Drake

I think of layers as way to describe the location of items relative to other items, above or below. For a simple building we have 3 layers per floor, from top to bottom: notes, plan, texture. All notation is on top and not to be obstructed by anything. Plan layer has all the lines, walls, objects. Texture is any shading or flooring which, if on top of other items would obstruct them. Of course layers also control scale so a site plan will have its own three layer set. I think of classes as a way to describe the appearance and visibility of items. If all my masonry walls are to look the same it is easiest to make a class which will articulate their appearance and then every time I draw a masonry wall make sure it is on the correct class. In addition, if I ever decide that the masonry wall should have a different appearance, I simply change the class attributes and all the walls drawn on that class will change appearance (this assumes that 'use at creation' is checked in the edit class dialogue, this can be done retroactively as well). Because we have limited layer options for each plan -intentionally-, we use classes to toggle visibility on different saved views (sheets, pre-VW11). In this way we can turn off kitchen and bathroom fixtures when putting together a framing plan. By the way, our framing plan will have its own set of three layers, but we will also turn on the plan layer for the floor plan when setting up this saved view. We draw all the framing on the 'framing plan' layer, but the walls are the walls from the 'floor plan' layer. We toggle the appearance of the walls (we prefer they are fine lines on framing plans) we use a tool provided by PanzerCAD, I understand this same capability is available in VW12. It takes some finesse to set up a good template, but the basic building blocks are: layers=relative stack location (like sheets of paper) and scale, classes=appearance and visibility of objects.

er...insertion POINT (not mode)

If it is a symbol you can double click on the symbol to enter the symbol editing mode. In this mode you will see a vertical and a horizontal line across your screen. The intersection of these lines is the insertion mode. If you move the symbol relative to this point you will move the insertion point.

Find drafting tools in your object library, you will find an item in there named Date/File stamp. I suggest you add it as a favorite in your resource browser. This item does not automatically update when you print, to make it update select it and then uncheck and recheck any of the items in the object info palettes, this will cause it to refresh. that is all...

...and they should not be in deeply nested groups.

You may be printing in color, switch to B&W in the document preferences.

I most decidely do have problems printing with our 430...just not crashing. We have some machines that will not print some or all patterns.

We are running 10.3 VW 11 with HP430. We do not have crashing problems at all, nor did we when we were on 10.2. I am only telling you this so that you know it is possible.

I would 'compose' all the lines, polys and arcs into a single poly and offset that poly. This assumes I understand the question.

I looked through my archived information and found the following info. This was taken from these forums... "After some searching around on the GIMP site I found the following information that fixes the problem. "If you want to return to using the postscript loop you can use the terminal to set a default that will tell the 10.3.x print system to behave similarly to how things used to be in 10.2.x. Be aware that altering this setting may well affect all printer drivers on your system, and it may cause adobe acrobat to fail to print in certain circumstances. So, to make your legacy apps produce postscript, similarly to how they behaved in Jaguar, enter this command at a terminal prompt: defaults write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.print.apple.pictwpstopdf YES To return to the default "correct" behavior in Panther enter this command: defaults write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.print.apple.pictwpstopdf NO" This has worked for me. " Drake here, I did this and never looked back. Diagonal lines now print correctly. I can't promise it will work for you though.

The issue that is afflicting you is the 'round pen' vs 'square pen' issue. I do not suggest you go to rasterize unless you are also having other problems (patterns won't print) as it is significantly slower. Set your pens to 'round pen' and you should fix the line thickness problem on your prints. I am sorry I do not have the fix off the top of my head, but it involves futzing with the drivers (I think).

I am with you there Gruber, I do not want groups to default to the current layer. The classes I specified for the objects inside the group give me plenty of control over the visability of the group, I do not need to specify the class of the group itself.

I think that only Renderworks is optimized for dual processors, I may be wrong.

Our OSX office prints to two HP430s and we get good lineweights. We have other problems (very slow, lots of patterns don't print). Rasterize does solve some of these problems, but compounds others (speed takes another big hit). We always switch to B&W only before printing.

I would like to know the same thing. Though I do not reinsert it, I simply deselect and reselect any of the options in the object info pallettes to refresh it.

I would like to know how to make one of our OSX computers act as a plot server. This might solve some of the problems we have with plotting.

If you are running OS X you can make a change to your system via the terminal...it will fix the fat line issue which has to do with the 'square pen' issue. Imagine a pen which has a square nib, vertical and horizontal lines will be the width or heigth of the square...deviate from horizonatal or vertiacl and the width of the line will be anywhere up to the diagonal width of the square. What followes is a cut and paste from elswhere on this forum: After some searching around on the GIMP site I found the following information that fixes the problem. "If you want to return to using the postscript loop you can use the terminal to set a default that will tell the 10.3.x print system to behave similarly to how things used to be in 10.2.x. Be aware that altering this setting may well affect all printer drivers on your system, and it may cause adobe acrobat to fail to print in certain circumstances. So, to make your legacy apps produce postscript, similarly to how they behaved in Jaguar, enter this command at a terminal prompt: defaults write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.print.apple.pictwpstopdf YES To return to the default "correct" behavior in Panther enter this command: defaults write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.print.apple.pictwpstopdf NO" This has worked for me.

Yes, I can print any file just fine from my computer. The same file will not print patterns, as noted above, when printed from another computer in the office. I have the same OS, same version of Vectorworks and same version of gimp print on all the subject machines.

We are running VW 10.5.1 on OS 10.3.4 with gimp print v4.2.7. I am able to properly print all drawings, however other machines in the office are unable to print some patterns (stipple and diagonal hatch for example). Our plotters are both HP 430 running through jet direct boxes. Does anybody have any suggestions or remedies?

I have spent most of the morning trying to get our two plotters working with Panther. I was finally successful. In an effort to help others avoid spending so much time getting their plotters working with 10.3 (Panther), I will outline our situation. On my machine I have been running 10.2 for some time. I installed and configured the GIMP and the CUPS drivers, which was a bit of a trial. I have been able to plot to both of our plotters. Plotter 1 is an HP DesignJet 430 which prints up to 24" wide. It is hooked up to an HP JetDirect EX Plus. Plotter 2 is an HP DesignJet 430 which prints up to 30" wide. It is hooked up to an HP JetDirect 300X. We have a machine in the office which we use for scanning and all purpose work. I installed 10.3 on it to test it before installing it on all our machines. 10.3 is preloaded with all sorts of GIMP and CUPS goodies so I did not need to install any of those files. I configured plotter 2 thusly: -Add Printer -IP printing -Printer address: enter IP number from the printout (using the test button on the JetDirect box) -leave queue name blank -Printer Model: HP -Model Name: DesignJet 430 -Push 'Add' Button This worked fine. I tried to configure Plotter 1 in the same fashion and it simply would not work, I got a message along the lines of port -ip number- is busy. From what I can gather the issue was the two different JetDirect boxes, the EX Plus did not seem to want to do direct IP printing. The solution, and plotting is much faster, is to use the LPD/LPR option thusly: -Add Printer -IP printing -LPD/LPR -Printer address::enter IP number from the printout (using the test button on the JetDirect box) -leave queue name blank -Printer Model: HP -Model Name: DesignJet 430 -Push 'Add' Button I renamed the plotters by selecting the printer in the Print Center and hitting Command I, at which time I was given the chance to rename the plotter.

When I share files with others in my office dimensions are having their fonts changed. All the rest of the text remains the same as it is on my station. Dimensions that are in groups or otherwise 'concealed' are not affected. I can only assume there is some sort of preference which sets the font used in dimensions. Thanks in advance.