Conrad Preen

If you select the video panel devices, delete them, then create your data panel devices nearby and move them into place, and select the circuits that connect to the panel and nudge them up and down, they will reconnect to the new panel sockets. It probably takes less time to do this in Vectorworks than it takes me to type out these instructions. Conrad

Yes. That all makes sense.

@SAmmerman the new symbol-based workflow does give us a bit of a problem with half-rack devices but it brings many advantages too. The way I would recommend is to create these kind of devices as non-rack at their basic dimensions without the rack-ear. Then when you come to place them put a 2-slot rack frame configured as a shelf and name it Side-by-Side-Mount-Kit, and place the two non-rack equipment items on the shelf. I know it's not the way it used to be but it is a reasonable solution I think. And, it does remind you to think about the mount kit. The number of times I forgot to order those for Ikegami CCU's ... Conrad

Hi @Greg Abel Correct me if I'm wrong but, from what I can see you are using adapter slots simply to decorate the back of the equipment item. So really all you need here are rectangles and text. The adapter slot object is designed to link up with device sockets on a schematic so you can automatically visualise physically what adapter cards are placed in each slot. In other words when you connect an adapter to a socket on your schematic device the corresponding adapter name is displayed in the slot on the equipment item. I just did a quick check. Have a look at the attached file. It seems to be working ok. Maybe I'm missing a trick. Let me know. Conrad For Greg.vwx

@Ben3B So onwards to Question 2 — Direct insertion of predefined devices (without browsing symbols). So your file had me going! You've altered the basic device symbol so that the device rectangle is a long way away from the device label symbol. This produced some strange results when I tried placing your loudspeaker as a device. Anyway I figured it out. I guess what you mean is something like a floating list of equipment items from which you can select and place on a schematic. That's exactly what I have in mind, I just don't have the programmers to do it yet. Hopefully that will change. Conrad

Hi @Ben3B So, let's have a look a Question 1 first. In the Equipment Item Object Info Pallete there is a button called "Show Schematic Devices" which is disabled when the selected Equipment has no associated schematic devices. You mentioned a button called "Create Schematic Device". This doesn't exist in the Equipment Item and if it did, would beg the question "create where?". I'm not saying this to be a smart guy, I'm just trying get us on the same page. So, moving on... The layout-to-schematic workflow is not so well supported in ConnectCAD yet... but I have plans to change this situation. I totally understand the need. At the moment the way to go would be: a) create a report of your equipment items, b) use Convert Report to List to turn it into a non-database worksheet, c) use Create Devices from Worksheet to place devices on your schematic layer. Then you'll have to move them around to make the layout sensible, and connect them up using the Connect tool. It's actually less long-winded than it sounds. But I fully agree that it could be much better. Conrad

Probably better to post this in a more relevant section. Doesn't look like a ConnectCAD issue? Conrad

@Maxxx not a simple as I was hoping. I need to look into this further. C

@ErikvanderKuijl This is similar to the situation with road boxes. It comes down to custom graphics. When you set the Rack object to Console mode you basically get a set of mounting rails that you can position inside a 3D symbol that depicts the rest. The mounting rails are the ConnectCAD part the rest is eye-candy. I'm looking at ways to make this more convenient, for example having the option to use a symbol for the rack graphics. Conrad

@Remco Teunissen we are working on this right now 😁 C

@Chris Baccala for visibility

Thanks @ErikvanderKuijl. I'll will get this looked into.

