_James

This is a big problem. For me, the whole point of having a centralised database (project or otherwise) is to quickly deal with changes that happen through a project, particularly important now with supply chain issues meaning there are many material changes due to so many things being on long lead times or out of stock. It should be able to handle a change in the database and change, or warn you that there are changes and ask you to confirm them on opening the file.

Thanks everyone for the messages and advice. @michaelk was right when he said in his webinar that this is one of the nicest places on the internet! I thought it would be a clear win for Python but Vectorscript seems to still have advantages. I was partly inspired by @MarcelP102 and his thread "Babysteps into Vectorscripting". I'm a big believer in learning by doing so I need to get my teeth into a project!

I would like to get into writing some scripts for VW either via Vectorscript or Python. I have pretty much zero experience save for a few modules of "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python" on udemy or similar platform. I was wondering if anyone had some tips/recommendations on how they got started and what they found helpful/not helpful. - I've watched this Vectorworks University course about Vectorscript which is a great primer to show you what is possible, but now I'd like to jump in and actually make something. - I will try to take a look at the Vectorscript Language Guide here in the next few days - I've been having a look through https://developer.vectorworks.net/index.php/Main_Page and the Vectorworks help pages. I'm leaning more towards Python for it's use outside of Vectorworks, but I do recognise @michaelk's point about Vectorscript having some advantages (like with the compile button, exporting objects as script to get the creation data etc.), so i'm interested to hear people's opinion! Thanks in advance!

Brilliant idea. We also just delete the publish log but with a bit of formatting and additional information it could be much more useful.

Thought it would be interesting to check out their changelog: July 22 - 1 update June 22 - 2 updates May 22 - 1 update April 22 - 2 updates March 22 - 1 update February 22 - 1 update January 22 - 2 updates 2021 had 17 updates in the year.All a mix of new features, improvements, bug fixes etc. I looked at some of the forum posts showing these updates and they have pretty positive comments from users. If Vectorworks start doing something like this (and the updates are actually good!) I will be impressed.

@Pat Stanford Did you see it on the Internet of $h!t twitter account? That's where I saw it and was going to post it but you beat me to it!

I'm starting to use the Notes Manager more and more, building up a good database of standard notes. In doing so I've come up with the following that the Notes Manger could do better to make it more intuitive. 1. Notes Manager - Remember the last Database File used Every time I go to edit a callout I need select the correct database every time. It's only two clicks, but two clicks across hundreds of callouts soon adds up. 2. Notes Manager - Make it easier to add notes to the database. Currently, if there is a callout already typed that I want to add to the template I need to: 1. double click to open the "Edit Callout" window 2. click "add note to database" 3. select the database 4.select the section of the database. *Importantly here there is no provision to add a new section to the database!* There really should be here, as otherwise you need to go back out and essentially start again 5. Press ok 6. Select database again. 7. Select section again. 8. Select note again. 9. Press ok. I think that steps 6-9 could be eliminated. Once you have added the note to the database, when you return to the "edit callout" window, it should be referencing the note from the database. 3. Notes Manager - Have Databases as a Resource This would make it much more intuitive to select/copy databases from the Resource Manager, where I would imagine most offices share office-wide resources. These would allow admins to easily keep the General Notes updated, and allows users to easily copy old project notes and adapt them to new ones. 4. [omitted] 5. General Notes - Add Multiple Notes It should be possible to add multiple notes to the General Notes pane without having the "Add Note" dialog keep opening and closing. This has also been asked for already here and on Request #2 here

hey @Peter Vandewalle and @MarcelP102 Thanks for showing me this - exactly what I was looking for, it looks great and I am very envious. I guess there is no way to get this in the UK? It would be very nice if Vectorworks "windoor'd" this and brought it into the software so it's available to everyone.

Did you ever solve this?

Absolutely @Matt Overton. Additionally it could change the way in which project sharing happens for the better (in my opinion). Rather than the constant saving and committing and clashes that come with it, changes are incorporated more slowly and deliberately by being "pulled in" by the administrator/project leader once they have been checked and compared against the current situation. Whilst I know there is a log in vectorworks to see what has been saved and committed, we find that save and commits are so frequent that it's difficult to unpick relevant changes from minor ones and a big issue is that no one fills in the box describing what they have changed!

OnShape have a great system for managing changes and reviewing versions of shared files - more info here It would be great for Vectorworks to have some form of version history such as this so that one can look back on the file/project and the path it has taken to reach the current state. I guess this wouldn't just be limited to project sharing files, but having richer version information would be a big improvement. Presently we just have files distinguished by file name "xxx-option 1" etc. Having these linked together to see the trajectory of the project over time makes it easier to go back to earlier versions, incorporate changes from others (in project sharing" and crucially - visualise the amount of times the client has required changes to the drawings! I mentioned this to the project sharing team on the Vectorworks OpenHouse a few years ago - it would be great for project sharing to deal with changes like pull requests (or at least my basic understanding of them) in software development so that data isn't just overwritten or deleted but the file is forked in another direction but one can look back on where it came from.

Agree, have posted about this before here:

@markdd I didn't know about that - could that not be incorporated into the text tool too? Personally I think it would be great to reduce the amount of different tools in Vectorworks, hence wanting to get rid of the tool all together, i'm sure the functionality can be rolled into other tools and this seems like an easy one.

