dunsterville

The people at Computers Unlimited quoted me the full price of brand new license for VW Designer to replace a dongle. Pretty scary stuff!

After a panic for about a week, over the loss of my Dongle, I finally called my House's Insurers: They took great pleasure in telling me that I wasn't covered under my present policy. So a question . . . Does anyone have any tips to make sure this sort of problem doesn't happen again; where I am covered, and to get the most value from what I have always thought as a 'Protection Racket'? (aside from never losing it in the first place) I work from home, and live in the UK. What's your preferred approach? PS: I managed to recover this particular dongle: I found it in the bottom of my vacuum cleaner's bag.

I have just been sent news about 12.5: Its Universal supports Google .KLM files for exporting to Google Earth Supports UK drawing standards (hooray!) 680 Plumbing symbols from Kohler DWG/DXF improvements (how about DWF too?) Batch PDF for multple sheet layers improved Door/Window/Roof/Detailing objects and a bunch more things; it all sounds pretty useful. I've not found much notices posted on the web, so I'm putting it up here. The supplier in UK, ComputersUnlimited are who sent this to me, but predictably of them their website has no real news about 12.5 ? I'm really looking forward to getting my mitts on this. Anyone else had a chance to use it?

Well I feel kind of sorry for Islandmon here: beset by pedants on both sides!! Obviously, I understand the other side: we've all had that "you just press a few buttons and the computer does the rest" notion that clients have, and that false idea that just because they mention something, this new and un-planned for requirement not only automatically exists, but is set in stone ? again! What I do with colour changes is to make sure that my renders have individual alpha channels assigned to tagged objects in Maxon Cinema. This way, I can effect more of the suggested changes in Photoshop in a much quicker way.

Yes Yes And I've just done a Repair Permissions Thanks.

Sadly the problem has made another appearance ? it must be something else, I take this pretty seriously, as a replacement dongle costs.

Thanks Katie Lets see how reliable it is, best wishes.

"A VectorWorks dongle could not be found. Make sure that the dongle is connected and that all required drivers have been installed. VectorWorks will now quit." I haven't a clue how to stop this problem. Regards, Guy

Thanks Katie, I'll let you know next time it happens (which will be at 1400hrs GMT). These messages will appear regardless of operations: I go to get a coffee (after saving), so computer should've just been sitting there ? but even that will cause a Quit. Strange. Regards, Guy

Has anyone heard of this problem; any workarounds?

I keep getting messages like this, I can't figure it out. I'm using a Titanium Powerbook, so it might be that. . . . ? the USBs have become 'dry joints' . ? the heat has caused things to expand (weather 33?C.) but obviously I'm in shade. ? there are problems inside the dongle I've tried to use a USB hub to see if I can isolate anything, but the same problems in different configurations. Are there any known issues ? Dunsterville

Zooming is simple with a scroll-wheel, give it a go . . . I bought the cheapest and most basic 2-button mouse with a scroll-wheel recently, it works flawlessly on my old PowerBook (with no tedious 'Wizard' set-up either). Don't worry about the so-called 'integrity and simplicity' of Macs . . . if Apple co-founder Woz, can admit he might have been wrong to go with just one button on the mouse -he was into the Bauhaus ethos at the time- I'm certain it'll be OK.

I'm glad others find this 'extra vertices' issue a puzzle ? all I can say is that similar offsets also occur in Amapi Pro, Cinema, it even happens in Illustrator. I've got used to it, I assume its just what happens when a line is copied and expanded in relation to the orignal curves rather than Scaling; using a locus, which is a very different sort of operation.

I take it you aren't interested in preserving a standard scale . . . ? If this is so, you can do this outside VW: if you save as a PDF (using your A1 settings) then take the PDF into a PDF Reader, in your A3 printer dialog, make sure 'scale to fit on page' is selected.

I've done it . . . although I don't have a website to post it to. I can see why what you're trying to do isn't working easily, but does it mean that its a bug; isn't it more a wish list item? I cheated by adding a third wall style; a 'blank cavity', and started-in from the exterior walls (rather than the other direction).