2024 - UI Modernization

[EAlexander]

1 hour ago, E|FA said:

 

Feel free to vote on the related Wishlist item:

 

Done

[Kevin McAllister]

23 hours ago, EAlexander said:

To be fair - I use the NUMPAD for 99% of my navigation, but others in my studio rely on that drop down.  My students all have laptops, so they don't have a NUMPAD.

 

Curious about your NUMPAD. My keyboard has one on the right, and I've tried to use it for views in the past, but I try not to be constantly removing my hand from the mouse (I'm right handed). In the end I've found using the mouse more efficient since my hand is already on it.

 

Kevin

 

[EAlexander]

38 minutes ago, Kevin McAllister said:

 

Curious about your NUMPAD. My keyboard has one on the right, and I've tried to use it for views in the past, but I try not to be constantly removing my hand from the mouse (I'm right handed). In the end I've found using the mouse more efficient since my hand is already on it.

 

Kevin

 

I dunno - I guess taking my hand off the mouse doesn't bother me.  I use a Logi Vertical mouse and I guess I'd rather pull my hand and hit the 1 or 6 key to change views then mouse all the way to the top of the screen.  I think it comes down to personal preference and muscle memory.  Been doing so long I don't even think about it anymore and I can orbit around the whole object or scene in ortho views quickly.

[JustinVH]

I use a Bluetooth number pad and have it to the left of my keyboard. I am right handed but do all my view changes and number data entry on the Floating Data Tab with my left hand. I never take my right hand off the mouse and have reconfigured all my keyboard shortcuts that use more than just a single key to be left handed only.

[Kevin McAllister]

27 minutes ago, JustinVH said:

I use a Bluetooth number pad and have it to the left of my keyboard. I am right handed but do all my view changes and number data entry on the Floating Data Tab with my left hand. I never take my right hand off the mouse and have reconfigured all my keyboard shortcuts that use more than just a single key to be left handed only.

Love this. I've often wondered about getting a number pad I could use on the left. Thanks for sharing!

Kevin

 

[zoomer]

1 hour ago, Kevin McAllister said:

a number pad I could use on the left.

 

I also have a USB or Bluetooth NumPad for my small Apple BT keyboard

(As all beloved old Apple aluminium USB keyboards meanwhile died

after being cleaned up a bit too humid ...)

 

I read about using a NumPad on the left of the keyboard in the past

and found that's a cool idea but forgot about it.

After this post I tried it for the first time.

 

🙂

But that does not work for me.

I still had no chance to check if I could type numbers left handed.

It already starts when I accidentally try to left hand type text on

the NumPad and do some harm because it has also forward+backward

Delete keys ....

Edited January 12 by zoomer

[Stephan Moenninghoff]

On 1/10/2024 at 7:28 PM, EAlexander said:

I assume the snapping thing is a mac vs windows thing as both people suggesting it are on Mac and I'm on Windows. 

Did you mean the scaling?

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

I have been testing out 2024 for a week now on a MacBook Pro Laptop.  As I only use a subset of the program, the transition was easy enough.  Took a while to find the NURBS icons as the text is not there anymore.

I am pushing it a bit in 3D Rendering and Animation.  I have not done this for ten years, but things have not really changed in this area.  

I have come up with two bugs.  

1 - If for some reason I do a "select all" of my scene and have no "black space" or "screen space"to click into,  I can't deselect.  I have to shut my floor off in Classes to deselect all.

2 - Sometimes after I have been test rendering etc, and go to save movie, that menu is completely black.  Have to reboot the program to fix this.

[Tom W.]

42 minutes ago, VIRTUALENVIRONS said:

Took a while to find the NURBS icons as the text is not there anymore

 

Do you mean this:

 

Or perhaps this:

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

@Tom W.

Yes, thank you for that.  I thought there might be something like that, but decided it was time to memorize the Icons.

[EAlexander]

5 hours ago, Stephan Moenninghoff said:

Did you mean the scaling?

@Stephan Moenninghoff Hi!  No, I did mean snapping.  Two users have suggested unpinning snapping from the view bar and they have it returning to the lower right corner of the viewport window like previous versions.  I cannot replicate that - if I unpin, snapping menu simply goes away all together.  I wondered if that was because I was on windows and they are on Mac, but I realize that is an assumption.

