Jump to content

Pat Stanford

Moderator
  • Posts

    12,530
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Pat Stanford

  1. It is only simple after you know about it. Until someone points a lot of things out they are impossible. Too many hidden options with low discoverability, but With so many options I don't know how to make it more discoverable.
  2. Look and see if you have a Class called Section Style. If so, try editing the Fill and Line attributes in the Class.
  3. I use Dropbox, but I don't like or trust it. All I want it to be is a file repository ("A Feature" in Steve Jobs speak). Versioning is part of that. I don't want them adding all of this extra file manipulation stuff like Paper etc. And the thing that drives me most mad is that there is no way to get a link and see if I already have a local copy of the file instead of throwing me to the web. I would pay way more than the $1000K/year we are paying for Business access if I could send a link and let everyone look at their local version. But, I am glad you are happy and it works for you.
  4. If you choose to go with the Auto Save mode for backups, make sure you have a good archive in place of recent versions. You don't want to find that you have been working away for a few hours and realize that you were in the wrong file, or working with incorrect data and don't have any way to get back to where you were at the start of the day. That is the biggest reason for using the Copy option. But if you files can't be restored from the Copy, then you are out of luck anyway. I have never had a copy that would not reopen. If anyone does see that, please submit both the original file and the corrupted copy as a bug so VW can figure out why it is happening.
  5. Here are a few of the mostly 2D differences: Data Visualization - Ability to override object attributes on the fly by parameters Addition of the Data Manager Data Tag enhancements Improved speed and smoothness due to Vectorworks Graphics Module Direct edit in list interfaces (i.e. rename classes and layers in the Navigation Palette + More) Enhanced Title Block Improved Notes Manager Optimized PDF Exports Smart Options Display Quick Search Smart Markers Structural Grid Tool Detachable Palette Panes (eg see the Shape and Data pane of the OIP at the same time.
  6. You should be able to use the Unicode symbols that are part of your font to find a glyph that is an X or Checkmark that will work for what you want. Worst case make those text fields a different font that does have have you want. Just in case the fonts don't come through on the forum, I attached a screen shot as well. ✓✔︎✕✖︎✗✘❏❐❑❒☑︎☒☐
  7. The location of the user folder can be set in Vectorworks Preferences:User Folder pane. But if you are doing this for a large number of students you might be better off making a "hard link" (sorry I don't know the Windows term) from the location in the App Data folder to the location you want the data stored on OneDrive. On Mac I have used links to relocate a subset of the User Folders and it worked fine.
  8. This post did not specifically say it installed, but since they were testing the operation I think you could assume that it did.
  9. Jeff, can you try and edit the criteria of the report and see if the check box for Object in Viewport Annotations is checked? If so, do the objects get counted properly?
  10. No option for straight lines that I know of. Probably a good thing to put in the Wish List forum.
  11. I am glad you got it working for you. I just tried use Document Units in a drawing set to Square Meters and it worked fine, except that I could not find a way (after about 5 minutes of playing) to control the number of decimal places after the division. In the following formula, the top row is in document units and give just l/s as the written units. The next two lines are for Document Units and Sq M that I was trying to see how each option actually displayed the units. They are all the same. I don't know what was going on if your version. Flow is: #AREA#/50sq m l/s #AREA# #AREA##sq m_1_1#
  12. The next time you get this take a screen shot of the dialog box that comes up. We might be better able to explain the options there to solve your problem.
  13. I use 15 operations and keep the latest 12 versions. That seems to get me a autosave every 2 to 8 minutes depending on what I am doing. With an average of 5 minutes that means I have about an hour of intermediate backups. I guess I should remember to do real saves at least once per hour. Buy using Operations instead of Time, you know that the autosave will start between other operations and not in the middle of something.
  14. Since most of the objects seem to have a flat plane, I would use the Set Working Plane tool and then the Look At Working Plane to get a single ("front" elevation). If you only need the objects and not everything around them, I would consider making them symbols and placing an extra copy on a differently layer where they layout orthogonal. Another option is to use the Rotated Plan view to set the Plan view to be orthogonal. You can then switch to a Front/Side/Back view using this rotated view as the basis. If you don't get a warning dialog box (always/never do this) option, then go to Vectorworks Prefererences, Session Tab and click the Reset Saved Settings button at the top right. You will have to reset all of the saved settings and redo them again, but often that is good as you may have told a dialog to never show again and then forgotten there was a different option. Ask again if you need more help.
