atari2600

Any chance you can knock it down to VW2013? I'd like to take a look at it. It sounds like one should be able to accomplish what you are attempting to do. Matt

No, but you can make multiple copies of your "custom" viewport & simply change it's crop & design layer settings. (you can select multiple viewports and turn on/off classes at once, but not override.) How many sheets do you print out, typically? If its a handful, you can set up multiple printing sheets on a single sheet layer, so you don't have to keep bouncing between sheet layers. That way, you can set up one single sheet layer with all your customized viewports. You can do this under the "Page Setup" button while editing a sheet layer. You can set the number of horizontal and vertical pages once youve properly set up your printer and paper size.

Yes, by creating class overrides. First, I assume that every linetype that you wish to have a different appearance for, they are on a unique class from eachother, and you have not changed their appearance using the attributes palette. You need to make sure the attributes of the lines are all set to "by class" on this palette before proceeding. Next, if you go to the sheet layer and select the viewport you wish to edit, bring up the object info palette and pick the "classes" button. Once you get the list of your classes up, simply click on a desired class and hit "edit". Any appearance changes you make here will only affect the object on this class, on only this particular viewport. You can also select multiple classes at once and make them all look the same. And if you are dealing with a black & white appearance, don't forget you can set that under the viewport's "advanced properties." (we use this feature all the time when presenting different schemes to clients. We draw with all the walls with the same color, but have overrides set up in the viewports showing different colored walls to make each scheme appear different.) hope this helps, Matt

Andrew, Making the "base symbol" and then having a different symbol associated with the different clients makes sense to me, especially if they will all appear in the same viewport. I do this all the time, (especially with electric symbols). However, I also highly recommend learning to use the Viewport Override feature. This is a very powerful way to precisely control how you want things to look in any particular viewport, beyond simply turning classes on and off. If the objects within the Symbol are on their own separate classes, not only can you turn them on & off, but you can override both the pen of the fill of the class, giving a lot of graphic control. In other words, you can work with a simplified appearance while you are in the design layer, then create a much more graphically rich appearance when looking at it through a viewport on a sheet layer. You can then set up a handful of viewports already "tweaked" to your different clients, so all's you have to do is paste the desired "client ready" viewport into the sheet layer you are working on. hope this helps, matt

From the sheet layer, cant you create a cropped viewport with a polygon object that can be neatly tucked only around the objects you want to render? It's been a while, but I remember doing this often for isometric views.

If you add a "#" to the end of your field name, you can add multiple lines to the text box (by using the enter key), but the text wont wrap on it's own. In other words, if your field name is "S_Notes", change it to "S_Notes#" and you will have a multi-line field.

Are you importing the file directly as a sheet layer viewport, or importing it onto a design layer, to then create a sheet layer viewport of that? Perhaps try the opposite of what you are doing to see if that works. (I hope I am making sense.) Matt

Hi Rob, I was just playing with the tool, and I notice that if I turn off my wall component classes which have the brick veneer on them, the veneer turns off and the tool successfully dimensions to the outermost "visible" material (the sheathing in this case). If I turn on the brick veneer class again, the tool will dimension to the outside of the brick. The wall styles we use are all set to have each components be on their own class, thus controlling visibility. (and please forgive me if I miss-understand what you are trying to accomplish.) Matt

Before hatch attribute mapping, we used the "ceiling grid" tool for orthogonal arrangements. Perhaps that tool might help in your situation. Matt

I certainly wouldn't advocate anyone upgrading their OS on it's first day of release, but if VW is the only software not working, what gives? Fwiw: Just looking in my old service pack release folder. I downloaded the final service pack release of VW2011 on 7/18/2011. In my mind, 27 months of using a "refined" piece of software is not a long time. Our warranty to our clients is longer that that. Again, just because "THE INDUSTRY" is moving to an annual release cycle doesn't mean it's ultimately a good thing for a user. If I were to buy a car, and it took half a year for it to finally work as advertised, I'm sure I would have traded it in before then. Fortunately, cars, "in general", work as advertised, so producing them annually is somewhat a given. Sadly, people so used to new versions of "half baked" software and OS upgrades, that it ultimately leaves the customer with the short end of the stick. (Last month was the first month all our users were running VW2013, upgrading from VW2011). Some of their ongoing projects are still running on VW2011. It is NOT WORTH converting the files up to 2013, with all the bugs we have encountered. Again, this is what our office has chosen to afford to do. Matt

So what is a small business owner to do? Ditch their computer's operating system, or ditch the one piece of software who's creator decides it's not "viable" to support their two year old software on a new OS release? Ever since NM went to this single year software version release, I've seen more and more people complain about bugs and compatibility issues. By the time they are resolved, "POW" a new version comes out, and the whole thing starts again. As an employee in a large residential remodeling company, we don't even have the infrastructure to handle annual upgrades, even though we pay for them through our annual subscription. We simply "choose" to upgrade every two years. Back when NM would spend several years updating and refining the current release, support for evolving operating systems was obligatory. I think you owe it to the single license owners (and Mac users) that you reconsider this position. There will be a tipping point where more people will choose another competing software, not because VW is bad, but because they cant depend on the customer/technical support being there in a year or two. my 2 cents... Matt (p.s. Just because other software companies are doing this annual upgrade thing does it mean that it is a good idea for the user.)

I've had similar issues with text in title blocks before (although mine had more to do with text changing font.) What I discovered is I needed to select the text in the title block symbol, and change the text's pen style (through the attributes palette) to "solid" - and not "By Class" like I would normally do. I believe I also changed the pen's color to the actual color I wanted and not "By Class". I can't explain it, but this helped resolve my font issues. Matt

If you create a template file (with a design layer set up, a sheet layer set up with your title block in it, and a viewport already in it of the "work area" from your design layer) then you are ready to print once you've drawn your objects, properly adjusted the viewport on the sheet layer, and changed the title block accordingly. In general, create a template for all the stuff you don't want to do over and over again in a new project. There is no reason to create new viewports over again if you don't have to, and if your projects are similar in scope. (File/Save as Template...)Next time you create a new drawing, it should be there to select. Matt

I always thought that this is an issue only when you have "Enable Auto-classing" turned on under the Standard Naming feature. (File/Document Settings/Standard Naming). If not, you can also check in the "VectorScript Plug-in Editor" (Tools/Scripts/VectorScript Plug-in Editor..)for the specific plug-in object you are using, and see if a default class is assigned under the "Properties" button. I would suspect that you "should" be able to change this here. While I personally appreciate VW's attempt toward helping me organize my classes and layers in the way that IT sees fit, I appreciate even more the ability for me to control the classes & layers to serve my own needs, depending on the scale or scope of the project I am working on. hope this helps. Matt

Mark, I'm afraid I don't fully understand what you are attempting to do. Is the issue with what angle to rotate the group at, since you are wanting to "align" the rotation with another triangle? A picture could help. (If I "think" I understand you, one thing you could do is drag a copy of the triangle (with the correct rotation angle) on top of the rotation center point of the group. That way you have it as a graphical snap reference. Then delete it when you are done.) but again, I feel like I might be adding to your confusion. Matt