Two NONE classes

[PeterT]

I seem to have found an obscure bug in the Minicad to VectorWorks translation process exemplified as follows:

In MiniCad 7.0.3, open a new file. In the resources palette, create a new command palette called SOME. Now, open the classes dialog, select the NONE class and edit the name of the class to SOME.(having another object such as a palette with the same name as the renamed NONE class seems to trigger the problem). Now save this file, all appears well in MiniCad.

If you now open this same file in VectorWorks,

you will notice that your renamed class is now called SOME-0 (VectorWorks will not allow the same name for a classs and a palette and appends the class name with a -0). The wierd thing is that if you now open the classes dialog and edit the name of the class SOME-0 back to NONE and close the dialog, you will now have two NONE classes in your drawing. Yet if you open the classes dialog, it shows only one NONE class, therefore you cannot get rid of this extra none class.

Since MiniCad allows you to rename the NONE class, and doesn't seem to notice if the name is already taken by another object, the VectorWorks translator should have some way of dealing with this better than it does.

Unfortunatly, as obscure as this bug is, my office renamed the none class years ago to a name occupied by one of our command palettes and saved these files as stationary( we didn't know any better). This was never a problem in MiniCad, but now that we use VectorWorks, every file we have has this double class or -0 thing happening, quite irritating.

Hope this helps anyone else who is considering changing the name of the NONE class.

[Guest]

Thanks for the info. You are correct regarding the changing of the "none" class name. There are two classes that you should never rename and they are the "none" class and the "dimensions" class. By changing them one tends to invite the opening of Pandora's Box. The name "none" might be confusing to some, but just to clarify the "none" class is a class. Everything created in MiniCad/VectorWorks is placed into the active class. The "none" class is simply a generic default class so that an object has a class to be placed into. The name "none" simply means that it is not assigned to a specific class.

Again, thanks for posting the information for other users to see.

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Brian O

Nemetschek North America

Technical Support Specialist