Ozzie

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And mate once you have it set up it works really well - at that level the Plant tool has become a credit to NNA. I have even been able to have a Plant in an existing drawing; go into the database and modify some information for that plant; update the text file and then update that Plant in the current drawing The Plant Tool is great now but it takes real effort to learn how it all works.

I wonder why NNA does not provide better training resources for Vectorworks. I understand and admire how some users have been using the software for many years and because of their tenacity and hard work have been able to achieve quite amazing things. I have been using VW now for about three years and have advanced well enough with the software for me and my client?s purposes to have achieved some good things. Seems to me though especially with the release of VW 2008 it is time for NNA to have a look at what they are doing and provide some better training for users to more quickly advance with VW. As an example if a user wished to learn how to customise VW with Vectorscript what training resources are available to that user to learn from? Beyond this is Vectorscript the way to go or the SDK or whatever. I have searched the internet to no avail and whilst obviously there are many people out there who can do amazing things what training resources are available. Prior to using VW I used another cad product. After using it for about two years the suppliers refunded me my purchase cost in full because I believe they wanted to shut me up and get rid of me because I knew their software did not fulfil their marketing claims and promises. So I moved on. Being a landscape designer with great plant knowledge I wanted to be able to build my own Plant Tool and plant database and integrate it with cad. To that end I purchased IntelliCAD and began the task of learning VB to achieve that. After many hours I revisited VW and purchased VW 11. So here I am today using VW 2008 and wanting to learn how to build some tools for my own purposes and cannot get anywhere with Vectorscript. Whilst with worksheets I have been able to set up reasonably complex quantities reports etc I am finding learning Vectorscript ? well anyone who has tried it knows what I am talking about. If I do a search on the internet for say AutoCAD customization I can find heaps of stuff if I do a search for Vectorscript tutorials ? well just try it. I do not know what the future holds but it would seem to me there should be some better training resources available for current users. I understand that NNA does not have the user base that AutoCAD has but I also loathe AutoCAD and love Vectorworks. To use AutoCAD is for me just not an option. I am really interested in how others view this and particularly what NNAs response may be but do not expect NNA will comment. I wonder if there may be someone / anyone out there in VW land who may be able to provide some training which I am more than willing to pay for. Beyond that though I think NNA should be providing proper training resources for this powerful aspect of their software.

Christian, Why don't you talk to someone like Jonathon or Chris D.

I have a different situation - instead of two monitors I use two computers so in effect I have two monitors anyway. Obviously some people could not have two computers because it does cost. So it depends on available finances I suppose. I have them networked so swapping files or looking at something on one from the other is easy. My main computer desktop I only use for cad really and the other my laptop for emails, documents, bookeeping etc and taking into the field if I need to. I am a landscape designer and arborist and often find when working I am drawing on one and researching or browsing the internet on the other answering emails or whatever. Often I find whilst I am waiting for my desktop to do what it is doing I can continue working rather than wasting time and therefore I can get on with work. My desktop has a 22 inch monitor and I find it is adequate to work in VW in with all of my Palettes displayed. I wonder how many others work this way. As an example I may be doing an arborist report as part of a landscape design in VW laying out the tree locations etc and building a worksheet for it on my desktop. At the same time I will be doing the word document on my laptop for the arborist report or maybe using the internet to find a tree species. When doing landscape design work - some are huge - VW slows down when changing sheets or views and because I have the two machines I always have something else to do. For professionals working if you can afford it it is the way to go I think.

I should not be here

Andrew, You may know then - when will be the next bug fix release and what bugs will be fixed

Bummer - Ozcads Worksheet on Drawing will still allow you to Ungroup but without it what is happening in VW 2008 - could it be called a bug?

Do you have Snap to Grid off?

Do you have Constrain Angle on in your Contraints Palette?

