nicolas d

i want to see the rectangles' dimensions in the object info window as 'x' and 'y' like it used to be. i don't understand why or in which cases the new 'width' and 'height' system could be good. often times i'm wasting extra fractions of time thinking if the rectangle is rotated or not and where is the width and where is the height. can this be disabled or changed back somehow? can i edit rectangles like before, like i can still edit polygons for example, with the good, proven, 'x' and 'y' system? i use duplicate a lot, and many times instead of drawing a new item (this not only applies to rectangles) i duplicate another of the same sort and modify it. this is to me a reasonable thing to do, for example, when one wants to incidentally draw an object in a class that is not the active class... anyway, the thing is, i duplicate and rotate rectangles and other objects a lot and now i wind up confused with how my rectangles are oriented, whereas i'm never in a situation in which i am grateful to know which side is labeled 'width' and which is labeled 'height'.

i want to see the rectangles' dimensions in the object info window as 'x' and 'y' like it used to be. i don't understand why or in which cases the new 'width' and 'height' system could be good. often times i'm wasting extra fractions of time thinking if the rectangle is rotated or not and where is the width and where is the height. can this be disabled or changed back somehow? can i edit rectangles like before, like i can still edit polygons for example, with the good, proven, 'x' and 'y' system? i use duplicate a lot, and many times instead of drawing a new item (this not only applies to rectangles) i duplicate another of the same sort and modify it. this is to me a reasonable thing to do, for example, when one wants to incidentally draw an object in a class that is not the active class... anyway, the thing is, i duplicate and rotate rectangles and other objects a lot and now i wind up confused with how my rectangles are oriented, whereas i'm never in a situation in which i am grateful to know which side is labeled 'width' and which is labeled 'height'.

putting them in a viewport and scaling it down is what i've adopted too. the viewport strategy also works in my case, where the worksheet doesn't fit the sheet and the use of viewports allows me to not brake the worksheet in two (like i would have done before) but to simply use two viewports showing two different parts of the same worksheet. thank you hugues, nicolas

in vw2008sp2, i am working on worksheets with a font size of 6, and need to zoom in within each worksheet to see the text larger while i'm editing it. it sounds simple but i don't know how to do it.

maybe this was asked before, i couldn't find a topic discussing it. i use a 15" mbpro laptop in conjunction with a 22" flat screen. i would like to have two versions of my workspace, one that fits well the 15" screen, another that works with a 22" screen. but workspaces don't seem to recall the positions of the palettes from session to session, particularly the 'constraints', 'attributes', 'object info', and 'navigation' ones. what would be the way to work around the problem of different size screens and workspace layout in VW2008? by the way, it would be nice to see the workspace editor improve a little in future versions of the program. i don't think it has evolved much in ages, and it was not amazing to start with: the window is not resizable, it is not clearly responsive when one wants to drag commands or tools, and the general criteria of how it works is not easily understandable to people who are new to the program, but at the same time is a critical feature for people coming from other cad programs wanting to soften the transition by personalizing the platform.

i think i just found the problem: VectorWorks/Preferences/Edit/Snap Radius i had it set to 1 pixel. i changed it to 5, or to 10, and now i see the cross cursor again as i approach selected objects' endpoints and center points. i might have changed this setting to 1 in the first place (i don't think it comes set to 1 by default) without paying too much attention. i'm not sure when it would be beneficiary to have it set so small. nicolas

peter, what you are describing is exactly what i've been doing since minicad 5, i know the exact feel of the 'slightly off of the end point' position you are naming, and my commentary is aiming exactly at that. i argue that, with objects selected, the position is not there anymore. so yes, my two solutions so far are, like you are saying, deselecting and then dragging, or, like ray is saying, toggling between the three 2D selection tool modes (for which i have changed the key assignment from 'u' to '~' since VW10.5). ray, it is strange that it is working exactly like before for you and not for me. i wonder if it might be a matter of monitor resolution, or a mac / pc thing... but even if i zoom in a lot i can't find the cross cursor when objects are previously selected. nicolas

