueGlass = TRUE THEN BEGIN FillPat(1); Draw3DGlass; END ELSE FillPat(0); Draw3DGlass; END; PopAttrs; END; RUN(Glass); You will have to place this code in a Plugin and add the four parameters in order to test it. That is why I at first was just asking if anyone knew of any anomalies about drawing 3D polys inside of plugins.

I have a simple PIO that draws a 3D Poly, and it has a parameter to draw the Poly with either no fill or solid fill. If I place the PIO in the drawing with no fill set as a default parameter, it draws one 3D Polygon with no fill, as expected. But when I place the PIO and set the parameter to solid fill, the PIO draws TWO 3D Polygons with solid fill. Does anybody know what is going on here? Why am I getting two Polys instead of one? I am working in VectorWorks 12.5.2.

What happens if you turn on Vectorworks Preferences/Edit/Full screen cursor? Do you see the full screen cursor as white?

The Batch Convert menu command will do all the conversion work for you, but it only goes back to version 7 or 8 files, I think. But on the Nemetscheck web site you can get the version 9 File translator, which I believe will translate version 5 or 6 files to version 9, then you could use batch convert on those files to 2008. You can get the File Translator (version 9) here: http://www.nemetschek.net/downloads/fundamentals/index.php Going ths far back though, there may be some anomalies with the converted files, I would use with caution.

This is a nice feature that I missed as well, but when I do this, the result in Mail is an attached Tiff file not a PDF. Perhaps there is a preference setting somewhere in Mail. I do not know of any preference settings for the Clipboard, but I will look there as well. Using Petri's method I get a PNG attahment, as I expected.

Katie, I did this from version 12.5 Architect. I do not know if this is different in version 2008, but you can do the same test on any machine. And it does not seem to matter what printer is used, since for this test I just printed to PDF and I still got the double arrow heads. Ideally it would seem to me that the arrow head should be the same in all of the different examples, but it is different in every one.

I have noticed some oddities with arrow heads as displayed in viewports. If I draw a line with arrow head style #1 on a design layer, the arrow point occurs at the end point of the line. But when I display this in a viewport, the line extends slightly past the point of the arrow head. This is barely noticable when printed, so I have never really noticed it before, but it does not seem right. But what is very noticable is if you render the viewport in Sketch mode, and have the sketch mode set for line overstrike, the line extends way past the arrow head, and worse yet, when you print this drawing, on the output, there is a double arrowhead, one at the true endpoint of the line, and another at the endpoint of the overstrike extension. Can anyone else confirm this? It would seem to me that sketch mode should be designed to not overstrike the end of a line that has arrow head in the first place.

Agreed, Why should a locus diplay any lineweight at all? As Raymond stated, It should display the minimum line necessary to be visible. And this should not change at any level of zoom or any scale. And you should not be able to change the linewieght through any means, after all it is a marker, not a drawing object. I believe that this is the way it was in previous versions of the software. I have sent something to bugsubmit on this.

My loci are in the None class, and the None class linewieght is set to 1 mil, and I still have loci with line weights of 9 mil, and NOT by class lineweight. It is interesting though, that you can assign a different lineweight to the locus by giving it a class lineweight, but once you do this, the locus is now stuck to display class linewieght and cannot be set back to a standard lineweight via the attributes palette. i.e. You cannot get rid of the little arrow even if you uncheck the "Use" checkbox for the class it is assigned to. So even if you are not using any class attributes for that class, the locus will still take the lineweight by that class until you reassign it a different class. So I still say this is a bug. If you cannot change the linewieght of a locus other than by using class lineweight, then how did I end up with loci displaying 9 mil not by class lineweight? And when you place a new locus in your drawing, it comes in at a lineweight of 1mil, not using class lineweights, so I think it is an additional bug that you can change the lineweight by class. From what I know, loci are just markers and should not display at any other lineweight than the default 1mil.

When I place a locus on my drawing it comes in at 1 mil lineweight as viewed in the attributes palette. If you try to change this value the locus will not accept the change and it reverts to 1 mil. The question is, why do I have loci in some of my drawings that have a lineweight of 9 mils? This is a bit annoying because you do not have to zoom in very far before a 9 mil locus becomes a black blob on the screen. These 9 mil loci will also not accept a lineweight change by the attributes palette, so the only way to get rid of them is to place a new locus at the same point and delete the old one. Has anyone else noted this behavior? Is this a bug?

O.K. the right left. The other thing is, make sure your top most palette is actually touching the dock. Even a one eigth inch gap, and the window will resize under the palette to the dock.

I think the 24 refers to the width not the height. I have made icons that display at least 24 pixels in width, but I don't seem to have any taller than about 18 pixels

In VectrWorks Preferences/Session Tab do you have Palette Margins set to Left? That should stop the window from resizing under the palettes on the left.

Do you instead mean you want to modify a template after it has already been created? If so, just open the template to a new untitled document, paste in your items, and save the document with the same name and in the same location as the template and replace it. Your new template will now contain these new items. Alternatively, you can navigate to the template file on your computer, delete the .sta from the end of the file name, open the file and make your changes, close the file saving the changes and add the .sta back to the file name. A template file is really just a normal VectorWorks file with a .sta file extension. The .sta just forces VectorWorks to open the file as a new untitled document. If you remove this file extension, it will just be a regular file again. I work on a Mac though, so I am not sure, but I think you have to add a .mcd file extension to get the file to open as a normal VectorWorks file on a PC.

