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I switched mine to Q W E R T Y. And I put my snap to contraints as 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. I find this the easiest to work with but it might depend on if you have a full-size keyboard or not.

Well, you can try to log in to you mac's account without starting up any programs or login items by holding SHIFT after entering your account password. Then launch only VW and see if you get the same crash. In this way you can eliminate an application conflict variable.

Do you use MondoMouse by chance? http://kbase.vectorworks.net/questions/848/

Are you sure that it is VW's inner workings and not something like a license check that is not connecting? Do you have something like little snitch or a firewall that is blocking connections. Maybe also try upgrading to 10.7.2 and see if this fixes the issue. I have not yet noticed any processor implications with VW 2012 Designer SP1 on 10.7.2

Christiaan, I echo your last comment. I have already written my salesman with this same point. Maybe I am naive, but I don't understand why the upgrades were not just processed automatically by computer. It's not as if they are actually shipping anything.

GBen, Make sure not to select the accessories when you are moving a group of units around. Then they will move correctly. The same is true for a multi-cicuit device, only select one of the symbols in the cluster. If you are careful, working in this way, you can use all the tools normally, including space and distribute, etc.

These are not the exact symbols that ship with Vectorworks Spotlight, although they are similar, at least the ETC profile. If you are looking for the ETC database on the mac in a standard VW Spotlight 2011 install find it in: /Applications/Vectorworks 2011/Libraries/Objects-Entertainment/Lighting-ETC.vwx (sorry I can't help for a windows install, but it should be similar). If you don't have this file and the others like it, you add it again with the app's installer.

The iMac will probably has a better graphics card which will help. The speed of the hard disk is also a factor. I am on a 2.8 Ghz Core i7 MacBook Pro and just changed my hard disk to SSD. VW (and of course the whole system) runs so much faster.

Great to hear, and glad to have been able to help.

I would definitely try PDFCompress. It's a bit expensive but I find it indispensable. There are some more laborious solutions for slimming a PDF within Mac OS for free but if you need to slim a lot of PDFs that program is really a good solution. Good luck.

what platform are you on? Mac or PC? What operating system? If you are on a Mac, I would suggest using a shareware application called PDFCompress (http://www.metaobject.com/). I use it a lot for PDFs of all kinds and with CAD generated PDFs I can sometimes slim down to 90% of the original size. It depends... As far as I know, a lot of factors can contribute to a PDF's size. Maybe you should try to make some PDFs again from the files you have used in the past to see if it's the specific files you are working on or something actually in the new VW code.

I have upgraded my system to 10.7 (I still have my 10.6.x install on a second disk just in case) and have not seen problems so far with VW on Lion but I have not yet thoroughly rung it out. Thanks for all the feedback and keep it coming.

Thanks for the feedback so far. I am specifically interested in data exchange with Lightwright if any fits that profile. Also, do you notice any performance gains or slow downs? > to Christiaan - yes, I agree with you about a .0 release, definitely, but I think this forum is the best place to assemble real user experience as some of us move forward on the new OS. Maybe this thread will be useful beyond .0

Hello Forum-ers, I'd like to know from those who have upgraded to Mac OS X Lion 10.7 about your experience, so far, with VW and any components/plug-ins/add-ons. I am considering the upgrade but I believe Nemetschek has not completely signed off on compatibility just yet, and I want to better understand the current situation. I have read some sparse comments on the forums, but I am hoping for a wholly dedicated 10.7 thread. Thanks in advance for your feedback.

I once experienced a spate of crashes with VW whenever I jumped to the application switcher on Mac with the keyboard shortcut CMD-TAB. After talking with support I learned that VW has an incompatibility with MondoMouse, a system preference pane I was using, and they offered a workaround. The crashes you are experiencing could be the result of many things. More information about your system and specific situation is required to help, if that's what you are looking for.

mjunderdog1 - did your object turn into a Light instead of a Lighting Device in the OIP? If so, then just use the refresh instruments commands. This usually happens whenever you delete a lighting device and put it back with the Undo command.

maybe the site was down but it seems to work now.

Yes - it's still broken for me in SP2 mac. I have written them several times. I get inconsistency whenever I jump back and forth between sheets and layers.

Here are the paths to the articles in VW Help. It's worthwhile to set up. "Home / Vectorworks Fundamentals / Adding Text and Annotation / Adding a Sheet Border / Creating a Custom Title Block in Vectorworks" "Home / Vectorworks Design Series / Advanced Topics / Creating a Custom Title Block in Vectorworks Design Series"

Josh - could you elaborate on 'Red Symbol'?

I have found that you cannot duplicate a multi-circuit; that I must add it from the resource browser each time. More important, is that I learned that I must reposition any multi-circuit by only dragging around one piece of it. If I drag all parts of it it will explode into the far reaches of the drawing. It took a long time to get used to. One other thing, if you want to distribute multi-circuit fixtures in a space, or other tools like that, it's important, again, to only select one of the symbols in each of the multi-circuit. Personally, I find this counter-intuitive. FWIW

maybe try saving the VW file with a new name and then telling the spotlight preferences to export the xml again?

If they are all bars of equal length you only need to make one lighting position symbol. I, myself, would make them all lighting positions but keep them on a base layer in a template file. When you need to plot a show, then move the positions you need into a new layer specifically for that show, and then make sure your base layer is greyed and non-selectable. Then you can plot lights and they should only attach to the pipes on your active show layer. Hope it helps.

Mainly I use these: http://www.fieldtemplate.com/soft/softcopy.html a reasonably priced large commercial package from Steve Shelley.

To my knowledge, VW 8 (not 2008) is the last version that can open an older MiniCad file. You might be able to send the files to Nemetschek for translation.