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Mark McCay-Moran

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Everything posted by Mark McCay-Moran

  1. Thanks for your reply, Travis. Yes, I did follow your thread in the VWA discussion, and while I'll probably never use VWA for material take-offs, I understand what you are saying about using the "reverse engineering" concept. Thanks for your encouragement. Now, back to the training process! OT: Most of my work is stick framed (with some ICF and SIPs) but I have done a few timber framed homes with a local builder that specializes in that method. Quite interesting, with great final results--and a far cry from what has become in California the "standard": sticks, trusses, california framed roof elements, and "fake" beams added to the interior after the fact. Best of luck to your endeavors. mmm
  2. quote: Originally posted by Kristen: As far as I know, you're right, you can't select all the windows in a drawing. Whew! OK I'm not going crazy. What exactly am I trying to do? Everything and anything. I picked a window within a wall as an example just because it seems so obvious that one would want at times to modify/select/view such a basic element so core to the way a great many of us use VW. Really this post has evolved because I'm training somebody in my office who, as his level of sophistication rises, has started asking questions that I'm having trouble answering. Very basis questions, like, what happened to those objects that I have just drawn? (when trying to view by class) I find that I can answer his question, even show him why its happening. But he's not satisfied. As I think about it, I'm not satisfied either. We all have habits and ways of working that have "evolved" with the long term use of any program, and I have found that for many years now I have not taken advantage of the power of Classes within VW. For instance I'm very used to Grouping objects and Grouping "groups" of objects to facilitate duplicating, moving, modifying, etc. This worked fine when my primary means of organizing a drawing was by Layers and most everything was drawn in the None class. Now I find grouping objects this was is disasterous to my classes! No? Now I'm trying to create office standards for my own business that take advantage of VW's features including class organization and more 3D work. I'm willing to change the way I work in VW to achieve this, but when I'm having trouble with such basic issues its quite discouraging. Thanks for your response, Kristen. I sure hope that there are some folks from NNA and advanced users reading this thread 'cause I'd really like to resolve these issues and move forward. Cheeers, mmm Nevada City Design Studio
  3. Hi Folks, I'm still struggling with this, sooo.... one more try. To make this as simple as possible: How do I select all windows in a drawing file at the same time? This really shouldn't be that much to ask, but I can't seem to do it. I figured that since I was fighting a losing battle with the class visibility, my work-around would be using the Custom Selection command. To my dismay, the Custom Selection (and Custom Selection 2) won't allow me to select items interacting with a wall. The check boxes added to the dialog box "including components of symbols (or pios)" seems to indicate that NNA acknowledges that there should be a way to select individual objects within these "containers." Wouldn't it logically follow that there be check boxes for "including components of walls" and "including components of groups"??? (Actually in Custom Selection 2 only "within Symbol" appears and that criterion doesn't seem to work properly.) I don't want this to turn into a "Mark's-rant-about-things-in-VW-that-don't-work-to-his-satisfaction." Rather I'm looking for real world solutions. If everybody else is perfectly satified with the way the selection, modification, and viewing of items within walls, pios, symbols, and groups behaves in VW, please tell me! And if this is the way its meant to work, can we at least have the flexibility within the Custom Selection commands to work around? Thanks again, Mark McCay-Moran Nevada City Design Studio
  4. Actually it used to be necessary to run permission repair after install/uninstalls under Jag, but not necessary in 10.3 ( I have to admit I do it anyway--force of habit). BTW apple frequently recommends third part DUs for items not repaired or missed altogether by their utility.
  5. Bruce, I think without zoom line thkness selected youre still displaying a diag line constructed of squares, just not aware of it (in fact a 45 deg diag line give the illusion of being thinner without zoom thkness pref because lines are drawn one pixel thick like little squares set "upper right corner to lower left corner") Just to see what Im talking about select the zoom line pref and draw a heavy line at 90 and 45 to see how it is drawn with a square pen. mmm [ 02-18-2004, 07:22 PM: Message edited by: Mark McCay-Moran ]
  6. Katie--If those are all ps printers, then why am I seeing the square pen issue (see your above post). Do you have this backwards? Also (from responce to Bruce) why would this be an onscreen issue if it stems from the way apple interacts with ps printers? Please, please tell me how this works on a Windows version of vw. Remember Pythagorus? (a^2+b^2=c^2) you just need to do the math to find that a 10 mil line reads as 14 mils thk when set at 45 deg. Whoa! from 10 to 14? Unacceptable.
