ccroft

Ivan, After reading my post it occured to me that it might be clearer to simply show how I was thinking of changing the script: IF ii=i THEN BEGIN FOR j:=1 TO i DO BEGIN GetPolylineVertex(h,i+1-j,Myp[j].x,Myp[j].y,Myp[j].z,d); END; END; h1:=NextSObj(h); h1:=NextSObj(h1);???????????????{added to original script} IF h1<>NIL THEN BEGIN i:=i+1; FindP(Myp[i-1].x,Myp[i-1].y,h1,ii,Myp.x,Myp.y); Myp.z:=0; END; Del_Points (Myp,i,.2,.2,MyP2,i2); DrawPol(Myp2,i2); h:=h1;??????????????????????????????{change from original} END; layer ('new Lines'); END; And as I said before there's very likely a glaring flaw in my logic...

I've never tried this, but if you want to skip every other poly it would seem to be simply a matter of repeating: "handle:=NSObj(handle)". h:=FSActLayer; gets handle to #1 (in your script) h1:=NextSObj(h); gets handle to #2 (in your script) h1:=NextSObj(h1); should get handle to #3 (add to script right after above) And then towards the end you need to iterate h to #3 handle before going thru the 1st loop again: replace h:=NextSObj(h); (in your script) with h:=h1; (The way I read it, "h:=NextSObj(h);" is the same as saying "h:=h1".) The next time thru the main loop: h1:=NextSObj(h); gets handle to #4 (in your script) h1:=NextSObj(h1); should get handle to #5 I still can't test this and there may be something wrong with my thinking. If that's true I'd be happy to have it pointed out, but it seems to me that something along these lines should work.

Hi Ivan, I'm not currently some place where I can actually run this script to see it in action, and my knowledge of poly drawing isn't good enuf that I can visualize what you're doing. So a couple of questions: The script works on a set of selected objects, correct? Why can't you just select objects 1,3,5 instead of objects 1,2,3,4,5? Do you still need to join 1,2,3,4,5 but process them in a different order? "to join a set of Polys consecutively.." I don't see something that determines the order in which the objects are processed. As written it would seem to be by stacking order...the order in which they are drawn. It's entirely possible that I'm just missing this part (the ordering), so if it's there please point it out. That's to say how is 'consecutive' determined?

I've never used CIS, but this might be related to clip surface where the result of the operation is not LNewObj as Pat suggests. You might be able to use LNew just before the combine command, and then use NextObj after the combine to get a handle to the resulting polyline. That's one way around the clip surface situation.

What mac OS?

I use a point to point copy plugin that I got from VectorBits, and use the included vWorks tool as point to point move. Have you tried the old tool from 12.5? The one I'm using I got way back in 11.5.

Niiice! As a 'person often in the field' I find this highly offensive, and ask that this post be deleted. Not really. But what a Jack-A*%!!! This is the kind of attitude that gives architects a bad name.

I would also say that in that particular shot (since we have a camera) you're a little too close to the ground. For something like that I'd want to be pretty much in the center.

Num2Str, Num2StrF Str2Num, ValidNumStr

Just to add to what's been said already: The value of A exists in the file whether you assign it to a variable or not. Variables do not retain their assigned values between runs of the script. They only exist while the script is running. With each run the handle is re-assigned to the variable A, and as Pat has pointed out the actual value may change as conditions in the drawing change. And since each time the script is run the handle to the object is retrieved afresh, we don't really care what the actual number value of the handle is. All we care about is that we are getting the handle to the correct object.

Well, since nobody else is weighing in I'll see what I can do. I know next to nothing about Spotlight. Is 'Lighting Device script' something that comes with Spotlight? If not, where did you get the script and how is it run? When did it last run error free? What may have changed since then? This kind of error can be caused by a number of things in the script. I can't see anything wrong with the small snippet supplied by the error report. Some likely possibilites are: a spelling mistake a variable declared as one data type and used as another a variable used in the script but not declared All of these could be checked by comparing the variables used in the script against those created in the VAR block. It can also be caused by improper punctuation. The error may be in a chunk of script immediately prior to what's in the report. I'd need to see a fair bit more or the script itself to have any hope of finding the problem.

