ClockWerX
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Posts posted by ClockWerX
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Hello Everybody,
The company I am working for works presently with VW 9.5.1 on a Mac G4 867 Mhz. It just runs fine but there is no extra space left. We use Mac OS Classic 9.2.2.
Now we intend to upgrade to VW 11 latest version and Mac OS X also the latest version.
Can you tell us if the Mac G4/867Mhz together with Mac OS X and VW 11 will run smoothly? We fear depending on the post regarding this subject, that our Present G4 Mac will be too slow.
Thank you very much for your reply and have a nice day.
Friendly greetings,
Chrissy
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Hello Raymond,
Thank you very much for your very clear explanations. Indeed the dimension consist of one simple text object. Only a number who shows the length or widht of the object..
I will experiment with both methods to see which works best for us.
People who are working with VectorWorks at that company use the option "no fill behind a text". However when they put a dimension on an object, the number is centered vertically on the dimension base line. So the line is visible on the dimension. Therefore I created a script (years ago) which activate the background again on every dimension on the drawing. I added the shortcut "ctrl" + "," to that PIO. So it is my intention to insert your procedure in the existing code.
I will add your copyright notices on every procedure which contain your code and also put our copyright notices on the beginning of the script. When the complete script is ready I will put a copy of the code here on this post.
Thank you very much for your help which is very appreciated. I wish you a very nice day and all the best.
You are a very helpfully person.
Friendly greetings,
Chrissy
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Hello Everyone,
Can you help me with the following problem.
We use VectorWorks 9.5.1 on a Mac. I like to change the textsize of a dimension (height and width of an object) within a VectorScript.
This is the situation :
First the objects are drawed.
Then the dimensions of the objects are placed in the document.
Then the script will be running who has to change the text height of the used font in another height.
When I manually select a dimension (line + text) I can change the textsize inside the fonts menu.
However when I select the same dimension with a script I do not succeed in changing the text height.
Can you tell me how I can accomplish to change the text size of a dimension?
Your input will be highly appreciated.
I wish you all the best and have a nice day.
Friendly greetings,
Chrissy
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Hello Jan15,
Thank you very much for your advice and nice thoughts.
I was not used with the "Custom Selection..." but I tried it out. This method has certainly very powerfull options. Indeed by classing or naming the objects, you can make a very precise selection.
In fact I do VectorScript programming. I am not the person who create the drawings. Therefore I try it out and then when I have an understanding it goes up the hierarchical ladder to the person who actually does the drawings.
Thank you again for your help and I wish you a very nice day.
Friendly greetings,
Chrissy
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Hello Jan15,
Thank you very much for your clear and very helpfull explanation. Indeed this is just what we are looking for. I did a little experimentation and indeed it can solve our future export problems (for the present one it was not possible).
I also want to apologize for the delay in my reply to your post. I was not at my home for several days, so I could not reply sooner.
I thank you very much for your advice, which I also appreciate very much.
I wish you a very nice day and all the best. Very much success in everything you do.
Friendly greetings,
Chrissy
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Hello Jan15,
Thank you very much for your usefull reply.
Indeed your "hatches" idea sounds just what we need. Regretfully I do not know how to create a hatch. Can you tell me how to create a hatch?
I thank you very much for your help and good advice. It is highly appreciated.
I am glad that so many people here on this nice forum are willing to help each other.
Friendly greetings,
Chrissy
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Hello Jonathan,
Our client really need to make corrections and changes, which is not allowed by PDF and the VW viewer.
On this moment I know too little about AutoCad to come up with a potential solution. Maybe we can create a VW script which writes the present objects parameters like fills and colors to a text file. This file will be stored within the same directory as the DWG file. After the DWG file is imported a script is activated in AutoCad which depending on the accompanion textfile, restores the fills.
But on this moment this is only a preluminary idea. Maybe tomorrow morning I will have a better solution.
Thank you very much for your help and have a nice day.
Friendly greetings,
Chrissy
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Hello Jonathan,
Thank you very much for your fast reply. I do not know exactly what version of AutoCad our client is using. I will ask but I do not think they are using AutoCad 2005.
Despite the fact the viewer can only make very rudimentary changes which cannot be saved, I think it is still a good way to gain a good impression of how the drawings look.