Today I loaded VW 2008 onto my Vista Laptop so that when I visit projects I can take it with me and draw on the spot. Of course because until now I only had VW on XP I had to see how a select and copy from VW to email worked in Vista. BTW probaly does the same thing in XP if you have Office 2007 installed. I use Office 2007 so Outlook 2007 is my email client with Word 2007 as the default for composing emails. Well blow me down and I could not believe it. I copied and pasted a VW drawing with just lines, polylines, rectangles and circles and in my email every object was selectable and editable - lines, polylines etc could have colors changed and rectangles, circles and closed objects could have a fill applied - they had become Word shapes. Again this is not attempting at all to say Windows is better than Mac or Mac is better than Windows - I still think Macs are better. Makes you wonder though where we will be in a couple of years. Wonder when we will be able to run Mac OS on a PC?

Sorry I was in an old drawing and selected a Viewport which of course scaled - are you in a Design Layer or Sheet Layer? What do you have in the Worksheet if it is just text just make the text bigger.

Modify Scale appears to work Hey and how is Tassy - was down there fishing a month or so ago

The Plant Tool has improved. It does though depend on how you use it and understand it. In VW 12.5 I used it and developed Plant definitions for many plants that were tied to and able to be updated from the then 'database'. Of course this has all changed in VW 2008 with the introduction of the FileMaker Pro database. Different people can use it their own way - for me I want Plants that are already defined and able to be sorted with Worksheets and especially fields like Tree, Shrub, Groundcover etc that too are able to be updated with information from the database and this is very possible. Although in previous versions it was possible to have Plant Symbols with multiple Classes meaning we could have fills etc for pretty versions and just lines for construction docs with Opacity and Layer overrides which I have not looked at yet in VW 2008 - this is all a little easier. Plants could be defined just as Symbols with records attached if that is what someone wants to do or just defined in a folder in VW as another way of doing things. Or tied to the database and updateable through it if that is how one wishes to do things. It is I think though a bit difficult especially for new users to get their heads around how all this works - what folder stores this and what folder stores that - how do I update guff from the database back into VW etc. Overall I think now it is heading in the right direction. An everyday function though when doing a Planting Plan like changing a symbol should be made for the user as easy as possible and that is what I started this thread about and again I think NNA should address that. Work flows that are simple just save time.

So go back to Tiger and just do some work. Why is it NNAs responsibilty to tell anyone a newly released operating system is not backwardly compatible with an old version of their software. In my view you have just missed it. I am only new here but there are others who have been using Minicad - Vectorworks for years. And by and large they offer such incredible help and support to newbies like me. Any money spent by NNA in my view should be spent on developing Vectorworks forwards not on making old software compatible with a new operating system Any money or efforts put into software development should be on moving forwards not backwards. Leopard obviously has some nice bells and whistles - big deal - it is not the bells and whistles that necessarily get work done. Just use Tiger and when you can upgrade to VW 2008 and then use Leopard or dual boot or use two computers or do something rather than this. It is madness

Just thinking about this So you get into Edit 2D Graphics or Edit 3D Graphics - why not if it is possible have another button in each under the Exit Plant button 'Change Symbol' which grabs a Symbol from a User Library Folder for that purpose. And another why not when right clicking on an object or symbol and choosing Create New Plant having an option with a tick box or radio button or whatever of saving that Plant to a Default User Library folder

Katie, I answered this in General Discussion as follows It is not Editing the Symbol it is changing the silly thing for another one easily and we have lost that function apart from grabbing one from the Resource Browser or copying and pasting some other geometry in. Whilst I am here in Edit Symbol mode - not Edit Plant mode we have the dashed lines lining us up to X = 0 and y = 0 makes it really easy to centre your Symbol meaning it will not go flippity floppity all over the place when you place it. In Edit Plant mode we do not have the dashed lines Just a thought And Katie thanks for following this through

Thanks In VW 12 when you choose to Edit a Plant Definition in the Edit Plant definition Dialogue we could choose alternate 2D or 3D symbols easily within the Dialogue. In VW 2008 we have lost the simplicity of this function. Katie, please do not get me wrong - NNA has made some significant and great improvements to not only the Plant Tool but so many other areas of VW and I love the software. Sure it is still possible to change a plant symbol in Edit Plant in 2008 but where simply as in VW 12 do we get the symbol from. Only way I can see to do it is copy and paste it in I think this is a shame as we have lost the simplicity of that function. Now that has to be a good idea!! The other Plant Issue which is a bug - When placing plants in Poly-Vertex Mode - in the middle of placing a 'string' of Plants if you Pan the screen the Plant Tool lets go and you have to start again. Both have been discussed with Julian and I am certain this one he has submitted a bug report. That was not my issue as to whether that had been done. My original issue was as you have answered about would there be an SP2

Look at this thread http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=91036&page=1#Post910 Hope so But would that mean SP2 or what?

