Donald Wardlaw

<< It's nice to know that somebody really likes VectorWorks.>> This is really over the top, an extreme, not too rational opinion. Calm down. I've been using it for maybe 12 years. The core CAD program is indeed flexible. It has many zillions of users who love working with the program, make a lot of money using it, and are not seriously tempted to use something else. In my experience, in our local user group for example, the people who rant and rave the most have some learning issues. This is not to say it is easy or trouble free. And, historically, first issues of new versions have problems. And historically they get properly fixed. Its been like this as long as I can remember. It may not be the right program for everyone. Some I'm sure prefer the more controlled and structured working environment of Autocad and that is fine with me. But this program is generally well regarded. Most people I know love working with it. This is a fact. Donald Wardlaw

I too appreciate the info. Thanks. I think a work around might be, ok this is innocent, to have a preference option for colored handles, say red. I can't really say, now that nobody uses an SE anymore, that black/white reversing handles are a superior concept. Donad

<<If such things were drawn using a solid color, then a) they wouldn't be visible on top of any objects that share that color, and b) VectorWorks drawing would be a lot slower and less efficient.>> I was just tossing out an idea, maybe not a good one. I do note that Formz uses simple red handles and for some reason it is fast and easy to read. I can't spot any inefficiency. Never seem to have any difficulty distinguishing one object from another. Don't know if the expected problems are real or theoretical. Donald

Andrew, That's more like it. Insight is right. Thanks. Donald

Little me is having a hard time understanding what is so difficult about having those little handles display at full color depth. Donald

I too have a 250C. HP tech support/service has been outstanding. Just spent about 650 to have it overhauled by HP and it works great. Also have an Epson 3000. What a turkey. Paper handling of heavier papers (essential for top quality color output) is lousy. Think sheet feed only. Epson does, in my opinion, a lousey job of keeping their drivers current. Current version of Photoshop requires a later version of colorsynch than Epson supports. Never again. Back to Hp for me. Donald

What has worked for me is to use the Adobe PS driver, much as a previous post suggested. Make sure you have the latest one from the Adobe site. I'm getting good reliable results with it. donald

What I have done is to create the curved text in Illustrator (other programs might do just as well) and then exported as an image file. In VW I create the vector graphics and normally oriented text. Then I combine and group them. Looks sharp. Really only need to do this once. Donald

Geoff, Thanks for feedback on the leader line tool. Guess I will upgrade after all. I will give the split tool a spin. What I look for in these tools is the ability to draw things exactly as I want with the smoothest motion, in the least time, and the minimum amount of mousing around to menus and tool pallettes. I've never gone for tools that "sort of" do everything. Other peoples idea of the "solutions" I need never fit closely to my particulars. Best, Donald

"turn of the 2D acceleration extension..." This should give an indication of where to look for the problem. I found that disabling this extension worked fine in VW, it does indeed return the handles at high resolution. Scrolling and panning were ok. However, it's a mess with other programs like Netscape, Excel, and Word. Scrolling in those apps with the extension off is painfully slow. I'm afraid this workaround exchanges one set of problems for another. Donald

Last night the Northern California User group took our first look at VW9. There were numerous improvements to cheer about. And cheer we did. There also were a few changes we did not like at all, and it could be that we simply missed something, being that we are all new to this version. Here are 3 things most of us did not appreciate. 1. There does not seem to be a trim commmand any more. Was there a good and necessary reason to make us change the way we work? 2. The extend to line command seemed to require dragging the cursor from one line to the other. Here I think we must not have seen how to operate the tool because if this were so it would be a terrible design decision. Often we want to extend lines to some point way off the screen and making each connection is much much slower in operation. Even with the interactive zoom and pan, which we all loved, this is not an efficient way to work. I think we missed some toggle and if anyone can enlighten that would be neat. 3. We could not find the leader line tool. The new text box thing makes autocad look elegant. It looks awful on the drawing even with all the options, it puts the leader line in the wrong places, and it requires us to go into this dialog to edit text, unless as we found we ungroup the thing. Can we take the leader line tool from VW8 files and put in on a VW9 pallette using workspace editor? Personally, I depend on the leader line tool and cannot imagine why it would be eliminated. I don't mind adding this new thing, some will surely like it. But I would hate to be required to use it. If I have to give up the leader line tool, which works great and has for a long time, I won't upgrade. Thanks in advance for comments, corrections and suggestions, Donald

I should note one surprise workng with the new nvidia card. Yes there is the problem with resolution and handles. I look forward to a fix. But a longstanding bothersome problem, one that I thought was N's, is gone. A problem I and others had was that VW seemed to lose track of font sizes. 12 pt. type would become almost 12 pt. and would no longer have a check by it in the font size menu. Also, one could see differences in font sizes, depending on the zoom level, for type which was all created with the same font size setting. Never looked right on the screen. This problem is gone. I only see it on older files and they can now be corrected and will remember the correction. The only change I made was a new computer with a new video card. Donald

Mike Conner, you are the man. Best, Donald

Since upgrading from 8.5.1 to 8.5.2, I now get a dialoge when creating a new document. It is asking me whether I want to create a blank document or use a template. Someone thought this was an enhancement, but for me it just adds an unwanted and unnecessary step since the old way, choosing new for a blank document and double clicking on a template icon for a pre configured document worked fine and was simpler. Is there a way to by pass this dialogue? thanks, Donald Wardlaw

Hey Doug Shaffer, Thanks for getting to the bottom of it and letting the rest of us know what you found out. Donald

Regarding the ATI Graphics Accellerator. My 466 came with v. 5.3.2. I'm running two monitors with a Rage Pro and nVidia cards. Currently one monitor is in shop, so just running off the nvidia. In case the ati extension, since it was loaded, was interfering, I disabled it, but it had no effect on the workings of the nvidia card, i.e. it did not rectify the handles problem. Color depth setting is still the workaround here.

I can confirm that changing the color depth to 256 colors does restore the selection handles. It also makes objects visible during creation. Fortunately for us, changing color depth via control strip is pretty easy. Donald Wardlaw

quote: Originally posted by rjtiedeman: My office set me up with a new 533MHz G4 with NVIDIA GeForce" MX video-card. I have called Nemetschek tech support and Apple tech support with out any success. I replaced the drivers with the Radeon drivers and all seems to be ok but I have not seen any big increase in speed in fact I ran the Vector Test file and it is the same speed as an G3 500. I haved a new G4/466 with the nvidia card. Same problem no handles. Also when drawing lines or creating objects, the object is invisible during creation. My other computer with OS8.51 and an older video card has no such problem. I'll post more when I learn more. Donald Wardlaw

I noticed the same thing until I rebuilt the desktop. I'm curious if you find printing of rotated text and vertical dimensions working normally? Donald

I see a problem too. Could we have a patch please? I have not tried to plot out, but I have seen the problem with acrobat 4.05a, a critical application for me. Problem is with any rotated text, in a text block or a dimension. I have gone back to using 8.51 which works fine in this regard. Donald Wardlaw

The chamfer tool understands the line weight of the lines being chamfered. The fillet tool does not. I suggest the fillet tool function similar to the chamfer tool. Now, I always have to set the line weight of the resultant arc. This seems unnecessary. Best, Donald