atari2600

This has worked ever since viewports came out (Version 11, I think). For some reason, the folks at VW haven't really paid any attention to this workaround and have always said you can't copy viewports amongst files.

not to digress.... Having enjoyed VW for the past ten years, (and previously enjoyed ADT, Archicad and Autocad for many years prior), I firmly believe that all of our notable cad apps are still missing the boat on something very fundamental: That they all seem hell-bent on improving and automating the drafting board in lieu of automating the design process. I could understand back in the 80's when the large Microstations reigned supreme and hard drives were practically non-existent; that a computer program mimicking a pencil a was pretty cool idea. Almost thirty years later, I am still trying to "adapt" our cad program to fit our design process, even though our design process has been around for eons(existings, schematic design, design development, contract/bid, permit, construction, as-builts). Why is this still the case? If I want a file to follow me from preliminary design to as-built, why on earth can't the software not only understand this, but help me speed this up? I'd love to push a "button" and one of my many design schemes now becomes "the one" to turn into contract docs, without all the copying, save-as-ing, moving, etc... BIM is great for large buildings & stuff, but in my world (residential additions & remodeling) I seriously doubt if it's ever going to be useful. ... unless it magically becomes quick, simple, and concise. I am still waiting to download "i-Cad" on my i-Pad thanks for letting me vent a little.

Prior to the "attribute mapping" tool, I used the ceiling grid tool for all my basic square-like hatches. I could then set both the origin and the respective hatch size. I could also rotate it.

My big hurdle was letting go of the "drawing with sticks" mindset in Autocad vs. the "assembling with objects" approach in Vectorworks. My brain was so geared toward using lineweight to draw something in 2d which merely represented something 3d that I would completely forget that I am not actually drawing in Vectorworks. For the most part, I "build" in Vectorworks. Sure, I would eventually draw stuff later on in my process through the viewports, but using lines merely became the "icing". I'd bet that if I ran an audit of a novice VW (and former Acad) user's file of a project, their file would have thousands upon thousands of lines, and very little use of a good number of plug in objects, hatch patterns, and hybrid symbols. This is just fine, and a normal part of the learning curve. have fun. you are not alone

If you delete and redraw one of the four offending walls, does it still disappear? We had problems with random walls vanishing in the past, and VW updates have solved some of this. We did have to send in a few bug submits.

The thing that I have noticed which can bog start up is the size of resource files listed as "favorites". If a user at one of our offices mistakenly tries to open up their preferences from a computer in our 2nd office (in another state), they can wait forever until the favorite files load in properly. Once they are removed, there doesn't seem to be as much of a problem. hope this helps. matt

Has anyone have any suggestions to the drawing label issue? I have coworkers who are having the same issue. thanks, Matt

I too am having PDF export issues. In my case all the drawing label plug-in's aren't showing the text (title & scale). The line and the bubble show, but the text dissappears. If I print directly from VW, it prints fine. I've tried all the pdf exporting options to no avail. Matt

Strange... if you go under "Vectorworks Preferences" (tools/options/) and under the "Autosave" tab, if you change the location and the number backup files, will this affect the outcome at all? I believe the favorites list are all written into an .xlm file somewhere, but I have no idea why it is writing the backup files automatically. Matt

This is where the person actually ordering the windows or the person in the field may have the most valuable opinion of "drafting convention".... What kind of schedule would be the simplest for an installer to use as a reference? Is that the same information for a person doing a window take-off? I would guess that an installer would either have every window be unique regardless of the specifics, or summarized by the individual unit types, knowing that they would look somewhere else for sill/jamb details. Anything inbetween could become confusing. Keep in mind that a window of the same size but of a different factory jamb extension, is assumed to be a different window.

Thanks for the suggestion to look under the "Legacy" folder. I tried to use the callouts tool years ago and found it to be very cumbersome and boggy. Sounds like it's still a dealbreaker for some. I also don't think I can get used to the new "Leader Line" tool either. Although it's an actual object, it seems to be too difficult & slow to adjust. Leader lines should be this difficult.

Models? heck, I bet there's absolutely nothing 3d about what the engineers are drawing - especially if they are splattering it all over the model space. I've used AutoCad on and off for 25 years, and only one Arch. firm I worked with during that time actually used the 3d features of Autocad. Even when I used Architetural Desktop several years ago, we were only using it for 2d drafting purposes. "Drawing with sticks"... as we called it. I believe bclint is simply referring to Layer naming and coordination. As far as UCS alignment,it was up to the firm importing (or Xref-ing) the file to insure it's UCS was properly aligned. IMHO, no one has created an ideal set of layer/class standards. All have their pro's and con's. Matt

It doesn't sound like the engineer is using AC in the way that it's intended. Could you at least ask him to draw the floor plans using seperate (AutoCad) layers while keeping them next to eachother? That way you have a little bit of class control during the import. Or: is there a way that you could create your own xref file from their stuff and viewport into your primary file as needed? just trying to help. Matt

