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Kevin C

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Everything posted by Kevin C

  1. This may be possible to do - but I have never managed to find it: What I would like to be able to do is the ability to drag individual components from say one wall style to another. The reason being, in order to create a style you either have to start with one of the predetermined styles (which, no offence intended - are pretty useless) and add / delete new components at the same time as remembering what class, fill, hatch, rendering style etc. you want for each component you wish to change. What would be the ideal is to move from a generic wall / floor or roof style to a custom style without having to go round the entire building and start from scratch. There are far too many different custom styles in the libraries - it is the components which matter. I don't know how the engineers intended styles to work, but would it not be possible to 'drag' a component from the resource manager into the style (and bringing with it all of its attributes that have been set previously). Remember level of detail is critical in the overall process and I only want to move on to a higher level of detail when the project is ready to do so, the problem is that each style (whether wall, floor or roof) has to be created in advance and once it is created - it is very inflexible. Adding components to a style is not straightforward, you have to know all the attributes (I.e they need to be written down on a piece of paper or something) and added manually for each component - could they not just be dragged from one style (or a component library) to another with the attributes already attached. Items like plasterboard - should be on the same class for the entire building (unless you are specifically wanting different types - fire rated / acoustic etc.), so we should be able to drag a component from either a library or from one style to another (wall, floor, roof etc.). If I'm working in Uniclass (or any other standard which I want to use) - I want to be able to bring components in with the right classes and attributes, not spent hours ensuring that each component is correctly matched (I have a view that this is one of the reasons why so few people use standard classes). Also, when creating anything in Vectorworks, it would be really useful to be able to select using a 'pull down' instead of having to create using a blank text box each time.
  2. Jim, I think you are being extremely generous calling it bugs. The roof tool has now gone from extremely inaccurate, unpredictable, non-user friendly and a tool that was very difficult to use for anything other than a very simple design sketch to something which is totally unstable, it continually causes VW to crash, it cannot be rendered, dormer windows don't work - I could go on. I am getting sick and tired of it being users problems for not being able to use what should be a straightforward tool (and not just the roof tool), a member of my staff was having problems with a file last week and I told him to contact VSS - he was told to send the file, and someone would look at over the next couple of days - I have a business to run, I cannot afford to wait a couple of days as I already know the . That is not acceptable - give us a tool that works and does not need 'workarounds' to make it work. I have spent nearly the whole weekend looking at this file and apart for the continual crashing - on all machines, it doesn't render, it loses it roof style, the dormer function is an absolute joke.
  3. I've kept trying the custom stair tool - and now I remember why it doesn't work. There are a number of basic flaws in the tool that have never been rectified - especially as all work on it stopped when the new stair tool that was meant to solve all problems (which it didn't) appeared. The custom stair tool is of no use when constructing a timber stair (with a winder) as it cannot seem to draw external stringers properly The stringers also bear no resemblance to anything that would be built and usually continue beyond the stair It cannot draw handrails that can be represented in 3D that are of any use - albeit the new stair tool is only marginally better, but at least it can draw newel posts.
  4. Found the custom stair tool - doesn't work for that type of stair
  5. Jonathan, The custom stair no longer exists in VW 2018 (or has it been hidden away).
  6. Looking for some help. There are a number of situations where I am creating a stair and the number of risers on the first flight will be less than 3 (sometimes 0) Example: In a domestic situation where the stair starts on a winder - this is currently impossible to achieve as the winder requires (in vectorworks) to be preceded by at least three risers. I have tried to many times and never managed to get round this problem. First picture shows what it should look like (manually drawn - and constructed / passed regulations etc.) and the others shows the best I can achieve from vectorworks. Any suggestions??
  7. Has anyone else noticed that when doing a batch revision with the Title border on a sheet, only the sheet that is active at the time is updated and you manually have to pick each sheet and select the title border , select the revisions and 'click' on the OK before the 'current revision number' on the sheet is updated? Also, when doing a batch pdf export and selecting the current revision number to be appended - the pdf file is invariably named with 'none' as the suffix and not the revision letter. I am using 2018 SP3 (Build 418943)
  8. Please tell me I am being stupid, but I am getting sick and tired of having to remember to basically reinstall my entire system every time there is a service pack upgrade. Examples: Title borders - I do not use VW title borders, I have my own. I would very much like to have the whole office use the same file so that we are all on the same version every time. But in order to do that I have to make sure there is a copy of the title borders in each person's user directory. After the last service pack update I have now lost total access to my title blocks - I have to open up an old drawings and copy them over in the resource manager - Not very efficient workflow. I do recall reading in the Techboard that there is a way to update resources. I am not a computer engineer, I have looked and looked for it, but I cannot find it so I am stuck. Can VW not be directed to a network folder to access company resources and have local files removed? I have tried over many years to do this, but for some reason everything defaults to local files and each time you install a service pack - it writes locally and does not allow the resources to be networked.
