Chris D

Looks like a detail the Amish would recognise.

And while I'm on a rant...the world went metric in the last century or the one before that! Just because you americans stick to your quaint olde imperial hands and feet and thumb-inches measurements (alone with Burma and Liberia), we don't want them! Every little default in the PIOs is some random factor of 25.4mm from your stupid thumb-inches! Gaahhh! Go metric! It's the 21st Century!

The Vectorworks window sill needs updating thoroughly. This sill arrangement is unrecognisable in the UK: Here is a typical modern window sill arrangement (uPVC window): And the optional stone/brick sill below a window is called a sub-sill: VW needs to handle window sills and sub sills independently because a sill is part of the window assembly and needs to be included within the frame size and within the structural opening (rough opening), but a sub sill is part of the masonry and is not part of the opening. Window boards also needs to be handled separately.

And when I've picked the normal Select tool, why can't the "power select" tools be available on the tool mode bar...like this:

I also can't understand why the Custom Selection tool requires two modal dialog boxes instead of one. It would be so much quicker with one... Current dialogs: Preferred single dialog:

"Reset Saved Settings" button on the Session tab of Preferences. Try that...

Got to Vectorworks Preferences and hit the Reset button on the lower left. I'm pretty sure this resets all of those 'sticky' settings.

This is great Michael, but in the way of all great VW workflows.....it's definitely a workaround, and a difficult one to manage at that. For instance your location polygons are duplicates of what would be spaces, collected together on a separate layer, and manually updated when you remember to do it. It does demonstrate that VW has a lot of underlying power, but the execution of the user facing functionality is terrible.

Not sure how we missed this one in the UK localisation of the window terminology, but window stools should be called window boards in the UK version. I had to google what a 'window stool' was supposed to be... Can anyone get window boards/stools to work correctly for modern windows with deep window boards? I've no idea why they are lumped in with sills...you don't seem to be able to add a window board without adding a sill. The little diagram in the dialog box looks like the window sill of some nineteenth century colonial cabin and when I set a modern 250mm deep window board, with a short external cill, the sill and board sit in the wrong place relative to the window itself. Any ideas?

Timber sills on windows do not correctly adjust the Structural Opening height. Take a 1200mm high window and add a 50mm timber sill. Both the window assembly and the hole in the wall will measure 1250mm high, but the OIP and Settings dialog both still report 1200mm. NB. Structural Opening is the UK localisation for Rough Opening

Wish I hadn't done that now. Because it crashed your machine? Because it reflects badly on Vectorworks?

7. Lock Grid Position The most important thing about a building grid is that it is an immoveable reference for the other building elements. The fact that you can't lock the grid position (like you can with a DLVP for instance) means it isn't foolproof. Sure, you can lock the object, but then you can't get to the settings without unlocking it, so a "Lock Position" toggle on the OIP is required that will lock the grid so that it can't be dragged accidentally. Of course, accidental dragging is not something that should be available in a professional CAD/BIM application as I've said before - there should be a global preference to turn it off: See Robust Foolproofing

Here's an idea for a new forum: Tips and Tricks Vectorworks sometimes has hidden and underused features. Discovering them by browsing the help files is a little dry....so how about we do it here, by sharing discovered tools or tips and tricks on how to use them. To kick off, today I discovered Coincident Object Selection When several objects are sat on top of each other and you can't click on the one you want, hold J down before clicking and you get a magic little list to choose from... Select Connected Objects (Edit menu)....selects all bits of exploded polylines or connected lines, as long as the ends touch... No tolerance settings unfortunately, but useful nonetheless.. I always read the New Features documentation for each release, but I missed these two.. I know that Jonathan Pickup distributes Tips and Tricks but a forum for this would be great..

I did.

To save 8 minutes of your life...it's a guy running XP on Parallels and running Revit on top of that. His video card isn't recognised... Oddly enough, this page infers that Revit is now supported on Parallels.. http://usa.autodesk.com/products/mac-compatible-products

Let me guess....if you weren't a Mac office you'd be trialling Revit, right? Allplan is almost unsupported in the UK....the forums have a couple of English language posts a week....hope your German's good...

Is this a trial version for OS X using Parallels or are you installing on Boot Camp? (I can't help...just interested...)

Let me tell you what's going to happen in the UK. The last 18 months has seen an explosion of BIM talks and initiatives and the government is pushing full steam ahead on BIM. They have mandated a pretty modest BIM requirement for 2016 across all public projects, but the significance is that here in Europe the state is the biggest spender, so this matters. In response people are scrambling to adopt BIM to avoid being left behind. Now my point is this - all the talk from government is about IFC and Open BIM and all that, and the whole thing being open to all vendors, which is true IN THEORY. But in practice it is not true because of the way we procure things in the UK. The Government doesn't commission little firms to do design or engineering or anything like that....they have massive tender processes to major contractors, who then employ all the little design firms end engineering firms like us. And you know what, major contractors use major software platforms, and in fact they all use Revit and mandate that everyone who works for them does the same! The only way that Nemetschek could get a foot in the door with major contractors was if they had a single big platform* themselves (* or possibly a common platform with some brand name front ends)

It doesn't necessarily need to be a full merge, but the bunker culture has to end and Nemetschek need to pool their engineering and IP resources. It could be a common file format, a common symbol format, common cloud platform, common plug-ins and tools even, but the brand names could remain with distinct UIs and distinct USPs and price points much like now... Nemetschek's current BIM portfolio is an accident of history and nothing more - it is not a software strategy to compete with Revit.

Yes we'd like them. Don't think we've got them..

As long as the buildings are separate, why can't you just use section viewports to set up your elevations, and use viewport crops to show however much you like...one building or both as required? i.e. don't distinguish by either class or layer...just by crop

Why is the Grid Bubble tool unrelated to the Grid Rectangular tool? Any why are the Snap Grid and Reference Grid unrelated to both? Is this just to confuse new users (and old ones...)....?

6. Scheduling of objects by grid position If it's an intelligent grid, let's see some intelligent uses, like reporting symbol positions by storey and grid reference.

Oh, go on then. 5. Grids that work in section/elevation view http://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=34031&Number=167774 So that the grid and storey-height setup are linked into a 3D grid. I should be able to see storey-height grid lines in any section viewport AND I should also be able to see the X or Y grids superimposed over these views too if I'm looking across them.

Yes Yes Yes Yes Need I say more?