Records and worksheets are saved in the file as resources. I find it best to set up a template and start there. All drawing preferences,layers and classes are set up in the template ready to go as well. You can also save a blank file from that template and make it a 'favorite'. Then these become available for easy import to any file. If you build your symbol libraries in that file then they also become resources for import to anywhere. I find that storing symbols in a library like this is easier to maintain than keeping them in a template, because if you need to modify that resource you don't have to open the template make the change and re-save. You can also easily replace a symbol in an older file with an updated one. So I do both a template and a library of resources.

"How come Cadimage which I think is from NZ makes all the great ArchiCAD add ons and ArchiCAD does not?" "Nope, but I'm puzzled to the relevance?" The relevance may be on the financial end. The Cadimage package costs almost as much as vWorks. It's good to have discussions about all the things software should be able to do. It's interesting to think about how much all that development will cost, and what price future users will be willing to pay to cover that. How smart can an object be? I think it can be as smart as the market can bear. In the future, if I can afford it, perhaps I'll buy a software package that has enough intelligence that I won't even need an architect! :-) I hate 'smileys', but I want you to know that I'm not disputing, arguing or trying to do much of anything other than sharing something I've been thinking about while reading Christian's wish list, and I'm hoping he won't take me apart with one of those multi-quote rebuttals he's perfected...(not that he'd need it)

It happens to me when miss-type a shorcut and accidentaly change the view. Just have to hit the correct one to get the plan back. In fact, all sorts of things can happen if you get going too fast and start hitting random key combinations!

If your running architect, there's a fairly exhaustive collection included in 2009. Vectorworks>libraries>Objects-Building Architecture & Interior>Detail-Moulding Profiles Copper Beech Millwork..vwx Don't know for sure that what you need is in there, but it probably is. You can always modify one of the existing polylines.

This is a nice example of something that I did not know we could do. "Vectortasks: where a dream you dare to dream really can come true." Thanks Pat!

Call me crazy, but I have no schedule for restart or maintenance. I get restarts for software updates and that's about it. At one point I had 120 days of continuous uptime. I think that was running 11.5 in 10.4, but I'm not sure. My habits are just as bad in vWorks 09 and 10.5. I do quit and restart vWorks occasionally though. There's a little signal I get when it's time to do that. The print dialog starts to take an unusually long time to appear, and if I don't quit the program soon I will get a crash. I've never checked Activity Monitor on this, but it's probably a memory thing. I do have a fair bit. I run vWorks, tunes, officeTime, a little p-Shop, a bit of Aperture and all the usual stuff 6 to 8 hours a day. Crashes/freezes are very rare. I don't, however, work vWorks over a network or do much 3D work. Mostly on intel MacPro, with a bit of mini thrown in.

Ah...sorry for stating the obvious. I thought that maybe you were using the same criteria in 'Grand Totals' without limiting by layer and possibly running into problems with that. 11 worksheets with 10 or more tallies. That's a lot of cell referencing to 'Grand Totals'. I feel your pain. I have a system that does a similar amount of work for a cabinet shop, but I don't have to isolate by sheet. I assume you saved all that work in a template for future use and won't have to go thru all that again. As for learning and implementing vScript, that has it's own special brand of torture if you're not already familiar with a programming language. I've written a couple of tools that run around the drawing gathering and processing info, and writing to worksheets as dumb text. You gain far greater control, and you can manipulate the data in ways that you simply cannot in a spreadsheet or database, but I'm not sure it's any less tedious up front. A healthy interest in puzzle solving helps a lot in that endeavor. Seems to me you have that in spades.