Thank you very much for your time spent on our problem.
Have a nice day and all the best.
Friendly greetings,
Chrissy
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Hello Everyone,
We will appreciate your help with the following problem we received very much.
We are using Vectorworks 9.5 on Mac OS 9.2.2 (Mac Classic).
Our drawing consist of several different layers and a lot of self created symbols.
Now we want to export our drawings to AutoCad because the clients have only AutoCad and need to make alterations on that drawing.
Our problem is that we looses the fill colors in the exported DWG file. Also the exported DWG file has no fill behind the objects. Our drawings are all in 2D.
Can you tell us how we can export our VW drawing to AutoCad with the fill colors unchanged?
A side question : Will be the VW viewer an option for those people to view the VW document and make some very basic alterations?
I appreciate you help very much and thank you in advance.
I wish you also a very nice day and all the best.
Friendly greetings,
Chrissy
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Hello,
It should be a very nice option to change the colors in the VW color palette within VectorScript.
In other words, when importing RGB value combinations in VectorWorks, that those values are not changed to the nearest available color position within the VW color palette.
This is very important because without this option, it is almost impossible to use RGB (or any other color scheme data) within VectorWorks.
It should be very nice when we can have complete control over the VectorWorks color palette within VectorScript.
I hope we will see this happen in the future.
I wish you a very nice day and all the best.
Friendly greetings,
Chrissy
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Hello Jeff,
Thank you for your explanation and adding this subject onto the VW wishlist.
Indeed for my solution it is very important to change the VW color palette to the newly imported (or assigned) custom RGB color. The user of my program doesn't want to be bothered by color differencies nor will he understand the reason for those color shifts.
I have to find a suitable workaround for this problem. This will not be easy but nothing is impossible or can't be done.
You have to imagine that this calculation system is modular build. The color composer is only a very small part of the calculation program in RealBasic. Besides the color composer there is an address and project mangagement and administration system present in the RB made program.
I specialised myself in those custom-made calculation solutions where the easy of use and user creativity is placed in the middle of the solution. Therefore the workaround may not limit the users creativity and must be completely transparent to him. I will find a way.
I thank you very much for your time spent on my problem and appreciate your efforts very much. Your help and the help from Katarina and Raymond where very helpfull to me.
I wish you a very nice day and all the best!
Friendly greetings,
Chrissy
[ 07-30-2004, 06:28 PM: Message edited by: ClockWerX ]
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Hi,
Indeed Ccroft is probably correct. This is what I found in the VectorScript Function reference about the ReDraw command :
"Procedure ReDraw invokes a screen redraw of newly created objects in the active VectorWorks document. If new objects are to be manipulated using procedures which operate on selected objects, a call to ReDraw should precede the selected object routines to ensure that all new objects are correctly identified."
According the the VS reference Redraw only updates the newly created objects.
I can only advise you to try ReDraw and take a close look to what happens. I think this is the best option you have.
Have a very nice day.
Friendly greetings,
Chrissy
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Hello,
I read your question and maybe I can be of some help.
Try the following function in your VectorScript code :
ReDrawAll;
or
ReDraw;
The first function will redraw all your objects in your document. So possibly this will do the trick.
I wish you a very nice day and all the best.
Friendly greetings,
Chrissy
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Hello Raymond,
Thank you for your message. Indeed, I agree with you, possibly it is not possible to add custom colors by VectorScript to the VW palette.
When someone of Nemetschek read this post, they can add such a function in the next release of VectorWorks.
When I find a workaround on this problem, I will share it with you and all other people here on the forum.
I wish you a very nice day and hope to see you on this excellent forum.
Friendly greetings,
Chrissy
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Hello Raymond,
Thank you very much for your help. It is just what I am looking for.
I did some experimenting with your code and also I succeeded in manually added the RealBasic color to the VectorWorks pallet. It is created as a custom color. When I define the RealBasic color (example Red : 200 Green 200 Blue 0) into the SetFillBack command, VectorWorks takes the correct (custom) color.
But I have a new question. I like the Plugin object set the newly imported colors into the VW color palette. I searched the VectorScript 9 function reference but I could not find any command which lets me add a custom color by code. Do you know how I can add a custom color (RGB) to the VW color palette using a VectorScript command?
