willofmaine

VW2021. Please make it so that when we right-click on an object near the bottom of the screen, the entire pop-up context menu is entirely visible, without having to scroll down within the menu. VWIS066

I use the Move by Points tool extensively. In VW 2020, when I double-tap my keyboard shortcut, the "Move by Points Settings" dialogue box comes up, I punch in the number of duplicates I want, and hit return. Very fast. In VW 2021, the "Move by Points Tool Preferences" button seems to have gone away so that it's now necessary to find the "Number of Duplicates" box, get the cursor to it, and then type in the number of duplicates. PLEASE bring back the "Move by Points Tool Preferences" button!!! VWIS205 This is similar to the Fillet Tool: years ago one could simply double-tap the "7" key, and immediately punch in the radius. But for some years now, it's been necessary to enter the radius into the "Fillet Radius" box. Not such a big deal for the Fillet Tool but, for me, for Move by Points, this removed functionality is very much missed! On the bright side, the preview of objects that will be placed when using the Move by Points tool in VW 2021 is excellent! And it looks like it works for Mirror as well; great!

Historically I've sized the Object Info and the Navigation palettes so that they are almost the full height of my monitor, and one sits on top of the other. A small portion of each is visible, which I can click on to quickly switch from one to the other. I do this to minimize the need for scrolling in either palette. I don't think I can do that with the "Use Application Window," but luckily I just alway use the same computer/monitor for VW. (Actually, I guess I could try combining the systems, and just float only the Object Info and Navigation palettes, and just loose an inch or two of real estate at the top). Phew, hopefully that was all clear as mud... You are absolutely right about how the learning curve flattens, and stays flat, once you know how to do something!

N'mind, figured it out: Window > deselect "Use Application Window." I'm trying to maybe start from scratch in VW 2021 (new template, workspace, etc.), so suddenly I'm pretty much clueless about everything that for years now I've been relying on migrated features for. We'll see how far I get with this whole learning-Vectorworks-all-over-again thing... ... ...

In VW 2021, on a Mac, where'd the little red dot for closing the file, at the upper left of the drawing window, go?? The yellow and green dot's are there, but the red one is grayed out and dysfunctional...

1. Thanks for the info re: "value;" I did find that if there were letters in the User Defined field, it just failed with an error message of something like "Value?!" 2. Now that you say it, it makes much more sense that the 11_ is just a conventional designation. 3. Well if you didn't know about the Leader and Trailer, I feel better! 4. Ultimately we'd probably just update the user field via the worksheet, so, probably not worth pursuing further, especially if it works as it should in other files and 2021; thanks for checking. Thanks!

Okay, so the "Area" in your formula is Net Area Number, and if I want to use gross area for cost calculations, I just replace it with "Gross Area." (gee, if I'd written my formulas from scratch, I would've used 'Area' and 'Gross Area' and been numeric from the get go!!...). Does the "11_" prefix make fields into static text?...

It's a good thing! I learned some great things at your seminar in Phoenix a couple of years ago. Ha ha... so all I had to do was look just a few fields down the list for the number versions. But, you know, looking at that infinitely long and barely searchable list, well, I tend to glaze over... I got your formula for converting the user field from text to a number to work (once I added a closing parenthesis... 🙂), so thank you for that. The word "value" in front of the space.user field name converts its text to a number? (As long as said text is numbers instead of letters to begin with...). I'm a little embarrassed to say that, after all these years, I only just this afternoon realized that the "Leader:" and "Trailer:" boxes of the Format Cells > Number dialogue box aren't available for only just the "Dimension" and "Dimension Area" format options, but for other format options as well(!) - (I guess their proximity to those format options in the dialogue box somehow made me think they were exclusive to those options...). So, it should work well to use the Decimal option to control the number of decimal places, and then just add a prefix/suffix as desired. A bit of an aside: when I select a Space object > Settings > Additional Data and add a value to one of the User ("Additional Info"...) fields, the Space moves from its assigned class to the None class (VW2020). That just doesn't seem right... a bug? (Adding or changing info via the worksheet doesn't change the class, as expected). Thank you Pat!! -Will

We're trying to use Space objects to generate building square footages for cost estimating. However, when we report on the Gross or Net areas of the Space objects, it seems we can't get totals in the Worksheet database header row; all that displays is the number of Space objects being reported on. If we use the " =AREA" function, we get areas for the Space objects, and the total area for all Space objects displays in the header row as expected. But the " =AREA" function appears to just return the Net area; we want to be able to report on the Gross area as well. So... how do we do that?... @Pat Stanford , I'm guessing you might know the answer?... Also, does the Space object include a field for cost per square foot? The User-Defined Fields just appear to be Text fields, so not very useful for compiling numeric totals... Lastly, how does one control the number of decimal places of the areas displayed for a Space object's Gross & Net Square footage? They seem to vary from 0 to 3 decimal places, with no way to fix them all at 2 decimal places (the varying number of decimal places make the area numbers difficult to quickly read & understand...) Thanks!

Say I'm working on a cape-style house, where the second floor is "under the roof" (that is, the roof eaves are low, such as at or a little above the second floor level), and I want my Second Floor Plan to show the roof below the cut plane (let's say the cut plane's at 4' above the floor). How is it intended that I (ideally easily...) do that in Vectorworks?? My current system is to model the roof in 3D, save it as a 3D symbol, and then use auto hybrids to properly display multiple instances of that roof symbol on both the Second Floor Plan and on the Roof Plan. Unfortunately, Vectorworks seems incapable of "reaching" into the components of auto hybrids or solids, so I can't run a report on, say, the roof area represented by the Roof Face objects that my 3D roof is made up of. So how does one achieve both the ability for the correct architectural representation of roofs and the ability to do quantity take-offs for those roofs?... VWIS204

I think so. If in the OIP you change the "Scale Margin" for a "Drawing Label" (which I incorrectly referred to as a "Drawing Title"...), it changes the vertical position of the Scale Display. But (unlike in VW 2018), it also changes the vertical position of the Sheet Number (in the bottom half of the "Bubble" when "Number Style:" is "Drawing and Sheet"). I only want to move the Scale Display, not the Sheet Number (because that then becomes half-in and half-out of the "Bubble's" circle...). I haven't dug into 2121 yet; maybe there'll be a solution there. In the meantime, just trying to be productive with 2020!... Thanks.

Some time ago, one of my clients requested more space between the displayed scale and the line of a Drawing Title. No problem. Well, at least, not a problem in VW 2018... Evidently, in 2019 through 2121, the Scale Margin also controls the location of the Sheet Number. Why?? So not only have I wasted 30 minutes going back through Vectorworks versions looking for a time when the Scale Margin did indeed only control the location of the Drawing Scale, (to prove I wasn't imagining it) and putting together this post, but I also now have to tell my client "Nope, sorry, no can do." This one little thing isn't such a big deal. It's the endless prevalence of such little things that's increasingly frustrating and exhausting. VWIS203

I can't find a carriage bolt in the Fastener Tool... Is there a way to add one somehow?

Why doesn't the Carriage Bolt have a nut, and a washer option? What do you do with a carriage bolt without a nut? Duct tape?

WHY?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? These endless Vectorworks issues and "huh?" moments are so time consuming.