[Stephan Moenninghoff]

5 hours ago, EAlexander said:

@Stephan Moenninghoff Hi!  No, I did mean snapping.  Two users have suggested unpinning snapping from the view bar and they have it returning to the lower right corner of the viewport window like previous versions.  I cannot replicate that - if I unpin, snapping menu simply goes away all together.  I wondered if that was because I was on windows and they are on Mac, but I realize that is an assumption.

Hmm, that's interesting. I just tried on Windows and I am seeing the snaps. 

 

Are you able to file a bug for this? 

[EAlexander]

On 1/15/2024 at 6:11 PM, Stephan Moenninghoff said:

Hmm, that's interesting. I just tried on Windows and I am seeing the snaps. 

 

Are you able to file a bug for this? 

Done.

[Payne Chang]

Hi @EAlexander,

Vectorworks 2024 hides the snapping section in the status bar when there is no document open. After opening at least one document, you should see the snapping section. Please let me know if this is not the case on your computer. Thank you!

[EAlexander]

5 minutes ago, Payne Chang said:

Hi @EAlexander,

Vectorworks 2024 hides the snapping section in the status bar when there is no document open. After opening at least one document, you should see the snapping section. Please let me know if this is not the case on your computer. Thank you!

@Payne Chang Haha - I feel so dumb.  Yes, thank you Payne - that totally resolves it.  Never occurred to me that it would behave that way, but you are correct.  Thank you!

Edited January 19 by EAlexander

[Kevin McAllister]

Does anyone know why the "Look at Working Plane" button was removed from the Mode Bar in VW2024? I think the only way to do this now is using the menu command.

 

"Align Working Plane with Current View" is still there. Not something I can remember ever using.

 

Kevin

[Jesse Cogswell]

The Look At Working Plane button is still there, but it's in one of the drop downs, the view one, maybe?  Not sitting at my computer at the moment.  It's just an added click like the Organization menu.

[Kevin McAllister]

42 minutes ago, Jesse Cogswell said:

The Look At Working Plane button is still there, but it's in one of the drop downs, the view one, maybe?  Not sitting at my computer at the moment.  It's just an added click like the Organization menu.

 

Thanks for the tip.

 

Kevin

 

[Kevin McAllister]

Ok. so here's the thing..... interfaces need to be consistent to be efficient. Here's three different versions of the same thing (mode bar dropdown, right-click menu and the smart options display).

 

Also, I really want to choose which views appear in the various view menus, rather than just a view menu block.

 

Kevin

 

[Tom W.]

It was requested elsewhere that we should be given the option of adding the 'Look at Working Plane' button back onto the View Bar should we want to. I would like to have it there. There's plenty of space for it (in my set-up).

[line-weight]

On 1/20/2024 at 6:11 PM, Kevin McAllister said:

Ok. so here's the thing..... interfaces need to be consistent to be efficient.

Yes!

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

What about just an option to make it automatic  and skip the button completely?

 

 

[GatRed]

I was wondering :

with this new UI in 2024, the macOS full screen is more useful.

But the main menu bar - the one of the OS with the black background, not the one of the app-  disappears unless you move the cursor on the top where as there is space as the space occupied by the menu bar remains black when the cursor is not on the top of the screen.

 

I was wondering if it could always be displayed ?

(I’m using a 14" macbook pro M2).

 

Edit : It is a macOS option. I needed just to select “always display menu bar” in the macOS system settings app.

@Stephan Moenninghoff

 

Edited February 15 by GatRed

[Stephan Moenninghoff]

5 hours ago, GatRed said:

I was wondering if it could always be displayed ?

(I’m using a 14" macbook pro M2).

 

Edit : It is a macOS option. I needed just to select “always display menu bar” in the macOS system settings app.

I don't think we're doing anything here. It's entirely a macOS system thing. 

[Kevin McAllister]

6 hours ago, GatRed said:

I was wondering if it could always be displayed ?

(I’m using a 14" macbook pro M2).

 

It's no problem to fix this. As Stephan says its a Mac OS thing. Go to the Window menu in Vectorworks and uncheck "Use Full Screen". Your Vectorworks window may shrink. If it does just resize it to fit the full screen. The menus will also disappear if you click the green "Enter Full Screen" button at the top left hand corner of your Vectorworks window.

 

Kevin