Landmark - Plant Tool

[Guest]

The improvements to 12.5 are great. The Plant Tool has improved again - the drop down box in the Mode Bar allowing Plant Selection quickly is very cool.

An improvement required - I think - Defined Plants that are 'stored' in the Mode Bar drop down list come from Plant Symbols.mcd in VW\Libraries\Defaults\Plants.

If a new Plant is defined in an active drawing we have to copy it back into Plant Symbols.mcd and save the changes for it to become available for future use. A work around is to have Plant Symbols.mcd open and create a new plant there, save the file and then it is available for not only the current drawing but for future use. This is cumbersome and time consuming.

What about an option when defining a new plant to be able to save it back into Plant Symbols.mcd as a choice?

[Jonathan Pickup]

having your library open to create the plants may seem like a slow way to work, but it?s the same if your and architect and you want to make repetitive units for your library. It?s important to get people used the idea of opening their library files and creating the resources in the correct location.

But what about the ability to export from the Resource Browser to your library file. That would solve all the issues wouldn?t it?

[Guest]

The best way to accomplish this is to create a template file with all of your custom symbols. This way, all the plants you've created will be available when using the plant tool without the need to constantly add items to the default content library file.

The repetative unit can now use symbols located in the current document - you are not forced to only use symbols in the default content library file.

[Guest]

Katie,

I can agree with what you are saying and too with Jonathon. This though is a Wish List Item.

My way of working is to have my active drawing open and in this case my Library File -Plant Symbols.mcd

Whenever I define a new Plant I think I will use again in the future (and that is most - if not all of them) - I define it in Plant Symbols.mcd - Save the file and it is available for future use then use the plant in my active drawing.

Jonathon says - have ability to export it from the Resource Browser which would work.I think this should be a Wish List item on its own anyway.

I say when the new Plant is created the software requires an abilty in the Set Default Plant Tools Options Dialogue prior to clicking OK to save it to Plant Symbols.mcd or for that matter any file.

Jonathon's Resource Browser way would work but one would have to do that straight away or remember to do it later.

If the option was to save it from the Set Default Plant Tools Options Dialogue the work flow would be simpler and I think more intuitive.

The drop down box in the Mode Bar is great and saves heaps of time. I name my plants AbGr - Abelia grandiflora or NaDoNa for Nandina domestica nana - so I can identify all of my plants from the abbreviation in the drop down box.

To give the software an ability to save from the Set Default Plant Tools Options Dialogue - surely it just makes sense to streamline the workflow and improve the software.

The Plant Tool has really improved since VW 11 and this innovation would add some magic.

[Jonathan Pickup]

Katie, some of my clients use 100?s of different plants on different projects, one has 1500 plants in the plant database. The plant folder is the way forward, but the ability to have new plants added to the files in the Plants folder. That?s why I thought that if you had the ability to export from the Resource Browser then we could send the new symbols to the appropriate folder...

[Taproot]

Piggybacking on the plant idea - I'd like to see the ability to write to library files rather than just reading from them via the Resource Browser. This would allow users to drag and drop customized objects from individual working files into the appropriate library files without needing to manually open each library file and then move the symbols.