  7. Thanks for the response, Mark. I still feel like I'm either missing something, or the vw logic in organizing by classes is flawed. Please set me straight. A more basic example: Create a new drawing file. Place a wall (default none class). Place a window in the drawing (default none class with all sub objects set to none class). Create a Wall class and place wall in it. While separate objects both wall and window can be viewed in Active Class only by selecting the appropriate class. OK. Place the window in the wall. Now view the wall class (active class only)--see the wall with a break where the window is (no window). View the none class--nothing! no window, no objects at all. If the next response is, "the window is now a sub-object of the wall with a different class," that follows vw logic, but is unacceptable to me. It goes against all reasons for organizing a drawing by classes--to be able to view, select and modify items based on a hierarchy system. How is it possible to select all windows without using a custom selection script? If one of the main advantages of using classes is to have the class define line wt, color, fill etc, one would never want every sub-object in the same class anyway. This seems like a catch 22. To my thinking we've just nullified the advantages of having items interact with wall elements. BTW, I've been using the example of a pio object within a wall. But really the issue extends to many areas in vw. Symbols, pios, groups all display this unintuitive way of organizing by class. When I've discussed this with knowlegable users in the past, its been implied that this is just the way it is. Yikes! I know that Robert Anderson (who seems to be one of the few knowledgable about the way VW is ACTUALLY used--not intended as a slam on NNA) in previous discusions has talked about the group being a "container" with its own class. I understand this. However, this still doesn't give one the ability to see and modify objects within the group (or symbol or pio or wall) in a convient fashion. Thanks for your attention. Mark McCay-Moran Nevada City Design Studio
  8. quick follow-up: I don't find pdfs any more noticable, but mainly because its VERY noticable in all forms (I always draw with show line thickness). This has been an issue in mac System 6, System 7, OS 8, OS 9 and OS X. I first noticed the diag line wt issue in MiniCad+ 3.1--that goes back pretty far. I'd like more info on the ps vs. non-ps printers. My experience: using my old HP 455CA(ps printer) with rip software--same problem (but could hve to do with saving the file as .ps?). Printers I've used recently displaying problem: Epson 820, Epson 1160, HP Officejet 6110, HP dj 120nr, HP dj 455CA, HP dj 220. I may be anal retentive, but I've gone so far as to standardize in my office all leader lines on drawings constrained to 90 deg. (even though I don't care for the "look" I care even less for the obvious line wt. change when the leaderline changes directions (not to mention the way arrows behave on angled lines...don't get me started!). Katie--can you comment on these issues. thanks, mmm
  9. This has been an unwelcome effect in mc/vw for all years I've been using it. I've been told in the past that you have to choose: square pen and goofy line weights for diagonals, or round pens and no truely sharp corners where lines meet (especially at thick lines). A number of years ago somebody from the mailing list actually wrote a script the convert all diagonal lines in a drawing based on their angle to a "normalized" thickness (that equal to perp. lines). Problem was, if you ran it twice on a drawing the diag lines were reduced too thin. So you really had to create a copy of your file right before plotting and run the script. Any mods to the drawing needed to be done on the orig file, then a new "plot file" needed to be recreated and the script run again befor plotting. Not convenient. I know other cad programs (like datacad) use multiple thin lines closely spaced to achieve hvy linewts. I've always considered this a problem and I'm quite surprised it hasn't been addressed. Question: those of you using ps printers (and on PCs): What is the affect of the round pen in your final prints? For instance if you draw a line say 72 mils, is the end of the line a semicircle? or is it squared? Thanks, mmm Nevada City Design Studio
  10. I'm a long time mcad/vw users trying to get more sophisticated in the way I use pios. I'm having trouble with the way the pio classes are viewed when the object is within the wall. EX: a window is inserted in the wall and has a Window-Main class. The wall has a Wall class. If I select view active class only, select Window-Main, I see nothing. If I select view active class only, select Wall, I see the walls with openings (no windows). How do I see the windows only? This seems to apply to any object that interacts with a wall (door, wind, symbol etc). It also seems to contradict the whole reason for organizing objects into classes (to view and modify based on how they're organized). I recently jumped from vw 8.5 to 10.5 and I was hoping this behavior was something addressed in the last couple of releases, because it just doesn't make sense to me. Am I missing something? Thanks, mmm Nevada City Design Studio
  11. Sorry, left out specs: VWA 10.5.1 OS X 10.3 HP DJ 120nr 1 GHz PB 15 (firewire 800) 350Mhz PM AGP grapics 700MHz FP iMac
  12. I just recieved my 120nr. I plot mostly line CAD drawings in black and white on bond, trans bond, or vellum. I've spent hours testing every papertype and quality setting trying to get decent results. No luck, the bleed on the black lines and text is horrible (at least as compared with my old DJ 455CA ). "best" setting on "premium ink jet" paper is acceptable but the investment in paper and time is not. Built-it Hawaii: what paper type and quaity settings are you using? How are others in my situation plotting drafts and in-house docs? On a positive note, I love that the plotter is recognized natively in OSX and mo more converting to ps or pdf files. TIA, mark
  13. Thanks for the reply, Richard. I'm not sure I'll be able to see the output prior to purchasing as I'm in a more remote part of Northern California. I also want to take advantage of the current rebate offer that expires at the end of December. I've used bluelines exclusively for years as does everybody in my area. I was actually surprised to hear (via this board and elsewhere) how uncommon that is now. After a quick call to my copyhouse, they have just recently been offering a more competitive price on large format xerox. Still, in quantity its about 50% more expensive than blueline. However, between the better image quality on coated paper (are you and others plotting to bond or coated paper or ?) the elimination of vellum($), the ability to recycle, and no stink--I think I'm heading that way. BTW I noticed specs on the 120nr say USB 1.1 compatible with various Windows OS flavors. Nothing about a mac or USB 1.0 which is what I think my older G4 tower uses. For now I'll be printing from one station so was intending to go USB rather than ethernet. Anybody having problems with these issues? Thanks again.
