JBender

Like others have said you need to be in a blank space to start a selection box. Another trick you can use is to hold down alt when you release the mouse button to select all the objects "touched" by the selection marquee as opposed to only those totally enclosed by it.

I think I'll bump this whenever this bug bugs me. Bump!

You're right, there is a conflict with this dual purpose tool, but here's an easy solution: The tool should not be able to select an object when it is active on a selected objects snap point. Done. Only in the case of two snap points over each-other would the select tool not select. It doesn't work anyway to try and select an object using an overlapping point with another object already selected - so you would lose nothing, and get rid of this bug.

It is very hit or miss with this. I use this program in 2D only and am not involved with architecture at all. So I may use this program in different ways than a lot of people. I do this many times a day and end up grabbing (and deselecting what I had perhaps carefully chosen) the wrong object. The resize tool would never grab another object other than what was selected. It's not even what is in front vs behind. It is more of which object is closer to the cursor when you click, and that ends up being based on zoom factor. It's not very predictable. I would love to see this fixed. It works fine with the resize tool - make it do the same with the move (crosshair) tool! Why do the VW programmers think they know better than me what object I want? - I want the one SELECTED!!!

Well, I'll have to keep playing around with it. It does seem to select based on which object the cursor is actually over regardless of front/back/selected, which is intuitive enough. Although the object position description (top center for example) may or may not be the position and object you end up manipulating when you click. There are times that come up that it is very unintuitive. Maybe it'll come up today and I can describe the exact situation.

I'll try to start using the move tool instead. and see how that works out. I can't see one reason that it should work the way it does. Explain to me why one would ever want to move or resize the object in front instead of the one that is already selected. If you want it to work the way it does now - all you would have to do is NOT have the object you don't want selected. I am honestly confused as to what you think would not work if this was changed.

I've brought this up in the past, and I'm going to bring it up again. It's very simple. If an object is already selected and I click to move or drag it - I do not want to select the object that happens to be in front of it. In other words a selected object should override the one in front. Oh - and please fix it in 2008 - I still feel like we just bought it and we can't spend thousands every year when a new release comes out.

Thanks guys. I did happen upon that call while I was working on it yesterday. Since I'm new at this I wasn't sure out to set up another procedure or Function (Don't know the difference either) inside my code. Will they each then have their own variable definitions? Is it then necessary to pass variables somehow from one to the other (like a handle). In any case I put the while loop I had inside another to go between each Layer. I would, however, like to use the ForEachObjectInLayer call because it would give me the ability to traverse groups which I can't do right now. All in all this has already been a handy tool and I was able to use it on a project. I'm still interested in making this tool better (and there is plenty more I could do). Thanks.

I've written a script to do this. For those out there that understand handle lists, I need some help. I am having a hard time traversing all text objects in a drawing (across all layers). It will traverse across only one layer without going to the next. Also, When I count selected text objects, it will count ones on an inactive layer that you wouldn't notice are selected. So neede a way to state "CurrentLayer" = TRUE but can't find it in the docs. Any help is appreciated! Code: Edit - For some reason it won't show tabs - sorry. ----------------------------------------------------------- PROCEDURE Batch_FindReplace; {$DEBUG} VAR i,j,k,n : INTEGER; Selections : DYNARRAY[] OF STRING; FindChar : DYNARRAY[] OF CHAR; FindLen : INTEGER; ReplaceChar : DYNARRAY[] OF CHAR; ReplaceLen : INTEGER; SampleChar : DYNARRAY[] OF CHAR; SampleLEN : INTEGER; Match : INTEGER; h : HANDLE; BEGIN n := Count((T=Text) & (SEL=TRUE)); i := 1; ALLOCATE Selections[1..n]; h := FSActLayer; WHILE (h <> NIL) DO BEGIN IF GetType(h) = 10 THEN BEGIN Selections := GetText(h); i := i+1; END; h := NextSObj(h); END; ALLOCATE SampleChar[0..0]; ALLOCATE FindChar[0..0]; ALLOCATE ReplaceChar[0..0]; h := FObject; WHILE (h <> NIL) DO BEGIN IF (GetType(h) = 10) THEN BEGIN SampleChar := GetText(h); SampleLen := Len(SampleChar); i := 1; WHILE (i < n) DO BEGIN FindChar := Selections; FindLen := Len(FindChar); ReplaceChar := Selections[i+1]; ReplaceLen := Len(ReplaceChar); IF (SampleLen >= FindLen) THEN WHILE (j < ((SampleLen - FindLen)+1)) DO BEGIN FOR k := 0 TO (FindLen -1) DO BEGIN IF (SampleChar[(j+k)] = FindChar[k]) THEN Match := Match+1; END; IF (Match = FindLen) THEN BEGIN FOR k := 0 TO (FindLen -1) DO BEGIN SampleChar[(j+k)] := ReplaceChar[k]; END; SetSelect(h); SetText(h, SampleChar); j := (j+FindLen-1); END; Match := 0; j := j+1; END; i := i+2; j := 0; END; END; h := NextObj(h); END; END; Run(Batch_FindReplace);

I was wondering if anyone knew of a script that could perform a text find and replace from one data set to another data set. For example I would like change: 0001->0002 0003->0004 0005->0006 etc. I have many drawings in a package and need to duplicate the package, the only difference being part of the wire numbers. If I had this tool it would save me many hours. I was hoping to use the "Find-Replace Text" vectorscript and edit it to do what I want only to find that it is locked by NNA. I asked if they could send it to me to get me started, but they arn't interested in helping me make this program work more efficiently for me. Anything to get me started would be appreciated.

