Conrad Preen
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Posts posted by Conrad Preen
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Is there any way you could give me a rough sketch of what you want?
Conrad
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Hi Matthais,
Thank you for the report! This will be fixed in a coming service pack.
Conrad
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Hi Matthais,
Thanks for the suggestions! Legends in general are up for a facelift.
Conrad
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No, I wouldn't put you through that...
In 2020, select the panels you want to change, and using the same TP tool that you used to place your panel devices click on the first one (highlights red). Up comes the familiar dialog but with Port and Repeat disabled (we're in edit mode). Now you can change the Panel ID of the selected panels. If you check Renumber the Port control is enabled allowing you to apply new port numbers starting from the one you select.
In 2021 it's even cooler and much more obvious - all done in the Object Info Palette.
This would be a good point to remind you of that little ? icon at the top of dialog boxes - takes you to the specific help page 🙂 Just came to me because I was talking about this with my colleagues yesterday.
Conrad
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We'll definitely have a think about it.
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Just checking up on you 😉 we have users who leave all their devices with blank names and then wonder why...
C
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Hi Matthias,
I would duplicate the device using Select alt-drag. Then I would double click the new device to enter its group.
1) Select the sockets on the left and set their Orientation to R, move them out of the way (Cmd-Shift-arrow to go by grid steps).
2) Select the sockets on the right and set their Orientation to L, move them to the correct place on the left of the device (Cmd-Shift-arrow to go by grid steps).
3) Select the sockets from step 1 and move them to their new location.
Actually quicker to do than to describe.
AND crucially, I would give my devices distinct names. This way the cable list will be easier for installers to follow.
Best
Conrad
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FYI, I have bug-listed the effect of Reshape on Signal.
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Hi Matthias
Well one workaround is for this not to be an arrow-style connection. Is that do-able? Otherwise you could gather your tie-lines into TO and FROM so that the signals flow left-to-right.
At this stage I haven't got another suggestion for you. The logic of left-to-right signal flow is wired in to these panel devices - the arrows have to "know" somehow which way to point. We can bat ideas around here and maybe figure out another way but it's really dangerous for existing drawing to change this.
Best I can do,
Conrad
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I see what you mean. Leave that with me a moment...
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Hi Matthias
For panel devices the rules are signal flow from L to R strictly. To model a term panel where one connector takes a connection from either side we use a special socket orientation called 'X'. This takes an incoming signal on it's left side and sources an outgoing signal on its right side. That the way we are able to make things work.
I can see what you are trying to do but I do ask myself - is this a real case? If it's a network connection it's IO anyway. Really all I can say is that we have to follow some rules in order to have the very useful drawing automation that ConnectCAD provides. To enjoy the benefits you have to work within that framework.
Conrad
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Yes, restarting VW is a pain. Improvements to that are coming very soon !!!
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And now I understand too !
Back in our pre-Vectorworks days we had a command that would turn a set of panel devices into a single device, and we had the opposite command to split them. When we translated ConnectCAD to SDK we dropped these because of difficulties in implementation. But they are useful so I'll put that back on the list. Can't promise you when but we'll look at it again definitely.
Conrad
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Thank you Matthais,
What a super issue description! Hey everybody!!! This is how to get your problem fixed fast...
In this case ConnectCAD is working as designed but it isn't behaving exactly as you were expecting. The Device object when it is moved, looks for Circuits connected to any Sockets inside it and reshapes them so that the connection is maintained. But Devices inside groups are not supported - ConnectCAD doesn't find them.
Should they be? Well maybe we can support that in a future version if there is a convincing case to do so. So my question to you is why are you grouping these devices?
Conrad
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Hi Matthias
That doesn't seem to me like the same thing. Not quite sure what you are doing from your description, if you a have moment to record a short movie and send me a sample file that would help. The Connect tool and the Circuit object it creates are designed to locate sockets inside devices at the top level. If you device is inside a group it won't connect (I think).
Anyway let me know what you are expecting to be able to do and we'll discuss it.
Conrad
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OK let's keep talking...
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Hi Christian
Me again! I was wondering if you would share with me a drawing using your SFP solution? I'd like to see it in action.
And by the way, I put in a request for you to become a Beta Tester so you should be hearing from Vectorworks at some point. If not let me know.
Conrad
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Thanks Christian,
Entering a bug for that. The equipment item in Vectorworks 2020 has a new checkbox Draw in Front View which is automatically set if the equipment is in a rack and is an option outside of rack. If this is checked the font size is adjustable with the menu - if not it isn't, and yes that's a bug.
