Jeff Bonny
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Posts posted by Jeff Bonny
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Solved this by exporting with DXF/DWG indexed colors instead of true colors. Close enough to be acceptable.
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As per client request I’m trying to do DXF exports that preserve custom text colours in a title block they keep exporting as black. Am I missing an export setting that will preserve the text colours? Converting the text to filled polylines works but since every title block contains drawing specific coloured text I’d like to avoid doing this for 78 sheets.
Thanks.
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2 hours ago, rudybeuc@gmail.com said:
But with Service Select, they do get money every year.....
But now VW doesn't feel the same pressure provide an impressive yearly update to justify the yearly Service Select cost for people who could at any time stop funding the beast while continuing to use the software albeit sans support. Which is funny because a lot of us would have preferred, and continued to pay for stability and speed updates with new feature updates coming out only when they were really useful, really stable and smoothly integrated into workflow.
Vectorworks, I know you're watching and want to tell you about a conversation I had this afternoon with one of the top set designers in Vancouver. This person is a 20 year VW user and was only vaguely aware of the end of Service Select and completely unaware of the price hikes that will put it to rest. When I said I wouldn't pay ransom for a corpse and just use my "perpetual" licence from now on she said, "Until they turn it off... they can and they will just like other companies have who've gone this route." Despite the assurances this won't happen people don't trust you. That VW has gone from being the gold standard of entertainment industry design with Spotlight to this is astonishing. Almost every word I can think of to describe it starts with mis. The rest are unprintable.
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I've purchased Rhino. This is partly about the cost moving forward. But more than anything it’s a choice not to continue a relationship with a company whose faulty sense of direction has caused it to disregard the fundamental needs of its customers. I regret not cutting my losses sooner.
You’re a good bunch here. Thanks and best of luck to all.
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On 9/27/2025 at 1:36 PM, Jeff Prince said:
one way to use Revit on Mac is by accessing virtual machine service like Microsoft Azure. It works great via the Mac, giving you the best of both worlds.Rhino works great on Mac or Windows.
I’m pretty frustrated with VW and Rhino is one of alternatives I’m looking at. You have any hands-on experience with it?
The only reason I have time to be on a web forum right now is VW has been spinning the wheel of death for over 20 minutes. What’s with 3D software that won’t run any better on a 2025 Mac Studio 32/80 core M3 Ultra with 256gb of RAM than it did on a 2017 iMac Pro?
Oh, VW is back online and I’m back to work… this sort of pause shouldn’t seem as normal as it does.
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On 9/14/2025 at 1:10 AM, ndavison said:
Hi Jeff, thank you for your dedication to using Vectorworks over the years. I have answered a few posts here and I am not sure how to be more clear or transparent but we have no intention of turning off perpetual licenses/using our authentication system as a way to remove perpetual license from users in the future. We don’t make product updates to previous versions of software and it is not realistic for us to remove our security system from older versions of software, however, I can assure you (and others that have concerns about our call home feature) that there is no intention to use it in a malicious way.Thanks,
Nicole
Thank you for the reply Nicole. Pardon me though if I’m still angry at the only choices being either to use 100% unsupported software or drop my pants.
In a dwindling middle class economy Vectorworks failed its users by not trimming fat and shifting primary focus to stability and general workflow. For the last several years I’ve anticipated every new release with some dread. They’ve been buggy through the first couple of service packs and while a few new general features have been good many have seemed either completely inapplicable to my field or I’m too busy to stop making a living and incorporate them into a well established workflow.
It’s disappointing that the VW braintrust didn’t see the writing on the wall a decade ago or if they did failed to respond creatively to the market. Ten years ago 90% of the dozen or so set designers working on big budget films like Tomorrowland and Star Trek Beyond were using Vectorworks. I’m about to start a mega budget HBO series with ten+ set designers and only one is on Vectorworks. I see 0% of the new generation of film people using VW. Why would they when a SketchUp subscription is less than $100/year and Rhino is a one time purchase for $1000? Are these inferior to VW? Of course they are. But are they adequate? Of course they are. Both have improved drafting functionality and Rhino is not bad modelling software. SketchUp still seems very clunky but it’s far from the industry joke it once was. An increasing number of people are making decent careers with it. VW is trying to be competitive but the yearly subscription cost is nowhere near low enough to be close. All forcing subscriptions has achieved is to alienate the longtime customers the company has relied on. Spotlight users may not represent the largest portion of revenue but we’re important. I’m certain the basic gist of what I’m saying applies to many VW users across the board.