  9. Alan, You have hit this right on the head - That is my point. However VW openly advertises that it is designed to produce GA drawings (plans, sections and elevations that are accurate and suitable for purpose - without having do anything to the model - to a scale of 1:50. It clearly cannot do this as at this level of detail we are expected to show doors and windows in the correct position within a wall, with a reveal etc. I have always said that VW (or any of the other design tools out there) will never be able to do this. I am just sick and tired of every year getting told of product enhancements that are going to improve my productivity - The door and window tools are probably the poorest and most problematic plug-ins that VW has. I have no issues with drawing full scale details (1:5 / 1:10) and referencing them and attaching full specifications etc. It would just be nice for VW (as don't get me wrong, it is a very good piece of software) to admit what it can and cannot do. Some examples: Inserting Door and Window using styles - Works great until you start adding components on to the walls, its then fails miserably when you try and make any changes (everything resets to default) Drawing roads - Works great until you have a corner or a bend, or perish the thought, change the road type to a shared surface then back to a normal road. You should be able to simply draw a polygon and convert to a road (with the road widths varying to suit what you want) and being able to add pavements / cycle paths / service strips etc. as and when you want. Currently, I have to draw all of my site layouts as simple lines with hatches in 2D and not even think about using a site model. Don't get me started on roofs - good for sketching, but nothing more.
  10. I have now been using VW Architect since 2008. Each year I get told of the improvements to modelling and other enhancements which make my 'workflow' easier and that I should be able to produce construction drawings directly from the model. I am afraid to say, that to my knowledge, VW is not able to create a working section drawing that can accurately reflect an opening within an external wall construction or even how a roof intersects with a wall without having to completely mask out the junction that VW creates an impose a 2D hand-drawn section over it. The problem which I have is do I continue to accept that VW cannot do this, or are VW going to put their hands up, admit the software doesn't do what they say it does and get it fixed. I have already mentioned in previous posts that Or do I start looking elsewhere for something that does work???
  11. Nikolay, Sorry - I've just noticed that you said "autobuild folder", which if I am correct, means the folder that is created by VW. I added my title blocks to that folder and guess what they don't appear - Also, when I delete the VW title blocks, they still appear in the resource manager (but are no longer there as they have been deleted) and mine do not appear - they only ever appear in the drawing which they currently exist. The only way for me to get a title border in a drawing is (from what I have seen and tried) to open a previous drawing and direct the resource broker to it and then copy to.
  12. Nikolay, A bug report was submitted this morning. On the location of the standard title blocks - where was this shown in the documentation? Very strange location. I made the title block folder a shared dropbox folder, with the master copy on the server - Not ideal, but it works. Would have liked to be able to direct the libraries to a server folder directly - but you don't allow that. Any reason??
  13. Nikolay, I have been too busy (trying to earn a living) to respond the the last few posts on this, but - I tried that. The revisions in my case go upwards no matter what formatting is chosen in this new title block settings (believe me I have tried) - As I have now said a few times, this 'enhancement' was rolled out with absolutely no consideration of the existing users. My title blocks are created using a custom block and graphics (not anything from VW) - something that was promoted by VW as part of the design series versions of VW to which I had added fields which linked the drawing number to the sheet number, the description to the sheet name and so on. This allowed my drawings to be formatted and issued in a very similar way to what the new title block settings do for 2018 - I can no longer do this as you have removed the facility to keep using our old title blocks for legacy projects and forced us to change the way that we operate. As a result, I cannot use any drawing that was created in 2017 in 2018 as I am unable to issue a revision to a drawing - unless you think it is acceptable that I throw everything out of the window, explode the title block and manually do revisions as text??? Putting this catastrophic 'xxxx-up' to one side - VW has also removed the possibility of having office standards. All new title borders in VW2018 are machine and user specific and the only title blocks which can be accessed seem to be VW title blocks with no way of sharing them apart from manually copying them from drawing to drawing as there is no guidance whatsoever on how to share them - I have tried to find the location off the title borders - with no success, they seem to have been hard coded into the software. This is still a major problem - can someone please provide some meaningful guidance to do at least the following: How to remove the VW standard title blocks and replace them with our own - We don't want your, they are of no use How to import custom title blocks that utilised the VW revision box made up from previous versions of VW (say 2017) and either retain their functionality - and I mean the revisions, or import them in a working format into the new system How to share office standards (again specifically with title blocks) for more than one user and machine. Kevin C.