Both colors in VW and RB match almost perfectly. It should be nice when the color can automaticly created in VectorWorks when it does not exist. The person who design the signpanels and carry out the calculation does not want to bother with side-activities. Therefore he create the used colors for a project in RB and uses one PIO for creating the basic document with colors, worksheets, classes and layers in VW.
It is a very nice when you allow your users to work as he is used to be so they can use their creativity and imagination to their full extend.
I thank you very much for your time spent on my problem. I appreciate that very much.
I wish you all the best and you did a very nice job. I hope to hear from you again.
Friendly greetings,
Chrissy
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Hello Everyone,
Can you give me some advice about the following.
We are using VectorWorks 9.5 on a Macintosh G4/867 computer. We are creating signpanels.
Because it is our intention that the person who make the drawings, can create and immediatelly see the result of the choosen color.
Therefore in RealBasic a signpanel is drawn on a dialog which shows the choosen colors. Besides the signpanel are 3 sliders (Red Green Blue) for creating and adjusting signpanel colors.
RealBasic RGB values range from 0 until 255 while VectorWorks RGB values range from 0 to 65536.
To convert those values I have to multiply the RealBasic values with 256.
However I am not sure if all RealBasic colors will match those counterparts in VectorWorks. I am using a PIO - VectorScript for importing and processing the color values in VectorWorks.
Can you tell if those assumptions are correct, or is there something wrong?
I appreciate your help very much and I thank you in advance.
Friendly greetings,
Chrissy
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Hello Katerina,
Thank you very much for your reply. I tried your solution but regretfully it has also a color difference.
In case I use the raw numeric data from RealBasic (Red : 200 Green : 200 blue : 0) I got a brown color instead of the yellow like color specified. Without convertion both colors do not even come close in comparision. Believe me, I hate the convertion also and I want to avoid it at all cost (if necessary).
Specifiying values higher than 255 in RealBasic has no use because they are changed automaticly to 255.
I think when we used VW 10 or VW 11, we should not experience this problem at all because VW 10 works with color sliders which goes to 255. Regretfully we still use VW 9.5.
Maybe you ask by yourself "why using RealBasic for choosing colors?". Very simple, VectorScript dialogs do not have the capability to create colors by code and show them inside the dialog itself. In my RealBasic program the user directly see the signpanel in its dialog and every change is directly visible. In this way, the user can fine tune his/her colors before importing them (by textfile) into the Vectorworks document.
Despite the fact your advice gave me not the result I wanted, I find it very usefull because using a class, seems to me a little more responsive than using a handle to a specified object (or am I wrong?).
I thank you very much for your help and I wish you a very nice day. If I find a solution, I will let you know.
Friendly greetings,
Chrissy
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Hi again,
I did a little experimentation and I found out that I have to multiply the values from RealBasic (ranging from 0 to 255) with 256 to match those of VectorWorks.
However I still get an color difference between what is drawn in RealBasic and the VW colors. The selected color choosen in Vectorworks is darker and not quit the same as in RealBasic. For example the following code :
procedure Test;
Var
hndLayer:handle;
hndObject:handle;
lngRed:longint;
lngGreen:longint;
lngblue:longint;
begin
SelectAll;
hndLayer := ActLayer;
hndObject := FSObject(hndLayer);
lngRed := 51200;
lngGreen := 51200;
lngBlue := 0;
SetFillBack(hndObject,lngRed,lngGreen,lngBlue);
end;
run(Test);
Will show a very different color in VectorWorks than specified in RealBasic (Red : 200 Green : 200 Blue : 0).
It is very important that both colors are the same and closely matching. I have the impression that VectorWorks choose the nearest available color in its active color palette or am I wrong?
How can I solve this problem so the Vectorworks colors are closely matching the RealBasic generated RGB colors?
I thank you again for your time spend on my problem. In the meantime I wish you the best.
Friendly greetings,
Chrissy
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Hello Everyone,
Two years ago I made a calculation program which calculated price invoices - parts lists by use of PIO objects in Vectorworks. By the time I transported Vectorworks data to an external database system, the company ran out of money and I was dismissed (I worked there as an employee). I could not finish that interesting project and since 15 april 2002 the company did not succeed in finishing this project. So far for a little history.
