Class name already being used for another object - why?

[Mike_M]

Hopefully a quick/easy question here but something that has been bothering me for awhile. I'll often use the slab tool over an imported reference images. Once the slab exists, I can't see my image anymore. I put the slab into a class and turn it off/grey it out. Ideally I'd like this class name to be "Slab" but I cannot do so. The error message I get reads, "That name is already being used by another object. Please us a a different name." Typically I just name the class something else and it's no big deal. I've always been curious though, why does an "object name" clash with the name of a Class?

[Jesse Cogswell]

Everything in Vectorworks except Layers share a common name pool.  Named objects (objects named with the Name field at the bottom of the OIP), symbols, classes, Resource Manager folders, plug-in objects, images, textures, literally everything except Layers.  This is deeply hard-coded into Vectorworks and likely won't be changed unless they rewrite Vectorworks from the ground up.

 

I personally have worked out ways to get around this, I label my classes as plural of the objects that will be in them (in your case, my class would be named "Slabs"), and add titles at the end of Resource Manager entities (all of my symbols have "Symbol" at the end of the name, all of my textures have "Texture" at the end of the name, etc).

[Jonathan Pickup]

It has been this way for a long time, as long as I can remember. I tend to have a more complex class naming system that includes the slab and the components of the slab. I would use:
Structural-Slab Main

Structural-Slab-Flooring

Structural-Slab-Joists

Structural-Slab-Bearers

etc

This allows me to turn off the entire slab (Structural-Slab Main) or turn off part of the slab (Structural-Slab-Joists)