Upgrading to VW12.5

[D Wood]

I am about to upgrade to VW Designer 12.5.1 from v11.5.

What should I do before inserting the first disk, apart from running my usual Retrospect backup to an external drive, and Repairing Permissions?

Once installed, is it possible to finish present projects using v11.5, or do all job files automatically open in v12.5?

The workspace appears different - what changes should I expect?

I now have several versions of VW on my Mac (8, 10, 11) - is there any point in keeping them, or is it possible to open old files in the version that created them?

[Jonathan Pickup]

start new projects in VectorWorks 12,

finish off old projects in VectorWorks 11

convert template files from 11 to 12

to make sure old jobs open in 11, open VectorWorks 11 first, then go to File > Open... and open the jobs there. (this works the same for all old versions of VectorWorks)

VectorWorks 12 has some new ways of working. My Architect Tutorial manual covers nearly all the concepts that you need, so working through it would help you to see the new ways of working.

Or you may want to consider employing someone to help you out make the transition...

[John P]

Jonathan,

Is there a particular reason you suggest finishing the old projects in version 11? We are also about to go from 11.5 to 12.5 but some existing projects are very large and will continue for a year or two.

Do you know of any problems if we do a batch convert on the whole project?

Any advice appreciated!

John

[gerryp]

Hi Jonathan,

My office mas just recently upgraded to WV12.5.1 network license and we have encountered a couple of problems. The major one is the IP Resource file. Everytime we use functions such as Site planning Space planning Etc. or anything that has a window pop up, It tell us that the IP Resource file not found. Do you have a quick fix for this?

[John P]

gerryp,

We saw this on one machine here. The fix for us was to delete the IP resources.rsrc file from ~/Library/Application Support/ Vectorworks/12/Plugins/

...as discussed in thread :

http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Number=76914

Hope that helps

[Guest]

I don't necessarily agree with finishing old projects in the version it was started in. Many projects go on for years and years and end up being introduced back into the cycle years from now.

Unless you have a super good reason for staying with the older version, such as upgrading would cause you to do more work (which is not very likely), then use the new version.

[D Wood]

Just to report back - the upgrade went perfectly smoothly, to the point where I sat there at the end and thought "is that all there is to it?". I think my surprise is from all those years of upgrading programs (not just VectorWorks) where you needed to set aside at least a day to sort out the chaos that seemed to inevitably follow.

I like the new workspace layout, and I especially like the vastly improved printing - round pen and crisper lines. I know that it should have been like that before, but it's good to have it now.

The only slight problem I have had is that when I open an existing file in VW12, some text in my title block that I reuse on each job tends to appear in Geneva font instead of Tekton Pro, but it only takes a couple of keystrokes to correct that.

I still wish that VW would zoom to the point where I click and not to the centre (that is so annoying on a long line!), and I would like the Attributes palette to be bigger, but v13 can't be far away ................