Travis

Are you moving the referenced drawing layers, perhaps, to align things? If so, when the original file gets updated, the layers move "back" to match. The best way to work with referenced layers from another file is to create layer links. The links can then be moved around on whatever sheet/layer, will reflect updates correctly without themselves moving. My explanation doesn't seem nearly as clear as the picture in my head. Hope it helps.

If I open VW and Adobe Acrobat (6.0.2 pro) at the same time, I always get a crash. I've even learned to do a restart if I've had Acrobat open before I need to work in VW, tho the other way around doesn't seem to be a problem. I can't say I've often wished to have both open at the same time, but it would be convenient. No other application is even close to Acrobat in frequency of crashing (probably about once every three times I open it), so I'm pretty sure it's more the culprit than VW. Has anyone else had this problem and perhaps found a way around it?

I find that I have to exit and then re-enter a Viewport after I've performed a few edits. I might get a dozen dimension lines drawn, or three or four callouts placed, and then the next one doesn't show up. I exit the Viewport, the last thing I did is actually there. . .and I can go back in to continue. I haven't been able to verify a specific length of time or a given number of edits, but it's never very long (maybe a couple of minutes) or very many (always less than 20). The most "guaranteed" way to lock up the refresh is to use the shift-arrow key to move something. After about 6 bumps, it's done. Exit/re-enter, do some more. Is anyone else seeing this behavior? I've tried turning the AutoSave feature to various settings, I've run VW with and without other programs open. Anything else I should try?

If "X" is the referenced document and you're working in "A", you'll notice that when you Workgroup Reference the "X"-layers, they appear in your Layers menus as grayed items. From a design layer that *belongs* to "A", do a Create Layer Link to the grayed-menu layer. From a sheet layer, you'd link through a Viewport. You don't want to do ANY modification, including moving, directly on the greyed-menu layers. At the next update, they WILL change to exactly (and only) what is drawn on that layer back in "X". Hope that's a little more clear.

Does the slowdown happen with simpler geometry? Say using a rectangle to clip from a circle? How did the irregular shapes get created? If they're the result of other clipping procedures, try checking the vertices to make sure there are as few as necessary to define the shape. Sometimes, during clipping/adding operations, extra vertices are created. I've found them to be a problem when extruding. . .maybe they're the culprit. Good luck,

Mike, What a great workaround. Good thing I don't need to dim LoA's very often! Thanks

Wow, Eddie, since I only use the Clip surfaces feature a hundred times most days, I'd be screaming if it caused me to crash. Never had even an inkling of a problem here. How complicated is the geometry? Is it possible something went wrong with the original install? Good luck,

As far as I know, there is no Length of Arc (LoA) dimension functionality. I've always handled it by placing a Callout, but it would be convenient to have a dimension option.

Adam, It is on my Mac. It seems to now be "attached" to the Hidden Line rendering "group" in the Workspace Editor. The net result is that in 11.5, if you have Hidden Line Rendering showing up on your View menu, Line Render Options will be right below it. I wonder if your installation was somehow incomplete. Good luck,

Kevin, Do you really want some installer-writer messing with your custom workspace? I don't. But I agree adding a note about where to find the feature would be helpful on the feature list. Maybe the best thing would be to use the supplied Workspace for a good look around. Then decide whether it's quicker to add the new features you like to your custom space, or to add your customizations to the "factory" workspace. (After rereading your post above, I see you had already come to this conclusion!) Good luck, [ 03-02-2005, 02:27 PM: Message edited by: Travis ]