I think the Hyperlink tool should be deleted, and instead the hyperlinks just added via the text objects themselves. I don't use this tool often, but it seems unnecessarily complicated to have to control the text attributes via a symbol. This would create one fewer tool in Vectorworks, and keep the same functionality, whilst simplifying the way attributes are controlled keeping it inline with all other text in Vectorworks. Text styles would still be able to be used to control large amounts of attributes across a whole file for those who need this functionality.

@Matt Panzer I have to ask, what is in the 💥 menu in your Vectorworks!?

I haven't tried project sharing through a shared google drive as I was advised not to do so in a forum post by @Tolu who recommended using dropbox instead (I think due to the delta sync functionality that would make the experience much better/more stable but please correct me if i'm wrong). Great to hear more support for Google Drive is in the pipeline, thanks for the update.

We use the revision data on drawings to write what has specifically changed on the drawing, such as a design or specification change. We then use the issue data to show/log when these drawings are actually issued to other consultants or contractors. Often we will revise drawings day to day, but issue them all in one go at a future date to cut down on the amount of changes flying around which can lead to confusion. The downside to this is that when you come to issue drawings, it can be difficult to remember which drawings have been revised, as some may have been revised weeks ago. Is there a functionality whereby it can easily be seen if the revision date is more recent than the last issue date - therefore alerting you as to which drawings need to be reissued? My first thought was a worksheet that could highlight sheet titles in red if this is the case, I would just need to get in the habit of checking it before issuing drawings.

Somewhat related to this is the existing Window Schedule worksheets with images which I guess is quite close to a legend. I found it quite annoying that the images were just that, images, so one could not interact with the linework, take/show dimensions etc. One of the examples I saw in VW presentations about this future possible feature was window schedules, and in my opinion the tool will need to generate linework so that dimensions can be related to it like the image below. This is especially important as installations are more complex where the window frame is partially covered by the outer finish as shown. Yes, for the example of electrical symbols on a plan it would be great to link the legend to that viewport so that it reported only the symbols in that viewport. Like the OP, I also have a electrical symbol key/legend saved as a symbol that I drop onto sheet layers. I've seen others say they go in and edit the legend symbol to reflect what is shown in the viewport - I am too lazy to do this - but also I think it is just an opportunity for errors, plus it adds a lot of time checking the drawings by having to go through each and every item. For electrical symbol legends, it would be very helpful if the number of items could be reported also, as well as data such as manufacturer/model so that the legend becomes a schedule as well.

Definitely agree - they could be made a lot better and clearer. I think it's the space object where you can select what information is actually shown in the OIP to stop it becoming too overwhelming. Also things like checkboxes could be improved so the consistency is better. All items have a title on the left, with a box on the right that the user interacts with, except the checkbox where the box is on the left and the title on the right hand side. It makes the palette less consistent - I think it would be better if all the interaction happened on the right with all the titles (and maybe future icons!) on the left.

Fair enough, keeping backwards comparability makes sense. I often wonder what VW employees think when (if) they read these comments, “this guy thinks he knows what he wants but he doesn’t understand at all…” probably the same feeling we have with clients some times. Hopefully they remember to get rid of wall components when wall closure is more mature and keep things simple. In future it would be great if things can be directly edited too. Editing wall closures by VW generating a section of the window in question and wall components can be dragged to the correct position rather than editing in a table with numbers would be very nice and much more intuitive. This is a good first step in any case though.

Windoor is available in VW Architect - I have used it this morning.

Also it seems not to be turned on by default if you just make a quick wall and drop in an unstyled window to test? (unless I'm doing it wrong which is definitely possible!) Instead you need to create a symbol of the window, and turn on "use wall closure" from the "plug in object style options" from the resource manager. Two steps forwards and one step back - I wonder what the reasoning is for keeping both "wall detail" and adding "wall closure"? Surely "wall detail" could have been improved to have this functionality rather than make a new workflow?

A favourite of mine so far : "To reduce unnecessary complexity, portions of Vectorworks that enable outdated 2D workflows have been deprecated. Objects can no longer be set to the screen plane, and drawings now always have a “unified” view, with the same view, lighting options, render mode, and Renderworks background for all design layers. Legacy 2D features can still be used in existing files that contain them, and they can be enabled on new files as a document preference." Hooray! I am a big fan of reducing unnecessary complexity!

VW can control this, but it's too specific for 90% of the time. What I always almost do is half of the doors height and width to get a centre label. Then inevitably there are changes and they are off centre again. Looking forward to (the mythical) WinDoor in 2022!

Perhaps this is a bit premature considering the more multi-core CPU support is arriving at the moment, but I wondered whether VW has plans to support multiple GPUs in future as I don't think it currently can. In 3D visualisation software it's not uncommon for computers to have multiple GPUs for rendering - if VW is going to support these programmes with plugins it would be great to have the same functionality. It's perhaps not so important for the VGM, but being able to flyover a model in rendered view mode and have it rerender quickly, such as how you can in say Blender for example might be pretty cool. Or maybe it's deemed overkill for VW - i'm not requesting it but interested to know what the consensus is