Ok, I need to get back to work. Bottom line is I would have continued my VSS subscription with a reasonable yearly increase over five years before things moved to a subscription only model. But the coercive, likely panic driven company-before-customer thinking it took to abruptly veer off down the enshi*ttification highway ensures no more revenue from me either out of pocket or by word of mouth. If it’s not obvious yet to the geniuses calling the shots how badly they've **** the bed it will be.
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I feel betrayed. I committed to Vectorworks twenty years ago even though the financial viability of that choice was uncertain. I turned down a watermark hacked educational version choosing to support the development of software I would use professionally. Later, through Covid and two film industry strikes totalling about three years of almost no drafting work I maintained my VSS subscription. Long-term career plans depended on VW so I continued supporting the company despite it being a hardship at the time. My drafting work has largely been expanding the use of CAD design into the film grip world where it hadn’t been significantly used. Both privately and through IATSE, I have always promoted VW as a powerful tool for departments other than just Art for set design.
Now, the company I’ve supported since 2006 is spinning the deal to its favour at the expense of its customers. No matter how slick and sincere sounding the spin is, a subscription model is bad for customers who become too heavily invested to easily switch software. This level of investment describes many if not a majority of VW users. Creating that kind of customer with the predatory intention of making them financial hostages is inherently baked into the subscription software model. Cory Doctorow coined the term Enshi*tification to describe this kind of corporate behaviour. The enshi*tification phenomenon is broader than just subscription software but here’s a sobering commentary from a software developer on how it applies to subscription software. It reads like a Vectorworks case study.
While this goes much deeper than just one old man’s sob story my reality is this subscription model will cause hardship. Like more than a few people who've spent their lives working in the entertainment biz I don't have much retirement savings or a livable pension. I’m 64. The plan within the next two or three years was to discontinue my VSS subscription and use the perpetual licence I'd faithfully renewed for over two decades to do a small number of freelance jobs to make a meagre retirement less difficult. Now, not knowing if VW will honour the spirit in which the product was sold and all that perpetual implies I'm forced to accept the possibility of a hard future. I hope the perpetuity of my licence will be honoured but given the content and tone of the responses from VW it doesn’t seem a safe bet.
The lack of transparency about what a perpetual licence will mean in the future provokes questions that need answering. From the vague, incomplete explanations thus far it seems there’s something intentionally not being said. The “make them an offer they can’t refuse” gangster style price coercion to give up your perpetual licence right now speaks of a shortsighted corporate thug mentality and sets clear tone. Given this, a legitimate fear is the phone-home handcuff feature being used to turn “perpetual” licences into smoke. @E|FA has asked about that possibility and for complete clarification on the future of perpetual licences more than once in this discussion. That no answer has been given appears to be the answer. The intent to do away with perpetual licences overtly or by effect within three years is clear. If that’s not correct and discontinued perpetual licences will be honoured in perpetuity without support or additional cost as they have been to this point, and without any new restrictions please say so in simple, clear and binding terms. If you won’t do that you can’t be trusted.
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Well I'll be darned. Thanks E|FA for pointing this out.
I only use that menu occasionally to convert text to polylines. Having it in the Object Info text dropdown would be more convenient (and obvious to people who don't read release notes) but it's there and that's what matters.
Thanks VW for doing it.
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On 1/17/2016 at 4:54 AM, PVA - Admin said:
Adding this to the existing request. This one is dependent on some of our text/character handling tech being replaced but it's pretty much considered a "this has to happen" feature.
Anyone still holding their breath waiting is dead.
Designing a title block with a client this morning we had to go to Word to preview fonts. I had no good answer when she asked why the process was so convoluted. In that moment neither of us cared much about all the other amazing things Vectorworks can do.