I've only spent 12 of the last 24 hours staring at my computer screen, with even fewer episodes of banging my head on the plastic trim than normal. (Lots of days lately have been closer to 16 hrs!) I just want to say thanks to the engineers at NNA for this latest update. I'm sure I'll still post things to the wishlist, but I'm very pleased with the candy that came in this bag. The OIP and Resource Browser now respond to the mousewheel, so they can take up less screen real estate yet remain useful. (Score that a 10! Now if only the Classes and Layers dialogs would also respond. . .) I find tools and menus, but especially the OIP, to be *much* faster. (another 10!) I like the cylinder, Sketch, and 3D snap additions. Duplicate offsets improvement is a godsend. If this update only included the enhancements to the Roof, I'd have been happy. Dormers, etc. are much faster and more intuitive. The Roof Framer works better, as promised. (Can I somehow access the Framing Member "tool" directly without having to frame a roof? Its rafter has a 2D component that the "normal" rafter, from the Objects pallet, lacks.) I didn't realize how much easier on the eyes the full-blown Aqua interface is. Good move. Please finish the job with the dialog boxes, etc. Finally, the recent fonts and the improvement to the Call-out tool make my annotations even quicker and a little better looking. Hidden line rendering seems blazingly fast (at least compared to the day before yesterday). The features I've used so far work exactly as expected and explained. Thanks, NNA, for listening and delivering. Now back to work.

Actually, Jello tastes much better with a little citric acid added to punch up the flavor. Same for Kool-Aid. Just the way Mom used to make it. Now I can sketch a lot like Mom used to as well. Have to admit I like the addition. . .

Near the bottom of the AEC menu you should see Framing. . . You'll have to be using the (or one of, if you worked around here) Architect Workspace to get that menu.

Nope. Since I only use Keynotes in a Viewport, I'm through with scale changes by then. I noticed them out of place when I relaunched the file after a day or two away, but the file I had problems with yesterday seems fine upon opening this morning. I'll watch more closely to see if I can find a pattern and report back.

Marke, Jonathan's manuals do a marvelous job of teaching the program from an architect's perspective, but they're teaching about the software. . .not how to be an architect. If you've looked at many different house plans, you'll soon realize there are many "styles" of presentation by various architects and designers. Basically you need a plan with dimensions, a few 'views' in elevation (typically called elevations and sections), and enough details (just how does A fit with B?) to get the message across. You'll learn a lot using the Archoncad manuals, including a bit about architectural presentation, and I would recommend them for your situation. But I'd also study as many sets of house plans as I could get my hands on until you begin to formulate how to convey the ideas in your head to the contractor who'll build them. (Personally, I think everyone who anticipates creating building plans should FIRST have to construct buildings for a few years! . . .in my perfect world. . .) Good luck, [ 03-01-2005, 09:26 AM: Message edited by: Travis ]

I just opened a file I worked on last week to find every Keynote leader shifted. Did we ever get any joy on this issue?

We use this tool extensively and have just a couple of small improvements to suggest. 1) No one I know would miter-cut rim joists, except the occasional carpenter that takes my drawings a little too literally! It takes several extra minutes to go around and butt-joint the rim, so if the tool were to do that automatically. . .what a great help. 2) Please add a max-length setting for the rim. I know you can possibly buy very long rim material (if you're not working with solid-sawn stock), but it's not very practical to have the take-off read (2)-43' joists! Keep up the good work

I have no speed issues whatsoever. Just the "jumping" leader lines. . .which I've addressed in the other thread.

BTW, are you having the problem on Design or Sheet layers? My problem occurs with Callouts placed as annotations in a Viewport.

carpalmer, The leader line will snap back into place if you select the Callout and make any change on the OIP. Apparently the "refresh" is screwed up. The worst part is you have to do them one at a time. Correction, if you've got all your callouts in the same class, you can select by class and refresh them all at once. Good luck, and here's hoping this gets a look with the next update!

I'm having the same problem (should have posted under this topic first) with the keynote leader shifting. I can get the leader and the box to "reassociate" correctly if I change the leader length (even a tiny fraction) in the OIP. Very annoying. [ 02-28-2005, 01:03 PM: Message edited by: Travis ]

In general terms, I create sloped-top walls (use Fit Walls to Roof and/or the 3D Edit Tool in elevation) and then have the Framer "frame" those walls. It has no clue how to handle the top plates at the corner, so I do those manually. But it gets pretty close.

