Thomas Karavis Posted May 20, 2004 Share Posted May 20, 2004 Please make Vectorworks Unicode Compliant! We are an office with 25(!) Vectorworks users (on the Mac) and we do a lot of work in Greece. Being non unicode compliant we cannot collaborate with people using non Latin fonts such as Greek. I would hate to stop using Vectorworks! Pleeease! Quote Link to comment
jan15 Posted May 20, 2004 Share Posted May 20, 2004 Thomas: just for my own curiosity, and since noone else seems interested in this issue, what happens when you open a file that uses a Greek unicode font? Are the texts blank? Or do some other characters display in place of the Greek letters? Or is a different font substituted? (I'm wondering if there might be some way to create a workaround for the problem you described.) Quote Link to comment
Thomas Karavis Posted May 21, 2004 Author Share Posted May 21, 2004 quote: Originally posted by jan15: Thomas: just for my own curiosity, and since noone else seems interested in this issue, what happens when you open a file that uses a Greek unicode font? Are the texts blank? Or do some other characters display in place of the Greek letters? Or is a different font substituted? (I'm wondering if there might be some way to create a workaround for the problem you described.) Quote Link to comment
Thomas Karavis Posted May 21, 2004 Author Share Posted May 21, 2004 Jan15, when we import a DWG into Mac Vectorworks, any Greek fonts used in the drawing, translate to unreadable garbage on a character for character basis. That is except numerals. For instance a single greek letter might translate to something like U/__U/, if my memory serves me right. Quote Link to comment
jan15 Posted May 22, 2004 Share Posted May 22, 2004 Thomas: What software are your correspondents using, that does support unicode? I just tried getting unicode or even extended (beyond 256) non-unicode characters into AutoCad 2004, with no success. In VectorWorks, the Greek letters displayed while I was typing them, and changed to other characters when I closed the text box. But in AutoCad, they didn't even display while being typed. Also: is your relationship with your collaborators such that you could ask them to use a particular font? I ask because I see that there's enough space in a 256 character font file to get both Latin and Greek alphabets, in upper and lower case. You could create a custom font file that would be able to display both English and Greek in any CAD program. αβγδεζη (apparently this forum supports unicode) Quote Link to comment
Hans-Olav Posted May 22, 2004 Share Posted May 22, 2004 quote: Originally posted by Thomas Karavis: Please make Vectorworks Unicode Compliant!. I would hate to stop using Vectorworks! Pleeease! Me too. We are having the same problems with Icelandic characters. Like ????. Unicode support would be great. Hans-Olav Andersen Quote Link to comment
Jonathan Pool Posted January 23, 2005 Share Posted January 23, 2005 I don't know about AutoCAD, but Unicode has become an undisputed necessity, by world user consensus. All other software is growing to depend on the assumption that Unicode is there. Making users create special fonts will soon doom Vectorworks to obsolete status. A temporary workaround is to create the wanted text in another application and paste it into a VW drawing as a picture, but don't expect users to tolerate the need for that workaround long. It's true that you can include Unicode characters in text objects while editing, and even select and copy them, but the moment the object's edit mode is exited VW converts each Unicode character to its 16-bit representation as if it were 2 8-bit characters. And the copied text, if pasted back into the drawing as a picture, contains unusable renditions of the Unicode characters (such as 20% of the proper size). So, if Nemetschek decides not to adopt Unicode soon, let me know and I'll short the company's stock. Quote Link to comment
Yovav Posted January 23, 2005 Share Posted January 23, 2005 Hello Thomas and others I'll be the last one to stop VW from going into Unicode, but I suspect that the problem you are describing is not necessarily Unicode related. I'm using VW in Israel and using, of course, a lot of Hebrew. Since Hebrew is a "complex" language for computers apps, some apps doesn't support it through the operating system mechanism, and prefer to create a special "in-application" support for the Hebrew text. Autocad supports Hebrew with several 3rd party lisps that uses text bye their own rules, and makes importing text, to other apps like VW, a nightmare. I think you should check if Greek text is not being handled by Autocad in the same lousy way. If it does, I think the best way to solve that issue is to create a script that switch characters tables, and convert the text between the 2 platforms. And something to finish with: don?t get me wrong ? I think NNA SHOULD support Unicode! And even before implementing this, they should expand the capability of the existing DWG/DXF import and export commands, so they can let the user create "switch characters tables". If I remember correctly such tools are part of the OpenDWG libraries that VW uses as a translation engine, it is just not implemented in VW Quote Link to comment
Jonathan Pool Posted January 23, 2005 Share Posted January 23, 2005 You are using VW and including Hebrew text in your drawings? If so, how? Quote Link to comment
Yovav Posted January 24, 2005 Share Posted January 24, 2005 Hello Jonathan Yes I'm using hebrew with VW, and I do it using the standart Windows Hebrew fonts. Just switching to Hebrew, using the Windows language bar, and typing, using the VW type tool. As explained before import and export are much more difficult. Quote Link to comment
Jonathan Pool Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 Does a Hebrew font in Windows occupy the same character space as another 8-bit font? If so, then I understand. Quote Link to comment
Yovav Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 As far as I know the answear is YES. Quote Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.