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Stereo Mikes! Thanks. Mike m, I was referring to the the colour of the thumbnail text in the resource browser. The symbols don't insert as plug-ins as Michaelk describes. Could it be a difference between designer and architect?

I'm using VA Australia which has the Electrical-Power-Devices-Metric file, but they're all black 2D symbols not plug-in objects. Which plug-in is activated when you import one into a drawing?

In the MEP tool set there are 3 electrical circuit tools (Switch, Receptacle & Incandescent Fixtures) plus a Data Comm tool that I can't find any info on in the no help system. I want to know if it is possible to edit the existing symbols & add new symbols to the tools? Would like to add a dimmer switch, tube fluorescent lights and edit the receptacle (socket) symbols.

This would be a far superior option to exporting models into other software to get better quality rendering. And at the price of the plugin you've got to wonder why it hasn't happened.

I haven't identified a precursor or pattern I can link to the problem. You find one wall undone as you're working and then check around and find they're broken in several places. If I discover something specific about when or why, I will submit a Bug Report.

I also have wall problems. Joins undo, walls displace, and when altering a wall with an existing join they can pull the existing join instead of breaking and rejoining as they're supposed to and use to. The behaviour is not consistent or predictable, it's intermittent, and when it does occur it can vary from a few walls needing reconnection to complete havoc with walls ending up all over the place. The remove wall break tool's behaviour is also inconsistent with walls often remaining locked together after use and breaks remaining in place. This problem is not the result of a simple misuse of the Connected Wall mode, on or off it behaves as it should. I use all the wall tools as I have in previous versions and never encountered any such issues until 2010. Just noticed the original post's signature is for Vectorworks 2009, we may be talking about different problems.

Tried exporting a project from VWA 2010 to Cinema 4D R11 with the 2009 exchange plugin and a number of items displaced by varying amounts. After several attempts I ended up exporting the project back to VWA 2009 and then on to C4d which worked. For the moment I'd say it's broken.

Only manually, just add a few spaces in the leader or trailer fields to shift the text left of right.

The Property Line Tool uses the document's units setting to annotate segments but sites commonly need to be annotated to an alternate units setting. It would preferable if the O.I.P. offered the ability to change the Property Line Tool's unit setting independent of the document or have the ability to utilise the secondary dimension units value from the dual dimension dialogue.

Labels for the Framing Member Tool are positioned centrally over the beam obscuring the text. The ability to offset the text to either side and the ability to fill behind the text is needed to make labels legible.

The symbols have had their geometry set to layer plane, if that's what you mean. They work as expected when placed onto a design layer but after a sheet layer viewport has been rendered some, not all, return to displaying as screen plane objects regardless of the view. The only way to correct them after this happens is to edit the symbol but it's only a temporarily fix.

Is anyone finding that after you set 2D symbols to appear in the layer plane they're reappearing at some stage in the screen plane, even though they're still set to layer plane VAA+RW 2010 Mac OS 10.5.8

Not that I know of. In previous versions the Joist tool would place the label to one side. For this reason I'm still adding it to my workspace out of the legacy folder in 2010. It is however quite limited in comparison to the functionality of Framing Member tool.

Thanks for having a look. I experimented with the Create Roof command and it's behaving in the same manner as the Roof Face command, unlike Peter's. The Australian edition is yet to see SP1, so maybe they're already onto it if it's not an intentional change. I'll do a bug submit anyhow.

Prior to the unified view the bearing height of a roof face corresponded to the design layer it was on, now in 2010 they're defaulting to the drawing's Z origin zero regardless of the design layer's Z height. The new behaviour seems to contradict the purpose of the design layer's Z height, is this right or have I overlooked something? Floors still behave as expected taking zero to be relative to the design layer they're on.

Yes there is another way. Select a polygon or group of lines that enclose an area and then select the hatch command from the modify drop down menu, you can then set the base point and angle as part of the command.

Classes can have coloured attributes, and colours can be toggled on and off in viewports & when printing. If you're referring to the use of line colours to correspond with line weights in Autocad, then, being in Australia, have a look at the ozcad standards palette which has been set up for a similar purpose. Ozcad provides some good movies on their use. I don't use them myself, as suggested above the better option is probably to get accustomed to classing objects by their function within the building and using class attributes to manage line weights.

My comment was just intended to say I'm out of touch with the Autodesk world, nothing specific, simply that my final comparison between A'cad and V'works was potentially unfair in my first post. Where I worked (over 6 years ago) had not graced us with ADT or Revit, so consequently I have a blind spot. Honestly, I had assumed this thread was just about trying to help someone transitioning between the differences in plain vanilla 2D autocad drafting and 2D vectorworks drafting. Interesting facts about ADT aside, I just wanted the original poster to know that they CAN set the origin or base point for a hatch quite easily if required.

The last version of acad I used was 2004 and I've never looked back, so I'm not really comparing apples with apples.

I'm not sure what version brudgers is using but this is wrong from at least 2008. There are 2 ways to hatch objects. The first is to select a polygon or group of lines that enclose an area and choose the hatch tool, you then set the base point and angle as part of the command. The second method is to set the fill of an object in the attributes palette or in its class to a hatch pattern. Even if you use the second method, you can now retrospectively adjust the base point, scale, and angle in 2010 with the attributes mapping tool. If you're using 2010 the second method is probably the most flexible, however the first method does convert the hatch into a group, which can be entered for editing as lines. I'm also an autocad refugee. In general I've found the graphic tools in vectorworks to be more flexible and powerful than their counterparts in autocad, as a result they're a little more complex and take a little longer to get conversant and proficient with.

Not sure if you're asking for NNA to confirm the validity of the statement or if you just want to confirm that the statement is in the readme.txt, if it's the latter you can find the readme.txt file in Path: /Applications/Vectorworks 2010/ReleaseNotes on your HD.

Sorry for reviving this thread, but I just came across the following quote in the VW2010 installer read me and figured it should be here. "IN GENERAL, STARTING WITH VECTORWORKS 2009, THE MORE POWERFUL YOUR VIDEO CARD IS, THE BETTER YOUR VECTORWORKS EXPERIENCE WILL BE."

If you convert the 2D path object into a nurb while in the desired plane and before doing the extrude along a path the extrusion will be correctly orientated. It does seem like an additional step that could be built into the extrude along a path command however.

No need to worry Raymond, I deleted the post when I realised that the details of the scripts I posted were covered throughout the other posts.

Who cares? That's the engineer's problem.