Pat Stanford

This is always going to be a hard thing to do. I don't think the dimension fill color is rendered, so it does not account for lighting in the scene. Even if you assigned the same color to the object and the text fill, they will not look alike. For flat drawings like you are showing, you might be able to use one of the older rendering modes like Unshaded Polygon that I don't think take the lighting into account and you might get a better match between your colors.

Can you post a file with the Marionette object so we can take a look?

Bruce, go into Vectorworks Preferences and then to the Interactive tab. on the left hand side is a box with sliders next to it for the Selection box size and the Snap box size. Are these set to be the same? The Selection box is the inside box. If you are closer to the end point that this setting, you will get the Interactive Scaling cursor (Diagonal double arrow) and when you click and drag the object will scale. The Snap box is the outside box. If you are further than the Selection distance, but closer than the Snap distance, you will get the two tiny red dots at the top left of the Snap box to tell you you are going to snap to an object. If you make the Selection box bigger, you will be able to move close to an object and get a move cursor (black cross, or open triangle) and be able to click and move the object without rescaling it. It you move closer to you are actually over the blue selection handle, the cursor will change to the Interactive Scaling cursor and you will be able to resize the object. For at least a little while I recommend that you increase the size of both the Selection and Scaling boxes and go into the Interactive Appearance settings and change the color, line thickness and most importantly the opacity of both boxes so you can see where they are and how they work. For me, a bigger Selection box works better as I don't have to be so fiddly about being exactly over the blue selection handle to be able to get the move or rescale option I want.

@Art Vis completely correct that it is about screen resolution. Here are some examples. I am basing this on a wide screen monitor (16:9) as it can be considered to be a 3:4:5 right triangle. A 30" monitor with 2K resolution: 30" diagonal = 24" horizontal 24"/2000 pixels = 0.012"/pixel = 12 mils = 83 pixels/inch. So the minimum individual pixel will be 12 mil. Anything with a line weight of 12 mils will show as 12 mil. Depending on the display driver algorithm, line thicknesses between 12 mil and 24 mil will either be scaled up to 24 mil or down to 12 mil. The problem is less at higher thicknesses, but two line thicknesses with less than a 12 mil difference in thickness might show as the same thickness. A 30" monitor with 4K resolution: 30" diagonal = 24" horizontal 24"/4000 pixels = 0.006" = 6 mil = 166 pixels/inch. This will provide a much smaller pixel size and therefore can show finer liner thicknesses and greater difference between line thicknesses. A 45" monitor with 4K resolution: 45" diagonal = 36" horizontal 36"/4000 pixels = 0.009" = 9 mil = 111 pixels/inch. So the larger monitor will have less ability to show differences in line weights because the pixels are larger. Now if you zoom, the line weights will scale proportionally. A line that you drew at 18 mil, when you are zoomed to 50% to be drawn perfectly would need to be drawn as 9 mil wide. This would work on the 45" 4K, but the 30" 4 K would have to draw it as either 6 mil or 12 mil. And the 30" 2K would have to display it as 12 mil (single pixel width). Conversely, as you zoom in 200%, an 18 mil line would need to be displayed as 36 mil. So this could be 3 pixels wide on the 30"2K, 6 pixels wide on the 30"4K and 4 pixels wide on the 45"4K. Until we get to screens giving 300 to 600 dpi resolution like we have in printers, you will never be able to have perfect reproduction of line weights/thicknesses on a display to exactly match a printer. And even when we have 600 dpi screen, someone will still complain about the 1.7 mil pixel dimensions are to much and why can't they see the difference between the 10mil and 11 mil line weights they are using in their drawing. ;-)

What calculation do you want to do? You should be able to do any normal calculation using a many field values as you want without needing to resort to scripting. So if the database starts in Row 3 and Area is in Column A and the Load Factor is in Column B, then you should be able to put a formula into the Column C database header of: =A3/B3 and get what you want. If this does not work, can you post a stripped down version of the file so we can try it?

Developer.vectorworks.net Make sure you read the Vectorscript Language Guide as it has all the information on loops. The Vectorscript Function Reference and the Vectorscript Appendix (both also at the developer site, but also in the VWHelp:Script Reference folder in your Applications folder) are also required information. The Function Reference has sample code for most of the functions, but not a lot on how to combine them together. Since the Python implementation is just to call the Vectorscript functions, these are needed for Python also.

It is actually very similar to the other palettes. Drag the bottom right corner and you can change the width and height. Once you have it sized the way you like, you can snap it to the window or to the other palettes.

Based on another bug report, I think this is a bug. In VW2017, you could change class visibilities and Recalculate the worksheet and the image would respect the current class settings. In VW2018 it does not work. Hopefully it will be fixed in the next service pack.

Since the edges of the staves are straight, there are a few ways to do this. For the barrel, I would start in a Top or Top/Plan tool and then use the SPLIT tool to draw lines across the barrel to break it into the individual staves. Same for the lute, except I would "stand it on end" like the left photo and do the split from that view. Alternatively, you could make multiple copies of the original shapes and use an extrude shape (probably a rectangle) and the Subtract Solids and/or Intersect Solids commands to make the individual 3D staves. You can then probably use the 3D PowerPack, Unfold Surfaces command to get a flat pattern to use.

The Vectorscript Appendix is your friend. ;-) This one might help also.