  14. Also, Can someone please advise where custom title blocks are stored - and how can they be made available to the rest of the office?? I do not use any of the standard title blocks (never have done) as they are not fit for purpose. Take as an example - Where is the standard attribute box do we input the client details? - Do you not have clients? Is there a way that they can be deleted from the system?
  15. I am in agreement with Haydenovative on this one. This is the first time in all my years of losing vectorworks that a new version has lost significant functionality. A lot of the 'improvements' which have been brought in over the years have been brought in in such a way that we have been able to adapt and change our workflows over time to suit, but this change in the title border is fundamental to producing drawings. Other supposed improvements like Marionette (which I have never had the time to even look at), have been brought in a way that as users we can choose whether to use or not, the title border is a cornerstone of producing information and is required every time I create and issue a drawing. There are so many other things which Vectorworks could and should be concentrating on fixing, this should have been way down the list. There was not much wrong with the title block, it just needed a few tweaks to get it perfect. Vectorworks should have given clear guidance for this change when 2018 was released. I would like to see what the brief was that was given to the Engineers for this, as it has either been completely ignored or the brief was wrong.
  16. This is not uncommon. I have had 2 different ways of solving the problem - don't know which is better. (I'm operating an iMac). For some reason VW struggles when zooming and scaling pdf's - annoying but always solvable. I just zoom in to or scale the pdf then cut the pdf and paste it back to the original position (then send to back) - This usually works Save, close and re-open the drawing - this also seems to work when the first option doesn't want to play ball. Kevin.
  17. All (including Jim). I decided to take the plunge and roll out VW2018 after the SP1 release at the weekend - I should not have done so. There are still major problems with 2018. Title Blocks - The issue raised previously by me has not been corrected. In fact, when one of my staff tried to 'update' an old drawing, we found an even more serious problem. If the title block / sheet used the revision box (which I have done on every project since VW 2008), the revision box disappears on the updated title border. It now has disappeared altogether. The revision data is still there, but now there is no way of showing the revisions without creating a custom revision box. I tried to recreate the revision box manually, but the text formatting will only go upwards irrespective of the formatting chosen in the title border setup - this is potentially a hang up from the original revision box setup. This is unforgivable and whoever overlooked it should lose their job. I can see myself having to backwards save everything to 2017 and reinstall last year's VW in each of my mac's - I had to delete the old program due to lack of hard drive space. I know that VW cannot move backwards, but do the engineers at VW not test these things in the real world. I am aware of 2 VW Beta testers who both have one thing in common - neither of them use VW in real world scenario's (they are 1 an academic and 2 a VW authorised trainer). These are the worst people to test the software, they do not operate in a real world situation and have no comprehension that the vast majority of work is done whilst working with legacy drawings and bringing things in from previous projects (and libraries). I have not had the time to check whether the shifting title block has been fixed, I am only assuming that since the forum is now quite on this matter - the problem has been solved. Another problem which has surfaced is the crashing. 2018 is crashing regularly and with consistency. Take for example trying to match properties - specifically walls. I have a library of wall types, different walls for different clients etc. Trying to match properties with the eyedropper seems to force a crash nearly every time. Jim, there are some serious issues with this release of VW and it needs to be sorted. I even resorted to phoning the VSS priority support line and while the guy was helpful to a point, there is nothing that they can actually do without getting a copy of the drawing, interrogating it for a day or two, then admit that there is an issue and then raise it as a bug with VW. To finish off, can someone please tell me what actual improvements in the software have been done for this year (I'm talking specifically VW Architect) I have seen: Multiple Drawing Views / Direct Section and Elevation Editing - These are just catching up to what everyone else has been doing for years, they are very pretty, but dare I say won't offer much of a product enhancement Improved Graphic Output for Architectural Documents and Robust Wall modelling - It will probably be Christmas before I have the time to even look at this. Improved Revit import - What about Export??? Streamlined Drawing distribution - I'm sorry, this is a joke - It just doesn't work These are some of the improvements which I would like to see. The problems with the doors and windows which was hinted at? What has happened to these A working stair tool - One that allows me to build a stair that can cater for more than a 2 storey building A handrail tool that allows for 3D and 2D - Ie a handrail that wraps round a stair / stops and starts where I want it to. Notes tool that actually works - I do not know anyone who uses the notes as you cannot format notes and you cannot import from word (for example) Ability to create a section that can be extrapolated to a detail level (showing components - like independent cills and lintels) Ability to parametrically model floors, walls & roofs and edit components individually - having the ability to add peaks and troughs to each component These are not sexy - but will make everyone's life a lot better. Kevin.