  14. Anybody have additional info regarding 120nr print quality? I've read that its not intended to be a "cad" plotter, thus the poor quality prints in B&W on vellum. However, when I talked to a distributor yesterday, he said that while the 120 is marketed as a multi-media printer, it does very well as a line-drawing plotter. I don't think he's ever plotted anything on vellum and just wants to make a sale. Comments? TIA
  15. Hi, Sean and Matthew I appreciate the responses and your point(s) of view. Very understandable. BTW, we don't always have to be happy with it. Sometimes a client will push or challenge me in a way that I'm not happy with...yet this can yield a superior project. OS X is the future of the Mac and in my mind 10.2 is not early adoption (how long for most to transition to System 7? That was pretty major). Again, keep up the good work! mmm
  16. I've used VW (not VWA) for several SIPs projects (as well as ICF, Contrete Tilt-Up, Pre-Cast Conc, steel and wood framing). Works OK. In my area it is standard practice for the fabricators to provide shop drawings (as is the case for just about anything that requires shop drawing approvals) not the other way around.
  17. What I always learned as Plan Oblique and Elevation Oblique in school have never once been applied to anything that I've done as a professional. In small spaces the projcted walls of a plan cover up too much of the floor area to be useful. If I remember correctly the awkward proportion of the vertical elements looks better at 75-80% of the scaled dimension (rather than 50%)??
  18. quote: Originally posted by Katie:If Apple doesn't fix a few problems in Jaguar, we will contemplate a path then. Nothing is set in stone about that as of yet. [/QB] Katie--Huh? I would think that NNA would be more than "contemplating a patch" if apple doesn't fix Jaguar. I wouldn't hold my breath for 10.2.1 just to fix a single app (unless it was Photoshop If your working on a patch now, then say so. Otherwise, posts like this just cause more confusion and doubt. BTW, the decidedly negative tone (Apple's problem...fault...blame) doesn't help anything. Apple has made some major improvements to OUR OS OF CHOICE. This must be incredibly difficult to keep up with and I appreciate NNA's effort (other than some negative comments regarding Cocoa and multi-processor support from Sean Flattery). I consider us ALL a team (computer maker, software developer and end users) and we sould be working that way. There have been plenty of goofs in developing MC/VW over the years...some of them completely independant of changes in OS even Keep up the good work and lets get that patch out right away! mmm (MC/VW user since 1989)
  19. At the office I'm sticking with OS9.1, HP 455CA, HP RIP 1.1, HP JetDirect box just because it works! (What a bummer because I've really grown to love OSX on my wifes new iMac) Are there any adventurous souls out there willing to hack an existing HP driver for the 455ca? Epson has been moving slowly (or not at all) in updating drivers to OSX. Following instructions refered to in an Apple Discussion thread I sucessfully hacked a driver for an Epson 1160 from an SP870 driver (printers have similar specs). I believe the same could be done with an existing OSX driver from HP (the 1050?). It would take somebody with more smarts than me mmm
  20. Now THAT (AutoSave to separate file) is something that makes sense! This is what M$ Word X now does. Otherwise let me keep my NO default! There are too many things that can go wrong if you overwrite the file. Temporarily moving the page, using layer colors, b&w only, changing global scales... Depends a lot on how you work. Save prompt definitely defaulted to NO in both VW8 AND MC7.0.1 (I'd have to hunt for earlier versions but I think the save prompt came in around v.5). mmm
  21. Makes sense to me. The thinking goes: If you mindlessly hit return at every autosave prompt you may inadvertantly save some changes that cannot be undone or 'Reverted to Last Saved Copy." Its just safer. Besides I find that I hit command-s more frequently than my "reminder" anyway.
  22. I would like to see the line weight of an arrowhead independent of the weight of the leader line (not unlike the dimension slash thickness). I've been waiting for this function since MC+ 3.1!!! (that was back in '89-'90) Also I would like to see the arrowhead added to the polyline tool which I find very intuitive and would make for great leader lines. A note on the arrowhead thickness: Those of us who still remember hand drafting will attest that emphasizing the arrowhead on a leaderline was (and still is in my opinion) a technique that separated rookies from seasoned drafters. Not unlike good lettering, object profiling, and how to cleanly tear a sheet of tracing paper off the roll! I guess the time are a changin' (but I still want my drawings to look good!).
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