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I'm creating end user drawings for a new film studio complex with over twenty sound stages, support areas, offices, parking, site features etc.. Working from the architectural AutoCAD drawings it's necessary to create a new class/layer structure. I've been working with VW for about twenty years as a main part of my income but large drawings of this type are a bit outside my wheelhouse right now.
- Is there a streamlined way to duplicate a class with its subclasses?
- Is there a way to edit multiple classes that have identical subclasses so that one edit modifies all? For example adding an HVAC subclass with specific line properties to all Stage parent classes. I'm picturing something like the result of editing a symbol.
- Is there a way to edit the name of a parent class without individually renaming all its subclasses?
Thanks.
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Of course. Thanks.
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Edit. Request retracted.
Pat's workaround posted below is 100% sufficient. The development people have better things to do than write code for a new way to do something VW already does perfectly well.
To be able to use any field that accepts editing of a number by adding or subtracting to it by typing in a +/- number to also accept editing by +/- percentage.
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I've been looking at this issue for several days. I started typing my first post without thinking about what I know VW can already do and where the real workflow bottleneck is for me regarding classes. My needs for overriding pre-designation of classes only extends to symbols which as you point out VW already does. And even there it's only marginally useful as I often end up putting them in other classes. For example if there are several hundred shackles distributed throughout different parts of rig it's very likely that at some point I'd want to turn off some while leaving others visible.
The question here is controlling visibility. After a couple of decades of using VW I've found that while grouping is very useful simply creating in the intended class is often the more efficient strategy. I've just designated a keyboard command to open the Organization window which gives access to activating a class (and much other useful stuff). My only request would be to have it (and all keyboard activated menus) pop up under the mouse cursor as does a right click menu. It's a small thing but having gone to the increased real estate of a 32" screen my aging eyes find swinging the mouse around to hit a target more inconvenient than ever even with the mouse accelerated.
It's easy to settle into what you know even if it's not working as well as you'd like. My big takeaway from examining this aspect of my workflow is to remember that VW is a massive playground that very often offers multiple ways to get a result. Then to look for methods outside my comfortable habits, try some different things and really zero in on what changes to ask the devs for.
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Being able to easily have a symbol be automatically created in a specific class something I'd use extensively.
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I'm in Vancouver and can help you get going.
Text or call if you're still looking.
Jeff Bonny
cell 604-817-1753
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Is your 2025 Resource Manager completely empty or are the folders are there and you simply can't access anything in them?
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1 minute ago, User-B said:
UE is playing a big part in virtual production for film and video. As virtual production becomes more of an out of the box solution the technical knowledge is becoming less of a hurdle. I suspect that DMX controlled lighting inside UE will play a bigger part moving forward as well. Software like VW is a natural part in the process as UE is not purpose built for set design. Bringing in VW sets with full lighting designs and DMX patching seamlessly will be a leap forward.
I wonder if Unreal Engine will ever include .vwx imports? While AutoCAD and Solidworks are the standard in most industries VW has been the entertainment biz benchmark for set and lighting design.
What settings did you guys use exporting to Unreal Datasmith? Did you set up your builds in VW any differently to accommodate Unreal Engine?
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With the film biz going through major changes Unreal Engine has been a consideration. I'm all ears for this conversation.
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Thanks for all your videos Jonathan.
After watching the Custom Units on Dims vid I created custom units of millimeters in a document where the default units are inches. But in the Object Info Palette the length of a dimension changed to mm is still displayed in the doc default inches which seemed counterintuitive. Then I discovered that any dimension length regardless of the chosen units can be edited in the Object Info Palette in either metric or SAE simply by noting the particular unit in the edit (',", m, cm, mm etc.). After entering the edit it will still display in the doc default units in the palette and onscreen in whatever unit you've chosen for it. By selecting the dim you have at a glance the measurement in both the default and selected custom units. Very useful when dealing with industries that regularly mix metric and SAE.