I'm so glad this thread got started! How much feedback would you like, Robert? We've been using the Wall Framer layout as a "guide" only, forcing the crew to rely on the floor plan dims and their own experience to set "real world" RO's. Or they can refer to the door or window shedules, where we list the ROs. That's how we've worked around the accurate-opening issue, but it won't solve the panel-builders' problems. I'll sometimes spend an hour "fixing" studs (mostly, but also blocking) that randomly "flip" above the top plates or below the sole plate. It seems to especially struggle with sloped-top gable-end walls. In addition, I've never run Wall Framer and not had it create at least a few doubled elements in 3D, and the second set will have the active class from when Wall Framer was run. I'll try to explain: There may be 5 cripple studs over a window opening, but Wall Framer will actually draw a doubled set of 5 each. Set Class Options to Gray Others, select the Framer-Stud class and change the line color on all studs. Set Class Options back to Show/Snap/Modify and the set of 5 cripple studs will not have changed color (it appears). Select one of them and discover it's not part of the Framer-Stud class. Delete it, and the "real" cripple stud now shows, with the changed line color. (If it didn't take as much time as it does, it would make me smile. It's like the Framer has a little personality all its own!) This doubling doesn't seem to occur in either of the 2D versions, and seems to like cripples the most but will pick full-length studs. Always a group between or above/below an opening. The doubling is an issue because: We've always had to refine the framing layout at least a little (add extra trimmers under long openings, triple studs under beams above, etc.), so the Take Off becomes useless. We use a Worksheet to calculate the Take Off (using volume converted to bf, etc.) of standard-length studs with an additional total-sum length of Stud and Blocking material req'd. It at least gets us close to actual build quantity. An obvious enhancement for us would be to have the Take-Off dynamically linked to the 3D layer's various classes. That would be powerful. I'd love to see a couple extra options in the set-up. 1) Frame from Left/Right, so I can set the origin of layout; 2)Single/Double Trim studs if opening over X-value (although this doesn't take too much time to fix on one of the views, it's a pain for all three. And we use all three versions [3D, plan, 2D elev]); and 3) MOST valuable would be the ability to select more than one wall class at a time to add/remove from the list. Finally, it would be nice to pick the active class (to which all the 2D elements are assigned, along with the random doubled 3D components) from within the Wall Framer dialog. I've forgotten to set it correctly, been well through the process of setting all the options and then had to decide whether to exit (losing all the settings, especially classes to be framed) or plan to go through everything after and set to the correct class. All said, the Wall Framer is a marvelous tool. If there's enough interest in improving it, we'd be thrilled. Since I've never seen it posted about, I just presumed it was lightly used. Hope this helps, [ 02-23-2005, 03:56 PM: Message edited by: Travis ]

Sorry, friend, but we're set up exactly like you describe your setup and everything works seamlessly. I'd probably try to get a Mac tech specialist to come to your office for an hour or two. It sounds like whatever it is must be related to the OS File Manager (catalog tree?)/VW interface. As you probably know, OSX is written on "top" of Unix. If you're seeing Unix, you've somehow "pierced the veil" to the underlying code. . .not something I've ever had to deal with. (Except once when we had a problem with print drivers NOT going away. GIMP is Unix code, and somehow it bubbled to the top and wouldn't go away when trying to upgrade some print drivers. Drove me nuts for about 3 days!) The only other thing that occurs to me would be to try using one of the other computers as the "server" and see if the same anomaly recurs. Otherwise, you're out of my league. Good luck,

Barry, Make sure you have identical fonts (at least the ones being used by VW) on all machines. Any remapping from one font to another, even between font families (say from Garamond Narrow to Garamond Light, or even between Helvetica and Helvetica Bold) can have unpredictable results. Good luck,