During those two years I got a couple of questions from people using Vectorworks for such an external price calculation program. However the costs and time spend to design and finally create such a program are hugh.
Therefore I like to gather information if there is more intrest in such a calculation program so the development costs can be lowered over several users. I don't do this for the money but I have to earn my daily living. The main reason is that I want to finish this interesting project. I cannot take any code from the former project because this is not allowed. Therefore I decided to start from scratch to avoid copyright claims.
Those are the base specifications for the program :
1. You draw your preluminary designs or your technical drawings in VectorWorks.
2. You can select your objects, lines and other shapes by using PIO (Plug In Objects) who connect classes and records to your drawings.
3. When you are done, you click onto a transport script which exports your data in textfile format outside Vectorworks.
4. The price calculation program takes your exported VW textfile and store it into a database.
5. You can create pricelists, invoices, calculations and a partslist into this calculation program.
6. The calculation program keeps track of all your VW data. After succesfully imported the VW textfile, the VW file is deleted. It can make automatic backups from its databases and tables. The possibilities of this calculation program are only limited by our imagination and creativity.
7. The calculation program should be available both for Windows, Mac and Linux.
8. Every action which can be automaticly done by the computer should be done in this way.
9. The calculation program should easily adapt so it can be used by almost every Vectorworks user.
Do you have any idea, suggestions or something else to say which will make this calculation program usefull. Any ideas are welcome. Would you buy such a program for an affordable price?
I will base my decision if the project has a chance of success on the input I receive on this message board. Most programs I saw in this category where very expensive. When there is enough interest, I will create a shareware program who will do the calculation and data-management. It is the intention that this program can be used ranging from an architect to a signbuilding company.
I thank you very much for your time and I wish you a very nice day.
Friendly greetings,
ClockWerX
Dessel
Belgium
Europe
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Hi Justin,
I read your problem and maybe I can help you. Almost 2 years ago I experimented to get every individual class inside a group. The group could contain several levels of nested classes. Also a nested class could consist of again nested classes.
The experiment was not completely succesfull, however in most circumstances the VectorScript designed gave correct results.
Because it is almost 2 years ago I do not know exactly were to search for that script. I do have it.
In case you are interested, please send me a message to the following email :
kristiaan.verberne@skynet.be
and I will send you the VectorScript. Also tell me if you use Windows or Macintosh so I can send you the script in WordPad or in SimpleText depending on your system in use.
It will be not an easy task to accomplish however it can be done. I worked for several days on that experimental script and I succeeded for almost 99 %.
This is what the script does :
You draw a lot of figures onto your vectorscript document. Then you group them together , nested groups included.
When you run the script you will see that the objects you drawed onto the document becomes filled with different colors. When all objects are coloured the script has accessed them all. When one color or more objects are not coloured then this are the 1% which I did not succeed.
Going inside groups and nested groups is very important for many reason. It can mean the success or failure of a project.
I wish you a very nice day and all the best.
Friendly greetings,
StarGate
Dessel
Belgium
Europe
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Hi everyone,
I will appreciate it when you can help me with the following problem.
I use Vectorworks 9.5.1.
I have a script which has to set the file location where all my scripts will store and retrieve its information. The files created in VectorScript are in text format.
Now I have to give the user a dialog where he can choose the directory in which the files will be stored. I used GetFile, GetFolderPath but none of those functions do what I expect. The function GetFile needs a file to open. It is my intention to only get the folder (directory) path because even when there is no file in that directory I have to get the path.
Now I have two questions :
1. Is there a function which let the user only choose a directory instead of a file?
2. Is there a method in VectorScript which will let me show the directory structure on the hard discs in a listbox?
I will appreciate your help very much and I thank you in advance. Have a nice day!
Friendly greetings,
Chrissy
Dessel
Belgium
Europe
email : kristiaan.verberne@skynet.be
VW 11 performance on G4/867MHZ
in General Discussion
Posted
Hello all,
Thank you very much for your replies on this subject. I will show your replies to the company I am working for.
In the meantime, your reactions are highly appreciated.
I wish you all a very nice day and all the best.
Friendly greetings,
Chrissy