@JB Nation Oh I feel your pain. Once I had to reconstruct the plans of a TV broadcast multi-channel continuity suite that had been modified extensively without any docs. I can see your rationale for wanting a list of device-to-device. This is one of those where maybe one of the power users on this forum might have a script to share. For us to develop this and release it as a feature it has to meet much more exacting standards and pass thru a lot more stages of approval. I will put it in the pipeline as an idea but I can't promise when we will get to it. Conrad

Did you know... In 2026 update 4 we've merged the Device and Device Builder tools. Now there's one Device tool with a Device Builder mode. Works the same as before but with a bonus. In Device Builder mode you can edit existing devices in the Device Builder dialog. Cool. Conrad

Hi guys! I'm surprised this was handed to you as a surprise. Sorry about that. Select the Device tool, pick Device Builder mode and hover over an existing device. Click on it. 😃 Conrad

@JB Nation There isn't a way to do that with Vectorworks reports. This is because a report lists parameters / attached record fields for individual objects that meet the criteria. So a Circuit report lists parameters / attached record fields of Circuits. Our report is structured so that an installer can work from the report directly and unambiguously to implement the design. I think you could write a script to create a worksheet in the format you want. Devices have a Device Type parameter that tells you if the device is a panel type. So you could foreach thru the entire drawing following circuits from their source to destination devices and whenever the destination is a panel look for the circuit that has the panel as a source etc. It's a bit of a project but do-able. Or maybe you could export the report to Excel and process it there? If you have a moment could explain what you want this kind of report for? At first glance it doesn't look like something you'd give to an installer because they wouldn't know to connect to the panels for sure. What's your thinking here? I'm not against the idea of us creating this but we'd have to know why. Conrad

Well an IO panel is essentially a device. It just has the Device Type set to Custom Panel. Let me have a think about how we can expose that for you. Conrad

@SAmmerman yes this is true. However when you say "There's no logical reason that CC Devices should have to be perfectly upright in order to work", this is only true from the perspective of a user. In terms of programming it's an enormous job to cover all the additional cases generated by having to support sockets that are arbitrarily rotated. Many years of time and thought has gone into making circuits just work the way they do now requiring minimal user input but giving maximal control. And code that has stood the test of time is valuable. I have already noted this some years ago as a possible improvement. But we have to weigh the benefit against the additional complexity and the high probability of regressions. I assure you though that if we find a mathematical route that actually simplifies the existing code and support rotated devices we will go for it. Best regards Conrad

Let's revisit this once Update 4 is out.

@natem That particular pony is already no my list as a nice-to-have. I want 3 more developers 🙂 to implement all the ideas that are zooming around. I was thinking of this more as automatically adding the panel to the front face of the corresponding equipment item. That way you have your panel layout ready to print, and you have a nice realistic rack layout. Of course everyone will expect this to update automatically and that's where the challenge is. Conrad

@ErikvanderKuijl Thanks for your reply! I'm think that since devices and equipment items are two different representations of the same real-world thing whatever information the one has then the other has too. Software is always evolving mostly by incremental improvements. It's easy to get frustrated by what seems to be obvious but remember we are always working with the tools we have at the time. Best regards Conrad

Hi @natem That's a nice idea! But it will take some coding to make it happen. I'll put it on my list of things to think about. Conrad

@Greg Abel Well there aren't any settings involved. You just drag the equip item onto the frame, it highlights to show that it has been detected, and snaps to the nearest slot. Once again I cannot reproduce the problem. What I am seeing in the video is that the cursor doesn't touch any part of the rack frame (shelf) during your attempt to place it. I'm testing this on Mac using Vectorworks 2026 U4 because I live in the future 🙂. If my calendar is correct you should be able to get that update this week. The only other possibility I can think of is that you are on Windows and it's a platform-specific problem. I've asked a colleague to try it on Windows and let me know. Best I can do for now. Maybe U4 will solve it? Conrad

@Greg Abel @ErikvanderKuijl Let's explore this topic a bit... Q: As designers, can we think of any instances where we really need different information attached to devices and equipment items? In my mind the fact that devices and equipment items are different Vectorworks objects is an artefact of how Vectorworks functions. In relation to the real world they are different views of the same thing. So, perhaps we could have a solution where if you attach a record to an equipment item you can view and edit that same data from the object info palette of an associated device i.e. has the same name. There are solutions here and now using the Data Manager but they aren't easy to set up. What I'm thinking of is no setup at all - just works. Let me know what your answers would be to the question above. Conrad

@Greg Abel what am I missing here? looks like it works? 2026-03-13_12-16-12.mp4