SamIWas

Sorry for not responding...started building a show. I'll check these out soon!

In certain Spotlight numbering operations and some AutoPlot tools, the cursor changes to a target of sorts, and can pick up symbols or snap to points. Is there something in basic scripting that makes this happen? I am not near the level of "event-based" scripting yet. I have some scripts I want to write which would require this, but I don't know how to toggle it.

I haven't created one, but it should be fairly easy to do, depending on how much detail is desired. Just a flat with basic framing? Not hard. Adding all the hardware and braces? A little harder. Adding a stand? Even harder.

My idea was to be able to move them up or down by a certain distance. Indeed...I decided it wasn't worth the time since it involved parsing a multi-line text string. I did start using "copy altered label legends" for now. My only issue is that it doesn't appear to work on 3D legends. I have not yet looked through the code needed to work on those. I do like how yours is able to select the source fixture after running the script. That's a thing I need to learn how to do. Guilty!

Thanks! I've seen that one. Had a little different idea in mind. I've figured out where the label positions are stored, but they're in a long text string and not separate fields, so now I need to look at how I can manipulate that text string effectively.

I assume that the Control Points for label legends are buried inside the Lighting Device or some other record somewhere, and thus able to be manipulated. I have found 8 control points which I am able to pull into a worksheet and view, but they don't appear to have anything to do with label legend field locations. Does anyone know if there's a syntax which would allow a script to move a certain label point for a range of selected fixtures?

I just started in 2019, and stumbled across the feature with the ability to group fields in label legends, which is amazing. I've been wanting this forever, especially with the ability to add text such as a universe/address divider. And, they behave nicely with the "adjust flipped text" option. However, the grouped fields do not appear to behave as expected as par as position goes. Looking at the attached image, you'll see that the ungrouped fields move as expected to hug the bottom of the fixture (but don't work right when flipped). The grouped one flips text as desired, but stays in the same location relative to center no matter how big the fixture is. I assume this is not how it should function. It would also be great if the group could auto-center so that the label was always centered on the center point of the group, no matter how wide it becomes. For instance, if your universe is 4, the group will be a different width than if it's 24, and the label will be slightly offset. This is far less important than the position. Hopefully, this can be fixed in the next service pack. I'm thinking I'll deal with the position for now.

You can do this in a worksheet. Make a worksheet with whatever info you need to figure out which fixture it is, along with a column for purpose, and edit the info in there.

Apologies if this has already been asked or solved. My crappy internet is preventing much searching in a reasonable time. If I am editing one object in the OIP, then I try to select another object in the main drawing window, I am now required to first click in the window, then select the object. Simply clicking on the object once does nothing. I am still on SP3, so maybe that's part of the issue. Whatever it is, it's killing me and causing accidental data entry when I think I've selected a different object. It has not been this way prior, as this is a major part of my workflow. Has this been figured out?

I have some PIOs in which I'd like to be able to put any symbol name into a field and have it displayed. That is easy and have that working. Is there a particular way to get the PIO to display only the 3D parts of said symbol when in 3D views, but use the PIOs definition when in 2D views? In other words, I may not want to see the 2D part of the symbol in Top/Plan view, but just whatever the PIO itself draws.

This is an option, and what I will likely end up resorting to. Just a pain to have to script around a simple file extension.

Yes...this is what I currently do. I navigate to the folder in question and give the file a new extension each time (it's usually only one file at a time, but I do use Better Rename if it's a bunch). That is cumbersome, especially when having to do it multiple times per day (or in the case of testing scripts, multiple times per hour). Since Filemaker refuses to acknowledge such an issue, I am hoping that the more involved and helpful folks at VW can look into it!

I use Filemaker. A lot. For everything. A few years ago, they changed something in their code which made it so you could not save exported data as a .txt file. It has to be .tab. Then you have to navigate to the file and change it manually to .txt. Vectorworks does not allow the choice of .tab files at file selection during script imports. I and others have tried for years to get Filemaker to fix the export file choice. But, being that they are owned by Apple now, admitting any kind of fault in the product and fixing anything based on customer request is unheard of. So, maybe Vectorworks (much more accepting of customer input) can make the change on their end? Possible to allow the choice of .tab (tab-separated text) files?

If you're referring to lighting and basic rendering upgrades, then agreed. Vectorworks could certainly benefit from Cinema's lighting options. A single Cinema light has upwards of 90 options. I thought you meant that Vectorworks should have "all the things" that a full 3D modeling program would have.

I'm not sure I necessarily agree. At some point, the program becomes too bloated from it's true purpose. At what point does it go from beefy CAD program to full 3D animation program? Then, people will want all the features of full 3D animation, which is a massive set of features. Not to say that VW couldn't use a lot of work on a lot of features. I'd love to see Cinema's level of texturing, lighting, true 3D coordinate system. But, I'm in the camp of letting complimentary programs do their strength and work with each other. At this point, it's almost like we just need Cinema to have some of VW's tools...then we'd have everything we need!