  18. Jim, I have no issues with the new Title Block setup, once you get around the dialogue boxes (which there are a few) because VW is trying to bring together issues / revisions and borders - which is a good thing. It is relatively straightforward, even adding custom data fields - or swapping out the old for new ones, The 2 problems that still remain with the custom title block are: The shifting of the title block to the page centre. This is actually a VW created problem, as every title block that I have created has always been 'locked to page centre' I have never shifted the title form origin. I do not even change the drawing origin because of all the previous issues that VW has with shifted origins. It is normal for say a site development drawing to be located at a position which coordinates can be derived from and related to. This means that site drawings will never be anywhere near 0,0. The inclusion of the 'none' text field when the dataset is empty. If there is no revision on a drawing, it is issued without a revision. As I have said before in this post. I am currently unable to roll out VW 2018 for these 2 points, there are some other minor glitches which others have mentioned re 2018, but I hope that these will all be sorted in SP1. I can work into the late hours of the night re-positioning viewports and drawings (which will take weeks if not months) to suit a title block which has had the page re-centred by the software, but if I ask my staff to do it, they will expect to do it as part of their daily workload, which I will have to pay for and not get any fees for in return..
  19. I was finding VW2018 crashing when trying to update an unstyled wall to one from my library. VW crashed every time I used the eyedropper - so I don't think it was dwg import based. the drawings were 100% native Vectorworks.
  20. I am currently unable to use VW2018 due to constant crashing - seems particularly when using the eyedropper tool when matching properties. I am waiting till SP1 comes out before I will consider rolling 2018 out to the rest of the office. There are a lot of very annoying bugs in 2018, the biggest one being the title block fiasco.
  21. You have to convert them to the new format. I am now unfortunately in the position where I am unable to roll VW2018 out to the rest of the office as there are too many issues with 2018, it is also crashing a heck of a lot, specifically when using the eyedropper tool matching properties of walls to predefined wall types.
  22. Agreed, We do not live in a perfect world where conventions are always followed by everyone in the design team. We have to get the job done quickly and efficiently and most importantly make a profit, or else what is the point.
  23. This is a bug - not new to 2018. It happens when you have internal or external components and want to position doors or windows in walls 'properly' and not rely on them being centred in the structure. I will have to be honest it is a hit and miss whether VW spits its dummy out on this one. If anyone has a solution for this one - please let us know. K.
  24. Thanks Samuel, Just tried that and it seemed to work for one file (10 drawing sheets had to be re-centred). To solve it this is what I did. Draw a rectangle around the 'printable area' then group everything inside the original sheet page Double click "Move page" on the basic tools palette Move the group to the relocated page location Ungroup and delete the rectangle Seems quite a lot of faffing about to move forward - especially as VW has caused the bug. The issue with the empty datasets in the title block displaying as "none" is still a big problem.
  25. Robert, I am not sure what you bean by your response. I get the fact that the formulas and coding have changed - that is a relatively simple fix. Does not get round the problem with the "none" data value being displayed when no revision is present in the drawing though. Unless 23.0.1 means service Pack 1?? If this is the case - When is it being released? The throwing of the title block away from the page centre is a major problem as I will be unable to upgrade my office to 2018 with this bug. All of my projects have title blocks which are locked to the page. When I set up a title sheet - I do not choose the location of the title block; VW does it and always has done. If I have to start and redo every drawing sheet (there are thousands) because someone has decided that they don't care about existing users, I do not now how I can continue. This is quite serious for me, I need a solution.
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