RAM

I use both VW12 and SW almost daily. VW can't come close to SW for solid modeling however SW 2D capabilities are relatively unsophisticated compared to VW. I have created a routine for myself that exploits the strengths of both. At least I think so.

Accept that it is VERY CLOSE! The problem is that it really isn't very close. There needs to be a way of manually setting screen scale. Then you could increase/decrease in whatever increment necessary to suit what you're doing.

I currently use a program called "Cute PDF" with much better success than with the current Adobe. I believe I was also using it back to the days of VW 10.

I have recently "upgraded" to V12. One of the first things I noticed to be different is all the little red boxes V12 places in various locations. I can find no explanation for what they are trying to tell me and frankly find them to be a PITA. Anybody know how to turn them off?

Items selected using the cursor or marque should be made immediately visible by some form of highlighting, preferably color. This is how other CAD systems do it and it's beyond reason that Vectorworks doesn't do something. As it is, I have to delete/restore my selected items to make sure of what I have selected. It's amazing that a professional CAD system could exist this long without such a necessary feature. Making the handles visible isn't close to being adequate.

Better yet, how about an "E-MAIL" command that allows you to send a document without closing it and opening your mail program?

I'd like to see a "HIDE" tool. I would make it work by adding the command "hide" to a right click menu that appears when something is selected. I'd also like to see selected items change color or something so I know what is selected.

We switched from Macs to PCs when the Windows version of Vectorworks first became available. In fact we were a beta site. We've never been sorry we switched. Macs would be fine if you could buy any software for them. As it is, I don't see the point.

Bruce, no we don't have many names that long or I probably would have noticed it before now. i don't consider that relevant to this issue though, since the VW programmers must know that sooner or later SOMEBODY will need a 32nd character and it's their responsibility to let that person know about the limitation. They certainly don't list this sort of thing in their advertising when they announce a new version so how are we to learn of it except to stumble upon it. BTW, I forwarded a copy of my original post in this thread to the moderator of the board and I must say that his lack of response/participation speaks volumes to their attitude. We've been using their software for many years and in fact were a beta site for the first Windows version. I've reported many bugs and requested many improvements and can say that I don't remember any of them actually being addressed in a timely manner. They are certainly not bashful about asking us to pay for upgrades though. I have told them point blank that I would not upgrade again until the bugs I reported years ago got fixed. I realize that all software has it's good & bad attributes but over the years Vectorworks support system has been very callous, IMHO.

The last I remember was when we were told file names could be 255 characters. That was many years ago and in my mind never changed. It's beyond comprehension that a programmer would allow this to happen and to compound it they don't even open a dialog box to tell you it's happening. BTW, we are running WinXP Pro machines rather than Macs. I'm even more surprised this happens on Macs.

We've been using Minicad/Vectorworks for more than the 11 years I've been here and so we have lots of old drawings made with previous revisions of Vectorworks. We've had many problems opening old drawings with V11. It seems to me that the only reason you did this is to obsolete your old software. I don't agree with this policy however I don't dispute your right to do so. My problem is with the code that creates a "new name" for an older drawing opened with V11. For some reason some of the characters at the end of the name were omitted. I just noticed this today so I have no idea how long it's been doing this. You either did this intentionally or not. If it's unintentional then consider this a bug report. If it's intentional then please consider this the harshest possible criticism of this practice. I hope and will assume this is a bug because I don't like thinking anybody there would intentionally be this stupid. Please let me know how this pans out. Thanks. [ 07-27-2005, 04:46 PM: Message edited by: RAM ]

I just used PDF995 and it did produce usable results although not perfect. It still has issues with text the same as the others. This program displaces text slightly from where it is on the original but at least it is intelligible. Thanks for the tip. Maybe a little tweaking is in order.

Over the years I've had many conflicts between Adobe PDF writer and various versions of Vectorworks. Today I tried to create a PDF to e-mail to a vendor and each of the text characters on one of the layers rotated 90? CCW. The other layer, which had lots of text, was perfect. I also use another PDF creator called "Cute PDF" which sometimes works better. It did work a little better today but still had problems with text. Are there any answers for this or am I the only one?

You can save many preferences by making templates. If you or your company use formats as I do you can store the formats as *.sta (used to be called stationery). We even have many sizes of formats all with our preferred environmentals stored. There are still some system environmentals not stored like which pallets are open or which tools visible within those templates but it's a start.

The freehand tool needs to be able to snap to objects and points just like any other line tool. The literature used to say it did snap but it has never snapped even back to MiniCad.

Who's bright idea was it to stick a cursor arrow on the full screen cursor and make it so I can't remove it. The arrow is one of the things I want to avoid by using the full screen cursor. Change isn't always for the better folks. Sometimes things don't need improving.

I just installed VectorWorks "Mechanical" and now I can no longer find the tape measure tool. What's the story?

Anybody ever notice that when you add a dimension or other text to an old drawing the default text size has changed and it's always changed to some odd value that you would never use like 21pt so you know you didn't do it? What is that all about?

I've been reporting this problem with the windows software for years since we switched to thw PC. Tech support acted as if I was crazy and said I was the only person having these problems. I finally gave up on them and bought every desktop printer I could find to test them. The only one I have ever found that works the way the driver is suppose to is a Panasonic KX-P6500. They may be imossible to find now and if so we're both out of luck in the future. Tech support claimed that VW would solve all my printing problems but as usual it didn't although it's better. I don't know how these people can completely ignore something this esential that has been absent for so long.

quote: Originally posted by sakkaraju: I've noticed that the Zoom capability of VW 8.5.2 is not very reliable especially at high resolutions. Objects seem to appear fine in blocks (and nested blocks). But certain objects seem to disappear at random. upon zooming in the drawing. This is very, very aggravating. Anyone else have the same problems? BTW, I'm using a G4/500, 512 MB ram, ATI 128 with 32 MB VRAM. On a PC things seem to be even more unpredictable. I've had this problem on a windows platform since day one of the first beta. I don't think I've even bothered reporting it because it's so relatively insignificant compared to the other bugs they are ignoring that have reported. They'll just tell you to buy the next rev.

I'd like to be able to import or open .pdf files and to be able to use manipulate toe information rather than just viewing it.

There are only 3 line widths ever taught in drafting classes: thin, medium and thick. I hate to sound like father time but I've been drawing for well over 30 years and never found a use for any more. What am I missing? My only problem here is that the screen doesn't display different looking lines until a rather large increase in width is made. By then they may print TOO thick and it becomes difficult to know what lines are what weight until you print them out.

I've been complaining about the windows version of Minicad since I got my first copy of the beta. We were a bete site. The printing function and the lack of ability to reduce large drawings to A size has been a particular sore spot with me. The tech folks, for the most part, have been telling me that I was the only one they knew of who was having these problems although they have never, to this day, provided any answers to my questions. They keep telling me that the next generation of software will solve my problems. VW has been the only upgrade to help at all and it still has a long way to go. I'm glad to see someone else complaining to them about this years old problem that they refuse to solve. They love to sell software but hate to fix bugs.

Yes, Shawn I have checked my fax machine every day including 5 minutes ago. Others seem able to reach us. Perhaps you're using the wrong number. The correct number is 480)898-7667. I'll be watching.

OK shawn. You've had the file for over a day now. If it takes this long it isn't viable.