Ian Lane

We went live with update 2.1 this morning that contains a fix for this problem. It is a problem with intel macs. Thanks for helping us find the problem so quickly.

We went live with update 2.1 this morning and there are fixes in that build for both of the original issues mentioned in this thread, the high hook height and double clicking on trusses to activate the tool. I also wanted to follow-up on your questions earlier. We have a large group of beta testers, about 150, and ideally they are working on real world projects in the beta software, but sometimes this is not realistic because of instabilities in the beta, or a change in the file format, etc. They are a great help in finding issues. With every release that goes out there is extensive testing in-house, but obviously not everything is found. When an engineer makes a change, it is difficult to always know what other systems that change might affect. It's like a giant interwoven ball of yarn, and pulling one piece can move something you didn't even think or know about. Whenever we have these types of regressions, we make sure that we update our tests to cover these cases in the future. Thanks again for your input and let me know if you have other questions.

This is a bug with the hoist tool that will be fixed in update 2, sorry about that I know that it's annoying. If you already submitted a bug for this, please send me the bug number and I will resolve it appropriately.

Thanks I moved it over with a comment.

I will second this question. If you have created a VE for this or submitted something to the road map please let me know, send me the VE, and I will make sure these get to the right engineers. Each tool is implemented individually, so over the years as things evolve sometimes the "standard tool behavior" changes and older tools need to catch up. I can see how these simple modes would be helpful for users to reduce clicks.

Hello, thanks for your feedback. The original goal of this change was to standardize the way that the tool worked to allow for insertion and rotation without needing to edit them in the OIP after insertion. But we understand that this extra click is undesirable and I'm sorry this is causing you a lot of extra work. We're going to change this in an upcoming update of 2025. We plan to add new modes for single click and distributed insertion mode, similar to what we have for the lighting device insertion tool. You'll be able to insert the hoist with a single click, or create multiple hoists with a two click operation, setting the number you want in the mode bar and then using the two clicks to specify the line that you want the hoists distributed along. Hope this will speed up your workflow again and please keep the ideas and feedback coming!

Hi Dubman, Are you using macOS Ventura? We have been investigating an issue that some users are seeing in some files on Ventura where printing, page setup and setting the paper size can occasionally crash. We are also working with Apple where they identified another issue in the print dialog that they are preparing a fix for in an upcoming OS update. A workaround that we have found is that clearing the print settings before printing can stop the crash from occurring. Please see the attached script to try and let me know what OS you are using. Thanks! Clear Print Settings.txt

Hi Ian, Thanks for pointing this out. We will investigate and see what is going on. These kinds of small things may seem minor, but they can be big annoyances to users. Thanks again!

Hello Rishie, I can create a bug for you for this. Can you explain the steps that you are doing to reproduce this to make sure that I understand? It's possible that this is working better in a newer version of macOS or VW but we will need to test first. Thanks.

Yes there are many different languages and libraries that now provide this type of UI on Windows. Many of the MS apps (Word, Excel, Visual Studio, etc) are now built using a library that sits on top of MFC and provides adaptive colors and extended functionality (animation, etc). That is what we are using with Vectorworks as we update systems. Since MS owns and supports these libraries, they are continuously updated and should future proof our UI. Once the work is done to support theme switching it will allow us to support any theme that we want in the future (light/dark, green, blue, etc). Hopefully that answers your question.

Hi Sean, Sorry but I wish it was that simple. The main code for the Windows UI of Vectorworks is 20+ years old based on MFC, which does not directly support adaptive colors. Adaptive colors allow for a line to be dark in one theme and light in another. Because of the size of the application, we have hundreds of custom controls, palettes, dialogs, etc that were built with a certain theme and certain colors in mind. They may have hard coded colors, such as black that would disappear when the theme is changed, or other visual problems, and the icon system also needs to support the change. All of these places need to be modified to support the new theme. And in addition, a new theme doesn't just change the colors it can also change the sizing of things, which can lead to cropped controls etc. We have been steadily working for a number of years at updating these systems to support new themes and adaptive colors. It is important work to do but we also need to be careful because users will not directly gain any benefits from this work, they will just see the bugs, until the whole system is ready to be turned on. And as always we balance the priority of this versus other features since it is a large time investment. A number of years ago the entirety of the Mac UI was re-written with new Apple systems, which was a multi year project, but it allowed for us to use dark mode more or less out of the box when Apple added the feature. But this isn't how Microsoft does things, for good and bad. Hopefully this information helps explain the situation. Obviously we are aware of the request and we have been working on it for a while with plans to release when it is ready. Best Regards, Ian

Hi everyone, thanks for your input and your continued support of Vectorworks. I agree that dark mode would be a great enhancement to Vectorworks on Windows. And while this is not included in the latest 2023 release, the feature is in development. Please refer to the "In Development" tab on the Public Roadmap. If you haven't seen this already please check it out! https://www.vectorworks.net/en-US/public-roadmap Thanks again and take care, Ian

I would recommend that you turn off automatic graphic switching in the battery settings under preferences. This seems to resolve the problem. We have been working with Apple on this issue but we have not found a fix yet that we can do in Vectorworks. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Hi David, The workaround that we are recommending at this time is to disable automatic graphic switching on your laptop. The usage of the onboard graphics seems to be causing this issue somehow on some computers. Go to the Battery settings in the System Preferences and turn OFF the "automatic graphics switching" if available? Restart the computer and see if the issue goes away. Best Regards, Ian

Great news, thanks for confirming! It seems that somehow VW is getting confused about which monitor the main menu is being displayed on which is causing the menus not to work, even though all the menu shortcuts function, etc. We are continuing to investigate this to try and figure out why it is happening. Just be aware that it is entirely possible that the same problem will happen again until we figure out the problem. Thanks again!