Jim Smith

Could the plan's viewport be BACK of another thus hiding your plan? Is there a fill in a crop's atributes?

I will try that, but as stated it does not happen every day.

Katie, Disk Utility does not seem to make much difference. It does seem to happen in other offices. If one opens another file the problem is still seen until one restarts.

Okay I have to 'fess-up. I defalut my stairs to a class with NO FILL. When I move the stairs to a class with a fill... dashed nosing lines ( & egg on my face).

Island Mon, does the spinning Mandela help?

I'm not sure this has been reported before. From time to time Palettes will not move around the desktop, nor will they resize. Restarting the software solves the problem. Happens every few days, generally in the afternoon if the programme has been running for hours (like it does every day). I use other programmes, but not to the extent I use VW. Is this just "one of those things" or is it a flaw? VW12.5.1 Intel Mac OSX 10.4.8

Will do. BTW, I do see the dashed line in the PIO when the drawing is not that complex. The prob. seems to happen when the drawing has lots of information.

Conventionally, when a stair is illustrated on a drawing, one will illustrate the inset of the nosing with a dashed line. The Stair PIO, for some reason, has never worked this way. As a work-a-round, I will often make a duplicate of my stair, move one stair to a hidden class (to be used in Sections, Elevations & Details) then Ungroup the Stair PIO, change to a group of lines, then edit these lines so the stair plan is acceptable graphically; so far so good. If I make a curved stair, this work-a-round bogs down as I am now presented with each segment of the curve transformed into thousands of lines to be rid of & replaced with new curves. Has anyone another approach to making the Stair PIO something more acceptable? Honestly, for one to have to work-a-round like this on EVERY project makes the PIO more of a hurtle than useful tool. VW12.5.1 Intel Mac

One should really check-out Jonathan's trainings manuals. I have used the latest two to help train folks in both Canada & the USA. Well worth looking into.

I am often impressed by the sagacity & erudition found in this forum; well played! Do we have a retort from the provocateur?

Perhaps CUSTOM SELECTION may help.

The only way I know is to open a new blank file or template, then workgroup reference all the design layers from the old broken file to the new file. You may have to rebuild your viewports & saved views, but this often better than redrawing. Good luck.

You can use Duplicate Array (I have customized my workspace & have it set at Shift-Option-Apple-D). With Duplicate Array you can choose one, or more than one duplicate. One can set the distance as well as many other options.

I work quite closely with consultants who use AutoCad. We have some minor issues moving from one platform to another. What has evolved is given the time it takes to provide good quality presentations where imported graphics, text, photos etc. are used are these documents are ALWAYS produced in VW12.5, as the time required in ACAD is ALWAYS greater than in VW. This is not just my opinion, but also that of using several experienced ACAD operators. From what I have seen of many packages of drawings produced by ACAD users & other firms using ACAD (& from the users tell me & my limited use in the past) layout seems to be an afterthought. From listening to my consultants, good looking packages using ACAD is just EXTRA WORK. My experience in VW (since minicad3) is producing good layout is just how it is done. VW is almost as good a page layout tool as Illustrator is. You may point out in your report that rather than improving things, they may have to invest in additional staff using Illustrator to produce documents that can now be produced in VW.

Thanks for the ideas but the thing is this, the walls I have allready are Un-Styled (but have graphic attributes) & therefore not a resource; so the resource browser, she no work! As for The Eyedropper; I know that this works, (I've done this about a jillion times) I see now that one must select the Un-Styled wall, next the wall tool, next the wall thickness, then choose "Save Preference As a Wall Style"- Ahh ha! Thanks again!