You can set the short cut for any tool in the Workspace Editor. Go to the menu Tools/Workspaces/Workspace Editor, and edit the current workspace. If it is one of the standard provided workspaces, you will have to edit a copy and give it a new name. Once in the editor, choose the Tools tab, and in the right side, navigate to the tape measure tool. It should be inside Tool Sets/ "Dims/Notes". once you find the tool select it and type the key of your choice as the shortcut. If the shortcut is already being used, it will ask if you want to reassign it. I believe the "=" key is already assigned to the Mirror Tool. but if you prefer it for the Tape Measure just reassign it.

I have to agree with Islandmon. Different users work on different sized displays, and the more singular the window becomes, the less control the user has as to how much actual drawing area real estate is available. At least with individual palettes you can windowshade them or minimise them, or close them if you are not using them, or move them out of your way if they are blocking something. I work on a 23" display at one workstation and a 17" display at the other. The movable palettes allow me to customize the palettes to get the largest drawing area on either display.

We do predominantly residential work so our structure is set up for that, but you could set up catagories for any or all constructoion types. We set up our broad categories by siding material as this is a good break for us, but we could divide it differently if we chose. We have a hard copy binder structure that parallels our CAD folder structure. For example, we have one book for stucco (Book 1), one book for wood siding (Book 2), etc. Within Book 1 we then divide out 10 sections, 1-1 would be Roof Elements, 1-2 would be Windows, 1-3 would be Doors, etc. Inside these sub-category sections, we then switch to letter abbreviations for the third level catagory. So for example, inside the section 1-2 Windows, we have divisions of 1-2.WH Window Head, 1-2.WJ Window Jamb, 1-3.WS Window Sill, etc. These are the VectorWorks files themselves. So then the 19th detail in the Stucco Window Jamb file would have an index of 1-2.WJ.19. This would then be both the layer name of that detail in the file, and the index number we would write as text on the detail drawing just below the detail title. The title of that detail then might be "Window Jamb at 2" recess", or whatever the specifics are of that 19th detail. If you wanted, you could get the full drawing title abreviated into the layer name, but after we get deep enough in the folder structure depending on the number of details in that category, we make that the file level and switch to a layer numbering system. That way we can stack the layers in the file according to the numbers, and it is easier to get to a specific detial in the file if you know what its index number is. If we start getting too many details in one file to be managable we would then split the category into two files and re-do the index numbers and come up with a new section in the binder. We have not had to do this too much, as VectorWorks files can have a lot of layers before we find them too hard to manage. As for the viewports, we do not currently use them for our detail sheets. We started this library long before Viewports were available, and with the detail library in a different file than the construction doc detail sheet, the cut and paste approach works well for us.

We have never used symbols for our detail file system, but a library could probably be set up in a similar fashion, using files for broad categories, and symbol folders for sub-categories with in the broad catagories. The system we use is to put each detail as its own layer in a detail file. We turn off the visibility for each layer as it is created, such that only one detail is visible at a time, the one on the active layer. This way you can quickly scroll through a hundred or more details by holding down the command key and hitting the up or down arrow key to move up or down through the list of layers. Also, as each detail is on its own layer, the details can all be at different scales. We create a file for each category of detail, and these categories can be as broad or specific as you wish. Then we create a folder structure of all the various detail files organized by a category prefix. We give each layer a name composed of the file catagory prefix followed by the index number of the detail. We then put this same prefix as text on the detail drawing just below the drawing title. This way, when a detail is printed out, either individually, to place in a set of reference binders matching the CAD library catagories, or on a sheet of details in your construction documents, you can find a detail on you computer by checking the printed prefix for each detail and navigating through you computer folder structure to the correct file, opening that file, and going to the layer with the correct index number. Another nice feature is as your detail library expands, to create new details, you can open the correct detail file, find a similar detail to the new detail, copy this, and paste in place on a new layer and start modifying from there. Even if you are drawing a new detail from scratch, you can at least paste in place and modify the detail name and index number so that the details will stay in the same location on each layer. This facilitates flipping through and viewing the details by the command/arrow system. To get these on our drawings we just create a detail sheet with one layer for each different layer scale, and copy and paste the details from the library to the correct scaled layer on the sheet. You could also use Workgroup Referencing, but then you will end up with one layer for every detail on your sheet. I do know others who also use symbols for their detail libraries, but we have always done it as described above. Either way, I think broad categories separated into sub-categories by prefix and index number both in the folder structure and placed on each detail is a good system. I see the plus of symbol details as the ability to view thumbnails of you details in the symbol library, but we like the ability to quickly flip through full size detials using the layer system. Maybe others could share their systems as well. Ther are many different ways to set up detail files.

Katie, I Thank Nemetschek greatly for adding this one small feature. I am one of the people who has been requesting this for as long as I can remember. Now finally, the greyed layer or class can actually be used for what I assume has been its intention all along, to not only display on screen as grey, but to be printed as grey at a useable level in the output for anyone, on any printer. This one feature alone might be strong enough reason for the 2008 upgrade!