Easier access to toggling view settings

[Christiaan]

It would be good if there was a quick and easy way (maybe a pulldown menu in the mode bar?) for toggling all the different view settings:

Zoom line thickness, Show other objects while in groups, Black background, Viewport crop, etc.

Or, at the very least, that these settings were included by default in the View menu bar item.

[Ray Libby]

This will toggle Zoom Line Thickness. I keep it in the View menu with a keyboard shortcut. There is a list of preference numbers in the vectorscript reference, just replace the number 9 in the script to one of your choosing.

SetPref(9, NOT GetPref(9));

Layer(GetLName(ActLayer));

[Christiaan]

Thanks Ray, I use this and others too. What I'm asking for, though, is for it to be built in by default (and maybe to have some other interface besides the menu bar items).

Plugins and addons are great for experienced individuals and small offices but my wish has medium/large offices, CAD management and inexperienced users in mind.

[mike m oz]

Vectorbits have two free tools for toggling all of the VW and document Preferences. They work like pulldown menus - a check mark shows which are on. To turn one on all you do is select it: http://www.vectorbits.com/

Toggle VW Prefs = VectorWorks Preferences

Toggle DOC Prefs = Document Preferences

[Christiaan]

Vectorbits have two free tools for toggling all of the VW and document Preferences.

Yeah but that's even worse than simply having the toggles in the View menu bar, because you're presented with even more information. The point of my wish is to make the different view toggles that so many people seem to want to use easily accessible and executable (two clicks), and preferably without having to scan lots of other commands looking for them.

[Petri]

Plugins and addons are great for experienced individuals and small offices but my wish has medium/large offices, CAD management and inexperienced users in mind.

I would imagine that a large firm with any CAD-management worth its salt has a customised system anyway - with plug-ins having relevant defaults etc - so any 3rd party plug-ins could very easily be included.

When I was working as a peripatetic CAD-manager, I had custom set-ups for every firm.

[Christiaan]

Well, put it this way, toggling different view settings is probably the number one modification to people's Workspaces that I make (which could be reason in itself for consideration of including these commands by default). The problem in our office is that we have a few people with laptops who are in and out of the office and don't work full time, so management in that regard is quite difficult.

Also, part of my request is that these toggle commands are actually separated out from the View menu and given their own special spot somewhere (such as the mode bar or something). The reason for this is to make it more intuitive for inexperienced users.

Granted this isn't my most solid wish.

[Petri]

Also, part of my request is that these toggle commands are actually separated out from the View menu and given their own special spot somewhere (such as the mode bar or something).

This is starting to make sense. A button/popup next to Saved Views?

[Christiaan]

Oh yeah, next to Saved Views, of course!

[mike m oz]

Christiaan. You can also customise your workspace:

1. Add a new Menu item named View Settings.

2. Add in the Preferences you want like:

- Black and White Preference

- Zoom Line Preference

- etc.

[Christiaan]

Yeah, thanks Mike, I have this on my own machine (and others), but my comments above still stand.

[Christiaan]

As Katie mentioned on another thread, all these things could be included as contextual menu items (right-click). I think that would be the best place for them, maybe under a "Toggle" sub-menu item (including, by the way, one for toggling Guides on and off).

[Christiaan]

Is there any easy way of doing this now? i.e. creating a contextual menu item that look like this, under a "Toggle Views" sub-menu:

Toggle Views

Guides

Zoom line thickness

Viewport crop

Black background

Show other objects while in Group

[Guest]

Are you asking how to add these to a contextual menu using the workspace editor?

[Christiaan]

Yeah, except how to add this to a sub-menu of the contextual menu. I meant the above to look something like this:

Toggle Views

>Guides

>Zoom line thickness

>Viewport crop

>Black background

>Show other objects while in Group

[Guest]

Grab "new menu" from the upper left corner and drag it to the Document or Object context over in the right pane.

Rename "new menu" to whatever you want.

Drag the other menus so the arrow is indented (not aligned) under the new menu name.

Some of the items you've listed above cannot be added as they are settings of a larger menu item (Zoom Line Thickness, Black background, etc.)

Most of these can be handled as scripts. You could create the script as a menu, then add the menu to the Workspace editor using the steps outlined above.

[Christiaan]

Cool, all done. I reckon this should be folded into the next update of VectorWorks by default. This is definitely the best way to deal with view toggles.

[Christiaan]

It would be good if there was a quick and easy way (maybe a pulldown menu in the mode bar?) for toggling all the different view settings

Enter v2011. One-click toggle settings available on right hand end of mode bar.