Has anyone found a way to have an Un-styled wall's graphic atributes be copied, pasted or otherwise established as a Wall Style without recreating the Wall Style with the wall tool, and then saving this newly created wall as a Wall Style? For example, rather than copy and paste examples of walls from older drawings, I would like to save these as Wall Types, & save these in my Template without having to redraw walls. So far I don't see a way to do this. Thanks. Intel MAC Mini OSX VW Architect 12.5.1

We have been running VW12 on MacMini's for several months, and since the 12.5 update we are very happy with the machines & VW12.5 . The only drawback is the Mini does not support a second monitor. Not a big issue with a large screen, but having worked in a client's office for two weeks with iMacs with additional screens, I do admit to some envy

We were told by our VW distributor not to open files across the network, but to move the file to a desktop first.

I'm attempting to load VW12 on my G4 laptop. I get almost through the installation & I am told I need something called MacPython 2.3. I have loaded this (as well as MacPython 2.4) and I get the same error. Any advice?

(Imperial drawing) 8 1/2x 11 Sheet Layout-the 8 1/2"x11" page fills the screen, centre is 0'(x) 0' (y). Viewport is drawn @ 1/4"=1'. Double click on viewport & one is now zoomed in at centre of 52'(x) 47'(y) [for reference only, I know why this happens]. When one then refreshes the Sheet Layer the drawing is zoomed in but we are now at centre reference 1'-1"(x) 11 3/4" (y). Here is the funny thing: If rather than the design layer, we edit the anno. layer, again with 8 1/2"x11" filling the screen 0' 0' the centre, the anno. is 0'x0' centre, & 8 1/2" x11" fills the screen. Exit, the screen aspect remains what it was to start with prior to the edit. (If zoomed in to start prior to edit, we return to that zoomed view & vise versa.) My point is this is odd, & I would like to be able to have the design layer edit act the same as the anno. & crop edits. In the olden days one could do this with one's Saved Views (they were called Sheets then). As for Viewports, I could do everything with (old speak) Sheets & Layer Linking & Symbols that I can now do with Viewports. Viewports do make somethings less complex I agree, but I find the addition of Sheet Layers a redundant waste. Frankly, viewports open VW up to the same sloppy drawing techniques I loath in most AC files I get from consultants. Sorry, this is stating to sound grumpy. Thanks for your post, I guess I just have to adjust my expectations.

"English"? Funny. As pointed out, in Canada we use both the Metric & sometimes the Imperial system. We have some drawings in Metric, some in Imperial. Each drawinig opens in the system it is designed in. In some cases we will also quote both, old surveys referenced on a site plan will have been measured in feet - with decimals! FYi Last century, when gas was sold here in gallons - Imperial Gallons, the USA sold gas in: US Gallons (1/5 smaller!). Long tons vs Short (US) tons. Some progress at least when this vanished.

Jonathan, thanks for the post but when I said: "Short of saving views, any thoughts about how to change this?" I was wondering if there was any way around Saving Views. The odd thing is this; one may be forgiven for thinking when returning to Viewport either the entire viewport would be visable, or the location and screen size of the layer one has just been editing would be displayed (as is the case when one edits the crop or annotation). It is odd that when I return to a Viewport I find myself in an odd view. This begs the question - why would I make a saved view when I already have a Viewport as the point of this is to save a step or two? Further, why use Viewports at all? Why not just Save Views?

I generallly have two or three viewports per sheet layer; one for the title block, the others for drawings or details. If I edit a viewport's design layer the size of the drawing on the screen grows to match the size of the crop. This is good, however when I return to the sheet layer I generally need to - fit to window, to see the entire sheet layer. I have not been able find a place to alter this setting. Short of saving views, any thoughts about how to change this?

Katie, one example is 40mm x 40mm (ie 1 1/2") actual size, 8 bit 236x240 JPEG 61kb. FYi: These Images have been in our templates for many interations, (8,10, & now 12 & 12.5) and form part of our title block. These templates have been batch converted and altered and re-saved as new templates each time. As stated before, the images worked in 12. What I have noted is if I go back to the original art, & import from the original, the image seems to stay put. I will alter the templates this way, but does this mean I will have to use the same process for projects (still open) that were started in VW 10 or 12?

No, it is set at full resolution.