I was playing around with databases and viewports in 11.5 and I realized that this is only about design layer viewports. Something that everyone else probably already knows. Neither 11.5 or '09 will report on objects that are viewported to a sheet layer unless they are placed as annotations and INVIEWPORT is used. This is good, though maybe not all that useful. Since 11.5 we've gained the ability to reference external files thru design layer viewports, and obviously we need the ability to report on the objects therein. So far so good. The trouble is that this is not the only way in which folks use DLVP. They also use them to reference geometry on other layers in the same file, probably for presentation purposes. So to put a finer point on my wish, what we really need is INDLVP criteria so that we can control the reporting of objects in the viewport, based on whether the viewport is showing geometry that is already in the file or not. Or maybe just a smarter INVIEWPORT that knows not to report on objects in a viewport that are already in the file. The 'smart' criteria is what is truly needed, because there are those who will have both an externally referenced DLVP and an internally reff'd one, and wish to report only on the objects in the external viewport. Maybe they shouldn't be using design layers for presentation, but that's the beauty of vWorks, right? We invent our own ways of using it. All these different kinds of layers and viewports are starting to make my head swim....and I'm having a deja vu. I think this whole thing has been spelled out before. Or maybe it's the wine.... I just notice there's 6 spiders on the forum!

So if you have an include that lists a bunch of self-contained procedures as well as constants for use in other scripts, you might run into syntax problems in the including scripts, depending on where you place the directive. Seems like a good enuf reason to keep your includes segregated by type of code: all procedures and functions, all constants and so forth. Miguel, I think you're right about the when and why. I've never been close, so copy and paste has been my method for recycling code. The other main use of include seems to be in developing .vso to bypass jumping in and out of the plug-in editor. That's really my only experience with it. Gentlemen, I thank you!

That makes sense Pat, but why is it listed as an option in the database criteria editor where we really need it to deal with entire viewports and not just the annotations? What might be in a viewport annotation that one would wish to report on in a database worksheet? Everything else you see there makes ultimate sense. It's great to have control over components of symbols and plugin objects, but why viewport annotations? And here's something. I just opened 11.5 by accident to check on exactly what is and isn't listed in the criteria editor and low and behold in that version it says 'Viewports' instead of 'Viewport Annotations' as listed in 09. More evidence to make me wonder if INVIEWPORT might be broken I'll have to check later on to see if it solves double reporting in that version.

Ozz, I'm not entirely sure if I understand your file structure, but it seems to me that you could reference the cells from the worksheets on each sheet into 'Grand Totals'. If you're not familiar with worksheet referencing, the formula is: WorksheetName:cellPosition. So Grand totals would have a worksheet cell with a formula that resembles: =Sheet1:D3+Sheet2:D3+Sheet3+D3 and so on. I use this sort of thing to reference totals out of a worksheet that contains a bunch of database rows into a 'Grand Totals' worksheet for further processing. The difference being that I'm reffing different cells in the same worksheet. I don't see a reason why this wouldn't work with numerous worksheets. One thing to watch is that this formula is very literal. IE if the worksheet name in the formula is the slightest bit different from the actual name of the worksheet being reff'd nothing happens. I set this up so long ago that I can't remember for certain, but I think this might extend to capitalization and spaces as well.

I'm hardly an expert on $include (or programming for that matter), and I have a question about this. If the include has no global variables, then as DWorks says it's good to go. So you need to construct the 'modules' as fully formed procedures, complete with formal and variable parameters for passing data from and to the main script. Then in the main script you call your procedures from the include and use them exactly as you would the 'pre-made' ones we're all familiar with, using the globals declared in the main script. Does this work as I think it might? Can you have an include that's just a list of modules like: Procedure DoSomething(data1,data2:Real; Var: result:Real); Begin data1:=whatever; so on and so forth; result:= the ouput of all this; end; What would be the limitations of this if it does work? At what point does it become unwieldy?

As per this and earlier discussions: http://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=121414#Post121414 If this is implemented, please ensure that it does not affect groups as well. BTW, what do people use "Including components of: Viewport Annotations" for? I just noticed that this is in fact INVIEWPORT. Is it broken?

I'm really surprised there's no Apple Store in "the moment".