@Sam JonesDo you want to hop in here. Sam Jones writes an add-on called AutoPlot Tools for Spotlight. I believe the original version included the ability to import and export data from lights. Hopefully he can help out here. Based on what you are asking, I think this project is bigger than you think. I would estimate multiple 10s of hours to script and debug if you were an experienced programmer. If you are trying to learn to program as well, I think you are probably in the multiple 100s of hours to get is right and include all of the debugging and error checking to make sure you don't overwrite objects of create duplicate objects. And that is only for the VW part. You probably have almost as much time on the Filemaker end as well. If you want to proceed, we will be glad to try and help, but the learning curve will be steep. Sorry.

VW does not have a setting to have layers or classes not print automatically. You can set the visibility of layers and classes to invisible to get them to not show and therefore not print. You could probably create a saved view (of if not a simple script) that would need to be selected (run) before you print to accomplish what you are looking for.

You might want to also check and make sure you don't have a corrupted font. Font Book on the Mac has an option to do this.

It sounds like you have Use Application Window checked in the Window menu. This consolidates all of the drawings into tabs in a single window. Turn this off and you will have the old style multiple windows. I like the consolidated Application Window as it let's me move drawings and palettes at the same time instead of having to drag 10 different things. When used with the Multiple View Panes and the ability to Create Floating View Pane so you can put part of a drawing on a different monitor it works very well.

Most of the worksheet functions can take criteria as a parameter when they are in worksheet cells even though they don't need criteria when in a database header. =AREA in a database header might become =Area(((L='1-Floor') & (C='Red'))) when in a worksheet cell. Tell us more about what you are doing. Especially why you don't want to use a database and we might be able to give you better suggestions.

I am relatively certain they are, but as with current versions, about the only Apple scriptable command is Run Script.

Nuno, I am relatively certain this is a bug. If you have a simple file that reliably demonstrates the problem, please file a bug report so the engineers will have a case to study to make the proper fix.

Samuel, Hippocode is right, that is the way it does work now. I think we are having a problem understanding exactly what you want. If you create a record format, you get to define default values for each field. If you attach a record to a symbol definition, you can choose to leave the values the same as the record format defaults, or you can change them to be specific to that symbol definition. If you then place an instance of the symbol in the drawing, the record attached to the instance is created with the defaults from the symbol definition. If you change the values associated with the record in symbol instance, only the record attached to that symbol instance is changed. You can select multiple symbol instances at once to change multiple records at once, but the defaults in the record attached to the symbol definition are not changed. If you change the defaults attached to the symbol definition, all instances of the symbol placed after the changes will reflect those changes. Instances there were placed before the changes will not be effected. If you modify the Record Definition, the version of the record attached to a symbol definition and the version of the record attached to symbol instances will each be updated to match the format of the new record, but not the default data. If you add a field, each version of the record will be updated to include that field and will have the data contained in the record default. If you delete a field, that field will be removed from each version of the record and any data there will be lost. If you change the field name, it will be updated in every version but the data will be retained. I don't know what happens if you change the field type (for example, convert a string type field to a number type). Yes a script can be written that will take data from a symbol instance and replace the field data from the instance and use those values to replace the values in the symbol definition. Similarly, a script could take data from an instance and be used to replace the data in the record defaults. The question is is this something that will actually be done enough to make it worth the time to write and debug the script. If I were to hack this for my personal use, it would probably take 3-4 hours. To test, debug and comment sufficiently so that I would be willing to post it would probably be 6-8 hours. To package the script in such a way as to "productize" it to something I would consider end user friendly would probably take 10-20 hours. How much time do you think you are going to save by not having to manually edit the data in the symbol definitions?

When I do training, one of the first things I tell users (new or old) is that if you see a little triangle in VW it means they are hiding something from you and you probably want to figure our what it is that is being hidden. Sometimes it is something really good.

There is currently no way to edit the Record default values from a worksheet. You would have to manually navigate to the Record Format using the Resource Manager and edit the Record field values from there. As Hippocode says, if you edit the values, it will not change the values associated with any of the already placed symbols. The Record attached to the symbol definition is just a template. The values stored in the Record definition are transferred to the record attached to the symbol instance when it is placed, but there is not link between the records in either direction. I have thought about writing a script that would allow the values from an object that had a record attached to be stored back to the record definition, but I don't think I ever saw enough use to actually write it. A few questions to help me decide if it is worth the effort: 1. How often to you want to send values from a placed object back to the record defaults? 2. When you want the values sent back to the record default, do you want all of the fields or just a subset of the fields to change? 3. If only a subset, what kind of interface do you think would be useful to select which fields to update? 4. How many fields does your typical record format have?

I opened the file in VW2018 and the duplicate did in fact have two instances of Dimension A in the OIP. I edited the script of the duplicate Marionette and when I exited, the second Dimension A was gone form the OIP. In duplicating both the original and duplicate Marionette, I was unable to get Dimension A to double. So, not repeatable in VW2018.

Go to the Advance Properties button at the bottom of the OIP for each viewport and take a look at the Line Weight Scaling and Text Scaling options. If you set them to 2 you might get what you need.

That works too, as long as you are not concerned that some of your walls are possibly something other than what you think they are. Perfection is expensive. If Good Enough is good enough, then you are set. If you are not responsible for doing the take-offs on the drawing then you are probably OK. If you are, then you probably want to dig a little deeper and find the EW-1 objects and figure out what they really need to be. I think they may be unstyled walls or perhaps one of the Generic Exterior wall styles.

This just means that you have to click into the Formula Bar and manually edit the text representation of the database criteria instead of using the automatic criteria generator dialog box. You can still edit it, just in a different fashion.

You are using a SUM tile rather than a SORT tile. So if there is more than one wall using that blank style, they won't select. You need to have individual lines, but have them grouped together so they are easier to spot. I don't think you can Select Item on SUMmed rows.