label legend extravaganza

[Albrecht Design]

I've been using 2008 for 2 months now on a pc with Vista.

I drafted my light plot for my last show just fine.

And now. . .

I'm having serious label legend malfunctions on my current plot.

I'm using a house plot for a theatre. I attempted to copy it and paste it in place into my plot with all the scenery in it. When I moved a light, or copied and pasted, ALL of the label legend information dissapeares in the body of the plot. It is still visible in the object info listing.

My dear friend discovered it may be because whoever drafted the house plot put the theatre into some of the "forbidden" label classes. Deleting the label classes and objects and bringing them in fresh fixed the problem for him.

On my computer, however, it's not fixed.

In a new blank plot, I created a brand new label legend and inserted a light and assigned it the new label legend.

Instead of displaying as a light with channel, unit #, and color, it is the light with the words "channel, unit #, and color" with the layout box as though I were editing a label legend.

Any thoughts?

Also, when I opened up old plots, they looked fine. But if I moved a light, the label info disappears. If I insert a new light, it comes in with the label legend editing box.

Hmmm?

[MrTemplate]

hi albrecht;

man, i have seen other postings or emails or **something** about this of late. the 'new label legend displays the text, not the data' problem. i have not experienced it myself. knock on head, er, wood.

for your initial problem, have you tried to go "the other way"? open the house plot, the paste your existing plot into the house plot doc?

sorry that's all i got right now. if i can find that other thread/email i'll post.

shelley

[Albrecht Design]

Thanks, I hadn't tried that.

I managed to resolve everything eventually.

The bad news is I don't know exactly what caused the problem or exactly what fixed it. I tried so many things but I wasn't very systematic about it.

I uninstalled the program several times. However, it didn't appear in my "add/remove programs" list. So I had to just delete it and all short cuts. When I went to re-install the program, Vectorworks still knew my name, company name, and serial number. So I wondered if it really unistalled completely in the first place.

That didn't work.

So then I decided to be daring. I rolled back windows to the day before I opened the drawing that caused the problem. That didn't work either. I tried to open VectorWorks and it couldn't open.

I unistalled again, re-installed again. This time I deleted every version of the filed that caused the problem from my machine.

I didn't even want to test it so I wouldn't be disappointed again, so I went to bed.

The next day, I tried to show my friend what it was doing.

The label legends displayed correctly.

New lights displayed correctly.

Old plots displayed correctly.

I am happy it is working now. I just wish I knew more about the mystery that caused it all.

I wonder if I should send the "bad" file to tech support and see if it corrupts their installation too?

Anyway, thanks for the response.

[Albrecht Design]

Well, I spoke too soon.

The label legend gremlins are back.

It is affecting all of my files: present, past, new, and old.

Edited May 19, 2008 by Albrecht Design

[dramabear]

I have had the same problem but with elements of the label legend disappearing-for example the unit number disappearing. This however was only on a "new" drawing. Nothing was brought in from other drawings. Such a headache.