Laurence_R

The one fundamental drafting ability that can be done on a drawingboard but is still missing from Vectorworks. After 12 major releases. Will it be lucky number 13?

Great idea! Local coordinates for rectangles? Yes please! If we wanted a rectangle to be a polygon we'd go to modify>convert to polygon, not modify>rotate. I don't expect a rotate command to alter the fundamental nature of an object. Sketchup & 3dstudio let you do this, to mention a couple of apps. I suspect the extremely long awaited rotatable coordinate system will have to be implemented before this will be possible though. Just how is the work going on the rotating coordinate system by the way NNA? Will it be in VW13, and when is the release date?

For the original problem - hours to plot or not at all, we had a similar problem, with a series of drawings, that had been printing fine up until recently. Then none worked at all. We made a copy of the files and started deleting classes and objects to identify the offending article. Turned out it was a viewport in the sheet layer, which in our case was a key of the buiding plan at 1:2000 scale. Once deleted, with everything else in place, printing was fine. Strange, but the drawings printed fine with this viewport previously. Maybe a drawing gets to an information overload point? Anyhow with these drawings converting to a pdf didn't help - still couldn't print. Mac OS X VW 12.5 HP Desjet 800PS

So Nemetschek have admitted there was a problem with the 12.5.1 update for Macs. They have advised in the meantime to re-install 12.5. The problem is how... I install 12 from my disk, re-enter serial numbers then run the 12 -> 12.5 updater. When I run the updater it can't find the 12.5 update files on the net "come back on Monday" (I guess it's looking for a repaired 12.5.1 file). Unplugging from the net gives the installer a socket error. Whatever I do by this point the updater has helpfully deleted the main app file, so I have to re-install VW 12 from disk again, type in that long serial number etc, etc. What did I do wrong? I know the update will be ready for Monday, but I don't want it anymore, I've lost enough work and time thanks to the crashes of 12.5.1. I want 12.5, pretty please, until at least 3 months of bug reports have gone by. Thanks.

All, just thought you might like to know that I also got a ?failure on attempt to open file? error with the backup options off, and just trying to manually save an existing file (not save as) using version 12.5.1 on a Mac. VW did give me the chance of saving to a separate location after informing me the original file was now corrupt. I was unable to save the file to the server (a mac) - giving "failure on attempt to open file" and "disk I/O" errors before finally allowing me to save to my desktop and then bombing. Double clicking on the desktop file resulted in another error, making me very nervous, until I managed to open the file through VW's open command. I'm reporting this as I suspect the is not limited to the autosave feature - it's just more obvious with autosave as it executes every 15 minutes - manual saves are generally less frequent. I'm getting version 12.5.1 off my machine right now, its dangerous. Good to see it's been taken off the download site. It's a shame this bug wasn't picked up in beta testing.

Katie, Yes I've run disk utility, nothing wrong there. This time I suspect the new patch is at fault...read on:- The errors I get are:?failure on attempt to open file? errors. UK tech support have since informed me that it's a good idea to turn off the autosave feature (especially the separate backup folder option) and an even better idea to get rid of 12.5.1 and re-install 12.5. The email they sent me explains why: Email received 17/01/07 from unlimited.com (UK VW tech) "Dear Lawrence, "We have just received this message from the engineers at Nemetschek. As a result of this bug, you may decide it best to reinstall your 12.5 version until a new build is released. We expect this to take about a week. "Nemetschek write: "We have identified a critical bug with Autosave using the backup folder feature in 12.5.1 that is going to force us to issue a new build. "The bug is this: "Any time a 12.5.1 Mac user autosaves using the backup folder option and the ?VW Backup? folder does not exist in that folder yet, the save will fail with a warning, and the next time that file is saved or closed VW will crash. According to our tests, this happens almost all of the time across a network, and sometimes on local drives as well. "After the crash, the VW Backup folder will have been created for that folder and there will be a zero K backup file in the backup folder, and the problem won?t happen anymore for files in that folder (since the VW Backup folder now exists). "We plan to have a build in which this problem is fixed, hopefully within the next week, and we will be using that build as our new 12.5.1" Any thoughts on this, Katie?

After trying to call the UK VW tech support (no one answered) I managed to solve my invalid serial number issue by myself, by removing the dongle for 5 minutes and then reseating it, restarting VW. An error came up and it bombed on the first attempt, (resources error?) but then worked ok the second time. Odd as the dongle was firmly plugged in before... Build up of static maybe? Now to solve the frequent 12.5.1 crashes on macs problem....

Also experiencing this problem but only with the macs that have 'upgraded' to VW12.5.1 in our office. VW12.5 macs don't have this problem Avoid the update!

I'm also experiencing this problem. Great. Started with a crash 4 hours after installing the 12.5.1 update. Mac OS 10.4.8 G5 Tried reinstalling VW12.0.1 - doesn't let me as the serial number is still invalid. Sigh. There goes another day's work. As an aside the other two macs that installed the update yesterday also experienced multiple crashes since upgrading, although their S/N still work. Coincidence?

Christiaan is right! a backup copy on the same volume is really only a copy, not a backup. The HD dies, the backup dies with it. Work will be lost, unless a backup can be made somewhere else.

The point is the client will just say "not my problem, try getting a decent CAD package". Which is very difficult to argue with when all the consultants we work with use either AutoCAD or MicroStation, and they waste considerable time (as we do) importing each others files and then tidying up each other's drawings so they are legible, before we can start coordinating the design. I guess I'm really grouchy at the moment as it's taken me 3 weeks to set out a very large, very complicated building with 7 different areas, each with it's own alignment with fraction of a degrees off the true north, so VW has a great time snapping to parallel, horizontal and perpendicular points, which are all slightly different, and not obvious if it's the right one without spending all day zooming in and out. I'm not completely new to VW, I've been using it for a couple of years, but for this particular task the ability to define a ucs for each area and then put on ortho lock on ACAD would have seen the job done in much less time. That and the useless dimensioning tools, but that's another topic...

The problem is persisting for me! Aaargh!

Take a rectangle with a fill &, rotate it by a small amount (fraction of a degree) so it's now a polygon. Now zoom in using your wheel mouse, and use the stretch tool to shorten or lengthen the polygon along the line of it's axis zooming a little and using the scroll buttons to navigate your view whilst doing so. That done, zoom out. For me about 1 in 5 times upon zooming out the rectangle displays as it was before being stretched although the grips are where the corners should be. refreshing the display doesn't help, or going into a sheet layer and looking at the viewport. Undoing the action and re-doing manually does remedy the situation. Anyone else experiencing this? V12.5 imac G5 OSx 10.4.8

Very sorry, I'll correct my previous moan: Next time my clients ask me why their drawings are late, I'll explain to him it's "Not, however, because of any programming difficulties but because of how to deal with legacy files." I'm sure they'll understand.

It would be nice for the NNA guys to let us know that they are working on it rather than being pressed at a conference. Better still would be a date by which they are aiming to achieve these goals. If this item has been a topic on the wishlist for years, I'm not going to hold my breath, until we see this implemented. I know nothing about programming but it didn't seem to take them too long to migrate the whole package to use the new intel cores, legacy files and all. Putting in a rotate coordinate / view command has got to be a simpler job in comparison and even if it isn't, it's no excuse! It's still a one of the most fundamental drawing features you'd expect in any CAD package. It should have been there ages ago. Next time my clients ask me why their drawings are late, I'll explain to him it's because the software engineer's at NNA are finding it difficult to figure out how to display a rotated drawing. I'm sure they'll understand.