Bob at GDA Why don't you just run two computers - one to play with new operating systems and the other to do some work on. If you really wanted to just work efficiently wouldn't you just use the system that did that best If you want to use VW 12 use the system that best works for YOU rather than expecting NNA to be responsible for your choice

This is not a comment about Macs versus Windows or Windows versus Macs. Interesting though: Cheetah about March 2001 Puma about September 2001 Jaguar about August 2002 Panther about October 2003 Tiger about April 2005 Leopard October 2007 Okies: Windows XP about October 2001 Vista about December 2006 I wonder about Leopard ? of course it would be silly to suggest it should have been made to be compatible with VW 12.5 Did Apple warn anyone? Did they say do not use this with this list of software? Just a thought And I can hear a train a coming It?s rolling around the bend And I do not think I will log back in here Till I don?t know when I still run VW on XP on one machine and Vista on another but not with VW ? just have not bothered. Why do I have to? Works ok for me. Vectorworks is for me at least a work tool and too I love it but give us a break if you want Leopard or any operating system ? that is your choice and not a responsibility of NNAs. I do not agree with them making VW 12.5 compatible with Leopard.

Katie, With all respect I have to say this - my original question was when will SP2 be released? You answered in part 'We do not have an anticipated release date of the next version of VectorWorks 2008' etc So do I, we assume there will be no SP2? I cannot imagine NNA is going to just fix one bug; of course if there is a fix one would imagine it would be many plus whatever else NNA chose to include. Julian could not drive these issues. I also cannot imagine within NNA's structure there is a secret department working on bugs or whatever that just suddenly out of the blue releases an update and you and others are oblivious to it. Any bugs that affect me, you or others we just have to live with until they are resolved and that is reasonable. NNA cannot just jump and obviously must do things in an organised manner. I agree about Julian - he is just fantastic. So should I re-word the original question. Will there be an SP2? Further; and this issue may have been raised by others before - I think there should be an open list of known bugs published by NNA as part of this forum. Of course NNA would have to have tested them and agreed they were bugs prior to their inclusion. Users would then be able to refer to that list and understand for their own purposes what was going on. They would know if there bug submits were being addressed etc. There is too another point - a user may submit a bug and NNA may in a future version or upgrade be planning to alter say a particular tool or process completely which would then change it or fix it. Some transparency though would help. Some people?s bugs may not be bugs to others. As an example the new Plant Tool (and this is not the bug I was referring to earlier) has had a function removed. In VW 12 when Editing a Plant Definition we had the option of changing the 2D or 3D Symbol. In VW 2008; when Editing the 2D Graphics or 3D Graphics we have lost that functionality simply. Sure we can still change the Symbol but have to copy and paste it in. This is a lost function not a bug. I raised this issue in the Vectorworks Landmark forum http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=89397&page=1#Post89397 and not a single comment from NNA. And again in the Wish List Forum http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=89679&page=1#Post89679 And again not a comment from NNA ? so who knows what is going on Just this week we have had duplicate posts almost about the Callout Tool ? one in Architect and one in General Discussion ? surely a list of known bugs would help all users interested better understand what was going on

I have used both and they are all good. Jonathon's are great and with complex issues his online training really helps you in areas where you need quick and immediate training.

Katie, Thanks - I have not submitted the bugs but can tell you what they are if you want me too. Julian has. One with the Plant Tool is in my view major because I use that tool all the time and it still catches me often. So what you are saying is these things - we do not know when they will be fixed?? If so what would be the point of sending of an email. I think such things are best kept open here rather than swept under the carpet.