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A way to better use Vectorworks with an iPad is long overdue. It could be a wholesale reworking of Nomad to streamline workflow but I'd favour a new app that can expand to comply with the rapidly improving hardware. iPad Pros are almost Macbook Airs now and in the future could run a well managed full version of Vectorworks. But that is at the very least a couple of generations off and shouldn't be in anyone's immediate plans. In any case something that will run on lesser iPad models is necessary anyway. I use an iPad Mini because the smaller size fits in a coat pocket and it's light and easy to use walking around a site making notes.
An iOS version of Vectorworks does not need full functionality to be useful.
What it does need is basic 2D editing functions, the ability to create new basic 2D drawings, easy to navigate 3D viewing, stellar annotation capabilities in 2D and 3D and highly functional import/export/file management to and from the full version of Vectorworks. I'm exporting multiple PDFs to the iPad, opening them in a PDF app (which all kinda suck) annotating the revisions onsite and exporting back to Vectorworks. This is clunky, inefficient workflow that clutter folders. I'd describe it as stopgap.
Tablets are improving rapidly. People are relying on them more. The software needs to keep up. Period.
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1. It would be useful to expand the Truss Tool to include the pin ans spigot connection used by Christie Lites and Arcofab. See attached drawing.
2. tt would also be useful very to be able to choose ladder or V bracing for any given side. The ladders on this type of mixed bracing truss are used for climbing access and as lighting points both of which need to be shown on drawings.
3. For the sake of accuracy internal diagonal bracing would be nice to add but that's a lesser concern.
Also is there a way to create specific truss configurations and save them as symbols?
I'm asking for these updates because I regularly use 12" medium duty Arcofab truss from a local rental house that there are no symbols for. It would be nice if Therio Innovations would provide symbols with structural data for the entire Arcofab catalog instead of the minimal pieces they've made available thus far. Last time I spoke to them they would still build anything from that catalog and there is a great deal of it still in use.
Thanks.
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I'm working with someone who wants to start using DEVONthink to database the files we've created though multiple seasons on a TV series. The current season is wrapping soon and over the hiatus I want to set this up for next season. Does anyone using this software have any thoughts on using it?
Thanks
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On 1/17/2016 at 4:54 AM, PVA - Jim said:
Adding this to the existing request. This one is dependent on some of our text/character handling tech being replaced but it's pretty much considered a "this has to happen" feature.
Seeing that Jim^^^ hasn't logged in for two years I'm kickstarting this thread hoping that someone will charge the batteries in the company give-a-**** meter and finally resolve this problem.
It's been seven years less a week since this was posted and there's still no font preview in the dropdown menu. I'm working on a freelance job this morning part of which is building a company logo title block. The client has been vague on the topic of fonts and has asked me create several different samples to show. I was just about to start the utterly craptacular process of using Word to preview fonts and realized I've freakin' had enough of it. The absence of font preview has been a source of frustration for years and I'm completely fed up with the serpentine workflow it imposes. Annotation is a core part of drafting and the attention given to crafting its workflow should reflect that.
Please add font preview.
Please also add the ability to edit the fonts list down to a Favorites list as @Grethe Connerth suggested.
Her request to be able to highlight text being edited and have it change while scrolling through available font options would be incredibly useful too.
Requesting a fix for a horribly convoluted workflow is not lazy or frivolous. It's essential and long overdue.
The absence of these features is wasting people's time and costing them real money.
Read through other threads with ideas like improvements to font mapping, adding
strikethrough, streamlined editing of dimension fonts, the ability to toggle box bordering text from the Object Info palette and it becomes obvious there's some work to be done. Development of efficient annotation in Vectorworks has lagged compared to other aspects of the software. It doesn't need to be perfect but it needs to be a lot better than it is right now.THANK YOU FOR CONSIDERING THIS AND DOING WHAT YOU CAN TO ADDRESS IT.
/rant
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@jeff prince that's a very generous offer! I'm waiting for the complete land survey info from the landowner and I'll get back to you in the next few days. Thank you!
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Vectorworks abandoning perpetual licences
in General Discussion
Posted
This could have been really great. It would also have attracted a new generation of users and no doubt lowered one of Vectorworks' enduring hurdles: obscurity. Perhaps the decision makers will weight this idea against the current short term fantasy and realign with their customers.
I want Vectorworks to succeed.