Jane

FYI--I also emailed John McKernon about the issue & here is his response: "It's a long and complicated story, involving Unicode code points & character translation and the ways VW and LW read and write data in the .xml file. The short answer is that characters such as the degree symbol and anything other than normal letters and numbers will often be screwed up. The only solution is to remove the degree symbols (and others) from your symbol names and instrument type names. I strongly recommend doing this to all of your symbols, before you start work on the plot. If you want to know more, I can send you the gory details, but there's still no cure. Thanks for asking! - John" So for now, I'll quit trying to use the degree symbol!!

I'm a Windows user, but gonna play around with different symbols... maybe that will take care of it!

Wondering if anyone has found a way to retain the exact data in the Instrument Type field when doing a data exchange from VW to LW. When I do the transfer, the degree symbol gets replaced by a subscript "i" in LW. Any suggestions?

Hi Tamsin, I created light positions using this technique, but when I add lights to the position, they snap to the 0 level pipe, not to the one in the air.... Any suggestions? It's a bummer to have to move all the lights from the ground to the pipe. "It sounds like you may have 3D only elements in your truss. Objects within VW are usually hybrid, meaning they have a 2D and a 3D representation sandwiched into the same object. You need to draw a 2D representation as well as the 3D version, select both and create a symbol (Modify > Create Symbol). You can then nominate the insertion point as you wish, snap together the number of lengths you want, select them all and use Modify > Group. When they are grouped, you can convert them to a Light Position. in Top/Plan, the 2D part of the symbol will be displayed. In 3D, the 3D element will be displayed. Hope that helps "

Wondering if anyone else has had a problem with VW automatically adding parenthesis to channel numbers. I've never had this problem before, and turned off the parenthesis in Lightwright, refreshed instruments, but they are still there. Does anyone know of a fast way to get rid of them? I'm using VW2010 on a PC.

Thanks Michael, What I realized while checking layer scale is that the things I couldn't select were on a layer that's a template. I can select things on that layer, but not at the same time that I select the other objects in the set which are on different layers. Not a big thing, I can take them over to the new drawing separately, but wondering if there's a way to modify or "ungroup" the things in the template so that I can select everything at the same time.

I'm trying to take the set from one drawing and drop into a full theatre drawing. Most of the objects will select, but having a problem with a few things (like masking & a couple of scenery walls)that won't select, even though I have show/snap/modify selected for both classes and layers. Any ideas? I'm using VW2010 on a PC. Thanks!

I'm trying to move the label on one instrument, but the purpose & colour seem to be linked in some way. Attached is the file.

I use VW 2010, windows & I'm trying to reposition some labels that are overlapping. I have a label legend assigned to the units & at the front of the light I have color & purpose. When I move one, the other moves as well. I'd like to be able to move them separately, but doesn't seem to work. Any suggestions?

I'm having a problem assigning a "Z" value to my lighting positions. I'll type it in, but it will just go back to 0". Anyone know any tricks? I'm using 12.5