it's as simple as this: draw a line (it'll stay selected after you draw it) then try to drag it from the end point. i don't seem to be able to get the cross cursor to do it. nicolas

peter, 1) any type of objects, but lets say for now regular polygons, rectangles, lines. 2) i'm working in 2D, on top/plan view verified through 'command+5' 3) i am on the 2D selection cursor, of course 4) what do you mean exactly 'what does the cursor look like'? it is the 2D cursor for sure, and it changes to diagonal arrow when on the handles of an object PREVIOUSLY SELECTED. i only see the 'cross' cursor (which allows you to drag the object instead of stretching it) if the object is not selected when i approach it, or in the case of having selected multiple objects if i have the program set to not show the selection handles for multiple objects (this a new feature in VW2008).

it is appreciated that the selection process becomes more precise and with more options, but it is equally important to keep the features that are basic and proven good. in VW2008 i find now that regardless if an object or multiple objects are selected, as long as you see the handles you can no longer drag (move) objects by end points or center points, you can only stretch them. before, even in 12.5.3 you would offset the cursor slightly from the point to get the 'cross' cursor to move it instead of the 'diagonal arrow' cursor to stretch it. being able to work in this way is crucial to my way of operating with the program. am i missing something? is there any trick that i'm missing?

this makes absolute sense, and things are not getting any better in version 2008. why could this be?! i frankly don't understand. it is appreciated that the selection process becomes more precise and with more options, but it is equally important to keep the features that are basic and proven good. in VW2008 i find now that regardless if an object or multiple objects are selected, as long as you see the handles you can no longer drag (move) objects by end points or center points, you can only stretch them. before, even in 12.5.3 you would offset the cursor slightly from the point to get the 'cross' cursor to move it instead of the 'diagonal arrow' cursor to stretch it. being able to work in this way is crucial to my way of operating with the program. am i missing something? is there any trick that i'm missing?

In vw, moving by dragging is not a command, it's just dragging, and with the use of the screen hints it can be exact. if you want to go by numbers then you use the 'move' command. all this happens after you 'duplicate' the object. when your intention is to duplicate and then move an exact distance, you first select the object, then press (in a windows pc) ctrl+d,m, that is, you leave your finger on the control key and press successively the d key and the m key. i think in this aspect vw is paired with autocad. it's just a matter of getting use to one way or the other. i've been working with vw for more than twelve years, and after having worked with autocad for three very intense months what's driving me crazy now that i'm back in vw is the offset command. it's not even for children or maybe there's something i don't get... i wish i didn't have to use it, but when part of your drawing is at angle you are stuck with it. eas, any opinions - suggestions?

katie, i would say in this case it sounds more like it is a problem related to vw12.5.3 running on leopard, plus the complex hatches i was trying to handle. before upgrading to leopard i was not having any trouble with the same files, and i have not had any problems related to graphics in any other application ever since running leopard (and i put my computer to pretty hard use) so you can imagine i'm not going to run to apple to have the mother board replaced. instead what i'm looking for here is feedback from other users with the same issue, in order to try to understand if in their case it is related to the use of hatches or to something else. these are files that were created in vw10.5, which might offer another clue.

hello, i'm running vw 12.5.3 on leopard on a macbookpro and am experiencing some really odd, almost psychedelic behavior on the part of the program. everything goes well until i open a file with complex hatches, that's when my screen starts to become painted with crazy yellows, purples, etc, and as move the mouse or try to do anything it worsens and worsen. i'm not sure what do, the computer's video capabilities seem to be fine in all other software i use (which includes adobe's cs3 suite, apple's aperture, etc.)

katie, if the entity in question is a polygon and looks like it has curves, making it a polyline by hiding one of its edges will not change the fact that the curves were made of hundreds (or thousands) of little lines. like pete says, polylines can have arcs, polygons can't. an arc can be broken into lines (something generally not very good for a drawing) but those lines which form a faceted arc cannot be recombined into an arc. if i need to separate a polyline in parts i'll use 'convert to lines' or 'decompse' indistinctly if it doesn't have any arcs, or 'decompose' exclusively if it does. i'm not sure i remember exactly in which cases (that's how it is with these things) but sometimes i find it useful to decompose a polyline in order to do something with its parts and then recompose it. another thing that's nice is that clipping a polyline with curves doesn't make it a polygon. i seem to remember that in previous versions of VW it did.