Conrad
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Thanks for the sample file. I've filed that as a possible enhancement.
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HI @Cookie_NZ
You'd need to manually add in custom Equipment Items at this point. But I will make a note of that and see if it could be automated.
16 minutes ago, Cookie_NZ said:An option that places the text outside of the rack, but still on the same Y coordinate of the Equipment Item would be really useful. That way users could add accurate geometry to the front of the Equipment Item without the label displaying over the top.
It would be great to be able to selectively add user fields to show on Equipment Items. On simple control networks I might want to display the IP address of a device for example.
Ok that makes sense as a formatting option. Regarding custom text display we'll be supporting the ability to add text linked to parameter values in a future version.
Thanks - good discussion 🙂
Conrad
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No worries!
The way devices are implemented is by design. There is a whole host of reasons why you might want the same make/model to appear differently in different instances. You may want the sockets arranged differently so as to uncross circuits. You may want to show only the relevant sockets and not clutter up your drawing with unused stuff. You might have half the device on one layer and half on another (eg. audio and video drawings). ConnectCAD gives you a lot of flexibility like that.
Equally there are good reasons not to have a situation where you edit a device symbol (say you delete a socket) and suddenly on a layer far far away you have a disconnected circuit you had totally forgotten about. This is what I mean by unexpected consequences.
We are developing a tool that will let you copy content from one device to a selected group of devices. That way you will be able to preform mass edits but explicitly with nothing happening behind your back.
Conrad
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Great questions!
21 hours ago, Cookie_NZ said:1. As stated in this post, it’s possible to edit the look of the top of a schematic device by editing the dev_label_XXX symbols. Is it possible to pre-assign this label specific specific to each device type, or does the label type need to be manually assigned every time?
For this pre-assignment to work ConnectCAD would have to "know" what the device type is. Say that devices have a device type parameter. Then setting the device type would set the symbol. Isn't that the same thing as setting the symbol. I'm missing something here...
21 hours ago, Cookie_NZ said:2. What about adding an image onto a device? Is there a way to add this to a device type in advance, or must it be done manually on each device in the schematic view?
The way to do this is to use the ability to save devices as symbols.
Any device that has a Make and Model set can be saved as a symbol in your document's resources. You just select the device on your drawing, click Save as Symbol in the Object Info Palette and a symbol is created named <make>_<model>. You can use the New Device tool in symbol mode to add new instances of the symbol to your drawings. Goes without saying that is the symbol has an image in it each new instance of it will also have an image.
21 hours ago, Cookie_NZ said:3. In the 2D rack elevation it’s possible to edit the look of an equipment item by double clicking on it and adding your own geometry. Can this process be done ahead of time by device type?
Exactly the same process applies to Equipment Items as to devices. Double click on an Equipment Item to add geometry to its group. Save it as a symbol using the Modify > Create Symbol command. Explore the capabilities of the Resource Manager. You can import symbols from your projects and keep them in a shared library file. What a lot of people do is after each project they get all the useful new symbols they created and stash them in a file shared with their workgroup. Each designer has a link to that file in the Resource Manager favourites so they can easily access it.
21 hours ago, Cookie_NZ said:4. The text alignment in 2D rack elevation can be changed to Centre/Left/Right/Above. Can this be edited to add custom labels/formats? Can additional fields be added to this?
Not right now. Our idea here was to make Equipment Item text format itself as best possible in the available space. That way the process is fast. Tell me a bit more about what you want to do, what extra data you want in there etc.
Best
Conrad
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Hi @Cookie_NZ
Whoa! We were not talking about how to use ConnectCAD. This discussion rambled off a bit into the question of why when you edit device symbol in the Resource Manager that change is not applied to all instances of that symbol in the drawing. And the answer to that is "be careful what you ask for". Nothing to do with customising the look of ConnectCAD by changing the system symbols. We encourage users to develop their own look.
Does that answer your question?
Conrad
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Hi Kevin,
From my perspective the reports work as per their re-design for ConnectCAD 2020. Right now the command adds a sub-menu for each worksheet in your document. If it can't find the standard pre-defined worksheet names it will pull the worksheet in from Default Content. If we duplicate the names the way we used to we'll end up with a very large sub-menu. So, I think we need to have a discussion about what exactly you need and why, so we can re-tune the command a bit.
Best
Conrad
Socket report by device
in ConnectCAD
Posted
Sounds a bit like a Circuit report with the columns re-arranged and sorted differently. Let's both have a go at it and see if we can get what you want. I'll send you something to look at in the next day or two.
Conrad