Hi Matt, Don't know what kind of work you do, but this works for us. We only do residential design/build work, so our projects are not very large. Our firm uses a single title block symbol on it's own design layer, and we keep it as a seperate viewport, which is then placed on our various drawing sheets. We have a 2nd symbol which has all the sheet specific info in it, which we placed on top of the viewport in the sheet layer. Obviously this is already set up in our template so we're not re-inventing the wheel every time we start a new project. Therefore the repeating info is always the same, and the sheet specific info is kept unique. A simple drawing index (spreadsheet)on the cover sheet brings all the unique sheet data to it, and counts the number of drawings printed. On top of this, we create a single sheet layer which displays and prints ALL of our drawings that we need, forgoing the use of the Issue Manager. (Why create thirty sheet layers if you only need one?) In other words, we don't use the title block stuff or the Issue manager stuff as it's intended, but were convinced our method is the most Simple and efficient way to set our projects up. Hope this helps, Matt

As long as it's simple and doesn't try to contain a ton of useless tools. Frankly I'd be delighted if someone came up with a simple as-built drawing app to replace me doing my existings by hand. That way the "lines" could import directly into VW.

Hello VW friends, We are a large residential remodeling firm in the Washington DC metro area looking for additional design/production drawing support. The position is located in Northern Virginia. Vectorworks experience (we use 2010) is a must. Position may be part-time, contract, or full time, depending on your general design/construction experience. A local Structural Engineer's or Architect's stamp is a plus. For inquiries, or if you think you know someone who may fit this role, please e-mail me directy. thanks, Matt Dirksen mdirksen@casedesign.com

Thats certainly what I hope I have simply pointed everyone's VW prefences folder to their own folder on the network, and off of their machine. All the users preferences are now subfolders within a "Vectorworks Users Preferences" folder. This way everything is in one location and not scattered about. Frankly, the remote preference location ability was one of the big reasons why we've finally upgraded from 12.5.

Thanks so much - this is exactly what I needed to know, I have already pointed everyone's "Vectorworks Preferences.xml" file on the network, and so it won't take me much time to manually edit them. At least this way I don't have to log in, open Vectorworks, and change it thru the gui. Matt

Thanks Peter. I'm just looking for a simple way to have it standardized on everyone's computer all at once, and not be something that everyone must manually set up individually.

Hi, I am wondering where the "Prefereed Line Thicknesses" information is located within the application folder. I have duplicated my preferences to a number of other co-workers, and this particular data did not transfer (as I assumed it would.) Is this an xml. file or something which I can transfer amongst a number of employees, or will I have to go into everyone's computer and manually adjust it? thanks, Matt (Now on VW 2010, not VW12.5)

Hello all, Our office just got the upgrade for version 2010, and we were previously using version 12. I am setting up the centralized ?user preferences folder?, but I am seeking out some advise from other users on how to do this. We will have about 20 users, and I would like to have a central location for most of the ?default settings?. Do I take each users? copy and point it to the exact same ?User Preferences? folder, create 20 different ?User Preferences? folders, or do I just set up a single ?Workgroup Reference? folder and stick a single ?Libraries? folder in that? I have to tweak some of the VW defaults (like doors and walls), and I would like to be able to make it very easy for me to make changes, without screwing with anyone?s settings. Any help is greatly appreciated. Matt

Does anyone know the computer requirements for the 2010 viewer? I don't see it anywhere on-line and I need to make sure a bunch of computers at our office can handle it. (of course I don't see it being offered yet either.) Thanks, Matt

Hello Guys, Thanks for all your advice. After trying the various scripts and buying the plug-in (worth it.) I concluded the only sure way to replace the font is to remove the "tekton-pro" font family off my computer, so VW is forced to replace it with the "tekton.ttf" font family. It seemed i would open files up where I replaced the font, and find it reverted back to the original font (which as I mentioned before appears as "arial". This would never have been an issue if our company had realized years ago that VW doesn't support OpenType fonts. Supported or not, the open type fonts always worked in VW 12, but not in VW 2008 on up. thanks again, Matt

Thanks for all the help (esp. Ray & Charles ) I created two new scripts and pasted your suggestions in. They both compiled sucessfully, but when I ran them, nothing seemed to happen with either script. Am I forgetting to do something mundane? (I saved the file after compiling.) Either way, I am convinced I need some VS basics. Any suggestions of a good tutorial? thanks again, Matt

Hi there, I have been using VW for years, but never had the time to dive into vectorscript. I am currently testing VW2009 for our office, and notice that we have to switch out our primary font because it's open type, and is not supported in 2009 (even though it shows up fine in 12.5) Either way, in order to clean up our templates, I thought it would be faster to run a script which finds and replaces all our instances of "Tekton Pro" with "Tekton". I'd rather have the template cleaned up instead of each station relying on the "replace font mappings" feature. I have no trouble writing the "find" part, but am really stuck on how to write the "replace" part of the script. I assume this is VS101 for most of you, but I assume that someone has done this before so I shouldn't re-invent the wheel (not to mention- "seeing it" will go a long way in helping me better understand Vectorscript.) thanks a lot, Matt