pete, i don't feel as happy as you for knowing that the 'translation view' tool can be used to pan around within the crop of a viewport, because i don't think it works that well. i think it feels slow and imprecise, which is exactly what's not needed in a situation like this one. i always used this tool, which was part of the 3D palette in previous versions of VW when viewports did not exist at all in the program, to move up and down or sideways when viewing a 3D model. in my opinion, panning the contents of a viewport should be one more of the options available when right clicking on it, besides editing the crop, the annotations, or going back to the design layer. i would call it something like 'edit design layer withing crop'... (in fact, it would be nice to be able to do more than pan the design layer withing the crop, it would be nice to able to work properly on the design layer BUT through the window of the viewport, in this way i wouldn't have to leave my sheet and go back to the whole design layer to edit an object which is there seating in different coordinates alongside many other objects that are not of my interest at that moment).

Katie, I don't think you are understanding the question. 'eas' wants to have default hatches at her disposition in all files, not on a per file basis. that what she means by 'my system'. Bruce, I was enthusiastic about your answer but somehow it's not working for me here after having imported all these hatches that i wanted to make part of my defaults into the file you mentioned. They are clearly in the Default file, and the preference is clearly clicked, but I don't see all the hatches in the rest of my files. Am I missing something?

I went from 10.5 to 12.5 so i don't know about anything in between, but I'm very sure that there are two behavioral changes that were introduced that I dislike compared to how they worked before. Before, coincident Selction Handles were shown almost overlapping but not completely, so you could still see all the ones that belonged to each object. Now when two or more objects are selected only one selection handle is shown in the shared points. And it's hard to explain in the limited space of this post why this is bad, but lets say that many times it results in situations that are misleading or where it is just difficult to identify quickly (without even needing to look in object info window) how many things are selceted, or if that fourth line you were trying to select got selected or not. Another problem is with the Duplicate command, which i use a lot. In VW10.5 when you duplicated objects there was a short blink which kind of comfirmed that the duplication took place. Now nothing happens, and I accept that it might be because I'm very used to that short blink, but many times I find myself doubting if I duplicated something or not. I might be crazy... but I liked how these things worked, they didn't have to change!

Maybe my post was confusing, I only want to print a hundred separate files without having to open each of them and hit print each time. I don't need to combine the files into one or change anything else.

Hi, I would like to print a whole set of drawings either to paper or pdf without having to go through each file that composes the set. Batch printing and Batch exporting to pdf in VW work with multiple sheets inside one file, not with multiple files. Then in OSX there's the automator but i'm not sure how to integrate OSX scripts into VW. The only solution I see for now is, given a Drawing Set of, say, 100 files, creating a number of VW files, four for example, that will be used exclusively for printing, to which 25 files will be referenced and sheet layers created for each. Only then VW's Batch functions will be useful for the whole set.

awesom!!! exactly what i was looking for... thank you very much, mike. and thank you jan15.

i was drawing first the longest line, then two arcs, then the two remaining lines, but this is faster because after the first circle the other two are duplicates, and then the polyline is one step, as opposed to drawing three separate lines. thanks, i found a little program that calculates and draws the triangle given three sides, or any three variables, and the resulting drawing can be printed but not to any particular scale. (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/math_science/triangle.html)

i have to draw a triangle and the information i have is only the dimension of its three sides. i know how to gemotrically solve the problem, and i know how to draft the triangle in verctorworks too, but it involves several steps and i have to draw more than one hundred triangles which will all be different. i'm looking for a way to automate the process, in which i would input the three dimensions and the program would generate the triangle. i don't know how to program vectorscripts. is the only solution to learn how to? would it be a difficult vectorscript problem? any other ideas? thank you,