Christiaan

Couldn't agree more. This is why I was having such a moan about the inability of Artlantis exports to handle long Class names back a few months or so. We use fully descriptive Class names in our template for the above reason but also because it makes it much easier for new staff to learn.

Sometimes it's useful to print something to get a better idea of what it will come out like or discuss it with colleague. Which means you either need to print the whole drawing, or print part of it by setting it up in the Design or Sheet Layer. All of which seems unnecessarily time consuming or wasteful, so it would be quite useful if we had some kind of marquee tool that let us quickly nominate a part of a drawing to send to the printer with a few clicks.

Also see: http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Number=66931#Post66931

In terms of construction phase drawings you should think of (v12.5) Section Viewports as a basis for creating your sections, rather than as a final tool. Create Section Viewports and then work these up in Viewport Annotations with 2D tools.

Presumably there aren't many bricks used in Scandinavia? We need a 100mm module metric bricks instead of the short-sighted imperial-to-metric 112.5mm modules. By the way, what opening sizes are used for double doors in Finland, etc?

What Class are you putting it on? We have it on None, and None always stays on in our office.

How about a plugin for AutoCAD that let's them import VectorWorks files?

This is the same as this wish, just specific to the atrributes palette: http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Number=72625 In fact I reckon you could go through VW's entire interface and implement this standard UI.

Does anyone else get this behaviour (insulation sometimes flips when stretched)? Is there a way to avoid it flipping? Maybe by drawing in a certain direction? Or should I submit a bug?

Why do you want to do that? Wouldn't you just run Designer all the time?

Just drag the file to your Dock so it's always accessible. No thanks, I don't want our job folders on the server being littered with log files. /Library/Application Support/ is a standard Mac OS X user interface. I like the fact that VectorWorks is a good Mac OS citizen.

Yeah, I agree, I'm just saying it's not all that logical, i.e. you'd be controlling an entity that isn't an object with an *object* info palette. I find the AP a bit surplus too but there's a voice in the back of my head saying that putting it in the OIP is one of those creeping "improvements" that happens without looking at the big picture.

It definitely seems the natural thing to do. It doesn't need to be editable in the Shape tab but the least I expected was for it to show the name like a Symbol does.

I agree with you but I guess it's the logic of setting defaults. How do you set defaults in the OIP when no object is selected?

Pete, the situation arises when you want to keep one object coloured but make everything else black. Since Viewports came along we adopted a system whereby we draw on Design Layers in colour (according to Class) and then when we present our drawings on a Sheet Layer we do one of three things: 1) leave as is, in colour 2) choose 'Black and white only' from document preferences, or 3) if we need some colour to remain, override all Class settings in the Viewport to black, apart from the object we want to remain in colour. One real world example of option 3 is lease/conveyancing plans (or site plans) where, at least in the UK, the boundary line is required to be red. In a recent job I was producing lease plans and we had a coloured hatch indicating a floor finish. In this instance I had to go back to the hatch and edit it to be black, which we would rather have remained coloured on our Design Layers (for the very reason that we started using colour in the first place). In the case above it wasn't such a problem because it didn't really matter that the hatch was now black (because it was just a visual aid), but I can see a different workaround is going to be needed on another job where we require the hatch to remain coloured (because it indicates some landscaping on a different drawing). In this case we're going to have to redraw the boundary in the Viewport Annotation and control the colour of it via the Attributes palette.

Currently (v12.5.1) if you apply a colour to any of your hatches you can't then override them in a Viewport because they're not associated with a Class. I can't think of the best way around this. The first thought would be to add the ability to put Hatch Levels on a Class, but maybe that's not a good idea? Maybe, instead, there needs to be a special hatch override feature in Viewports?

Well, except that there are binary and text options for DXF exports from VW. Also, if I export a binary DXF and a DWG and then zip each of them up the binary DXF is the smaller file. All extremely fascinating stuff.

That's what I assumed, thanks.

What are primary differences between DXF and DWG files? That is, why would anyone capable of opening either want one over the other?

I'd like to be able to batch export multiple Sheet Layers to DXF/DWGs as separate files (named according to the Sheet Layer name) like we can now with PDFs (which is great!)

Great!

I would have thought that when you create or edit a Saved View you would be presented with an optional drop down menu that lets you choose/nominate a Viewport to derive the Class and Layer settings from. If you choose one the current options would then be greyed out. Then, when you choose that Saved View it would go to a Design Layer but take on the nominated Viewport settings (just like right-clicking on a Viewport and choosing Edit Design Layer). The advantage would be that the Saved View dymamically updates to stay in sync with your nominated Viewport but instead of having to go the correct Sheet Layer then right-click on the Viewport then chose Edit Design Layer all you'd need to do is click on the Saved View menu and choose your Saved View.

The separator between the Design Layers and the Sheet Layers has disappeared from within the Layers drop down menu in the Data Display Bar.

Does NNA want bug submits for this beta?

Yes that worked. I also renamed it from VectorWorksB to VectorWorks.