I routinely use the CTRL key to duplicate an object when I drag. It would make a lot of sense if I could duplicate an object when I use the new move by displacement tool, or with the mirror tool.

Could you please make it possible to associate and constrain a hole dimensioning note with the hole itself.

I've thought about it, but it would be better to keep it simple and leave them as separate files. If it were just me - maybe, but we have a handful of people collaborating with varying degrees of expertise. Thanks, though.

I am probably in the minority here, but I run into the open document limit often. Is there any way to override this and get more than 8 drawings open at a time? I use VW for 2d schematics and a drawing package can easily exceed 8 drawings. It's nice to have them all open at the same time. I have plenty of memory - can VW keep up??

Thanks, I wasn't sure if they would admit whether or not a 2008 license would work. I can see selling the newest version from a software support point of view - but I now feel forced into buying something that should have been bought on it's merit - not as a result of putting folks like me in a difficult position of mixed versions and save-as confusion. With a good salesman, it would have gone something like this: "Version 12.5 is still available, but here's what you get in 2008, here's how productivity is improved - also don't forget that you will save upgrade costs for the two new licenses when you do decide to make the step up." I bet I would have felt a lot better making the decision for myself.

We are currently using 12.5 at the office - we have 5 licenses. We are growing somewhat and are in need of 2 more licenses. The thing is, the question of upgrading seems to have been made for me. I would have liked to make the decision myself, but the "major upgrade marketing" has given me a choice between mixed versions and updating everyone. NNA is no longer selling 12.5 licenses. There are some features in 2008 that I have been wanting, but for close to $1900 for just the upgrade, I wasn't so sure it's worth it. Does anyone know if the 2008 licenses will work on a copy of 12.5?

Does anyone know how I might do this? It would really help to rename title-blocks and references for an entire drawing package. Thanks.

Thanks for the tip. I'm using a pretty good NVidia card on a PC. I think that my main point here is that the sliders do nothing, and that there is NO LACK OF PROCESSING POWER leading to this problem. It's bad programming and I wish NNA would respond one way or the other...

Would like to bump my thread here. Others must notice this, has it improved with 2008 at all? I've never noticed a poor flyover response, no matter the sliders. NNA, please give me a way to force OpenGL rendering during flyover and let me decide when it isn't quick enough. I hate this revert to wireframe during flyover. I was watching TV and it showed a cool model that someone was rotating around. Looked slick. I had to comment to my wife that that wasn't Vectorworks for sure. I will not accept it's lack of processing power. It does seem to be lack of programming power.

I would just like to add my vote here. I'm as perplexed as the rest of you. I started a thread about this a long time ago. NNA, please say you're at least working on it!

I appreciate the reply, but I guess I didn't explain what I was trying to say well. I move the sliders all I want, and it seems to make *no* difference in the rendering. My model can interactively render just fine on my machine if only it would decide to try. It's annoying, and I'm convinced it's a bug. I was wondering if anyone else has noticed this.

I am starting to work with models, and would like to know what I can do to keep a model rendering interactively. It seems that the model will decide on it's own when to revert to wirefram while rotating wirh the flyover tool. I've tried to change the 3d settings, and have found that they have no effect whatsoever that I can tell. In fact, my model is currently refusing to render during flyover. So you say it's because of processor speed, ram, etc. But if I siply copy and paste into a new file, it reders interactively with now problem at all. That tells me there computer resources are not the problem, the underlying programming is flawed. Has anyone seen this? I don't have renderworks - will it work right if I get it? Is it fixed with 2008 (We are using 12.5) Thanks.

We run into this often enough. We work in a mixed OS office, mostly macs a couple PC's. It comes down to how the OS's identify what program to open the file with when you double click it. A work around is to open the file from within Vectorworks. A PC uses the file extension to identify which program to open it with. A mac uses a code inside the file which tells the OS which pogram to use. When a file is transferred to a PC file system, that special code is stripped away, and the mac doesn't know what program to open it with, and figures it is some system file. A Mac can also use the file extension to decide - if that mac code isn't there. For vectorworks, that doesn't work, however. My mac gurus tell me that this is by fault of vectorworks not having the proper coding... You can find free programs to put the right mac codes back into the file if you do some web searching. This can also happen when emailing files because the file goes across PC based systems.

Thanks, Pat, I'll try that.

Thanks for the tips with rendering. It seems to be rendering during flyover so far. We'll see what happens when it gets complex. I knew about the rendering settings, and have them pegged. I didn't know about the openGL hidden line option. I will be looking into that. I have had good luck rendering (square) solid objects out of whatever I want now, so that is a relief. I do have a challenging opject to render, and I'm looking for suggestions. I have a spocket I'd like to render. I can take the 2D side view, and extrude that easy enough. The challenge is in the tappered teeth on the sprocket (a sprockets teeth get thinnner toward the outside). Any ideas. I'm sure this is one of many rendering challenges I'll face in machine design. Is there a better forum to post rendering challenges?