  15. Obviously your choice and decision, but if you budget about 1£/hour for 2000 work hours a year, you can buy VW Architect and a new mid-range iMac every two years. And then you wouldn't have to worry about what you are going to do if you old hardware dies and you have to replace both hardware and software at the same time. To me it is a business tool. If you billing rate is 50£/hour, then you are looking at paying 2% of your rate for your basic tools. If something newer can make you 2% more efficient, then you are break even. I think you would be very surprised at how much has changed between 2016 and 2021 and how much more productive you could be by upgrading more often. Data Tags, Data Visualization, Grid Bubble tool, Improved Title Block Border. Those are just a few things off the top of my head that have come in since 2016 that will directly help with 2D productivity. I am not trying to be argumentative, just want to point out a different way to look at costs. I hope whatever you choose works out well for you.
  16. Yes, VW2017 is compatible with High Sierra, but it is the last version compatible with High Sierra. What are you trying to do? You are asking about 5 and 6 year old versions of VW and the Operating System. You can certainly operate that way and always run 5 years behind. Or you can consider upgrading to the current version that will then probably be stable for the next 5 years or so.
  17. The VW autosave files should not be part of your backup and archive policy. They are great for as you say "spur of the moment" crash recovery or "Oh , why did I do that" times, but thy are next to useless two weeks later when you are trying to find the one from "Before I moved the window, but after we rotated the kitchen." Daily backups are good (in my opinion a must have), but random autosaves more than a day or two old are worthless. Archive: Daily (when worked on) or at a minimum at major points in the design (preliminary submittal, customer approval, submitted for plan check, etc.) Backup: Continuous (Something like TimeMachine), "Bootable" Close of HD (If you store your data on a disk that is not used for booting a computer then just a clone is ok). Daily incremental backups. Nothing is backed up until you have at least three separate copies, on at least two different media types, in at least two different physical locations. Syncing services like Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive, etc. DO NOT count as backups. They sync so fast that if you delete something from your local copy it is likely to be gone from everywhere before you notice. Web based storage services like Amazon S3 and Wasabi, that you control the sync to, especially if you use a program that does incremental backups and keeps the historical copies do count as backups
  18. You might be able to contact VW Tech Support directly and they might be able to help you.
  19. Take a look at this thread. Similar question. So far we have not come up with a solution for the A or B data tag.
  20. Can you send me a simple file based on your template that shows the three types of objects and the the three Tag styles?
  21. I don't understand enough about IFC to know if creating/using a single pset across different types of objects is a good idea or not. If it is acceptable to you then that would be the easiest solution as you could then use a stock Data Tag to access the information across different types of objects. I also don't know how you would get this "custom set" to automatically be attached to these object types when you create them. If you have to go to the data pane of the OIP and manually attach the set to every object (this is probably scriptable) then that may be worse than using different Data Tags. It is relatively simple to report the data from different IFC psets in a single column in a worksheet. Especially if it is only a few different psets a couple of nested IF functions or possibly even just a Concat could return the data from the correct pset as long as you didn't have multiple "reported" psets attached to a single object. For attaching different Data Tags to different object types, I think a relatively simple script that defines a Data Tag Style to an Object Type could be used. You probably will not get the automatic preview you get with the current Data Tag tool, but I have not played with that part so far. You would still need to define the Data Tag Style to show the information you are interested in. You would then pick an object and if the picked Object Type matched the Object Type list in the script it would place a Data Tag of the matching Style and associate the Data Tag with the picked object. What do you think?
  22. Do you really need a single type of data tag for all these object types, or would a tool that would automatically select the correct Data Tag Style for the object type you are hovering over be sufficient? If it does need to be a single Data Tag Style, would you be willing to run a script to update the data rather than have it automatically update?
  23. I understand the concept of doors having handedness, but I don't know the industry standard for that definition. Can someone please explain the concept of handedness of doors as used in architecture and how you would like to display/use it?
  24. What was that Bruce Willis movie? Unbreakable? He could not be hurt and Mr. Glass would break ribs by sneezing? Yin and Yang. I will try to send you good thoughts.
×
×
  • Create New...