Minimize the clicks needed any ideas?

[B.Balemi]

Hi all.

Here are a couple of things I have said to myself "wouldnt it be faster if ???".

Have any of you got speed ideas? As i believe there are lots of areas of 2d drafting that Vw can still be sped up a little.

1- When detailing I have many clasess for detail line weights.

Rather than going to OIP and assigning a class a keyboard shortcut to assign to the next class in the list.

Ctrl +Alt+Arrow or similar,so can go up and down.

As result with our cleverly labelled classes with hyphens this will work well.

This would be a speed enhancement I think.

I guess a script could be worked as a menu item .

2- Floor objects able to be edited by 2d edit like roof tool and with textures able to be applied to the side.

As it is at moment you go inside to its 2d parent object with a screen blink,a click click or 2 and exit click and another screen blink. All a bit slow, even with a turbo charged computer.

Also area feed back on OIP.

3 - A ceiling tool like the floor tool but upside down. No side texture needed. 2d editable tho.

4 - When you touch a rectangle with the 2d edit tool marquee and it prompts you a dialogue asking if you want to convert to a polygon and if you say yes pleae it does it all. Rather than a few other steps you have to go through.

Also in the case of arc smoothing menu tool which it doesnt do if a rectangle .

Perhaps there a few things I am already missing

Regard Brendan

Edited October 6, 2008 by B.Balemi

[mike m oz]

Brendan, These answers assume you are using the Australian/New Zealand version of Architect 2008.

1. CLASSES

- Ctrl + Left and Right arrows scrolls you up and down through the Class list.

- It is probably quicker to use the Navigation Palette to make the required Class active.

2. FLOOR OBJECTS

- Can be created from walls using the Create Floors from Walls command.

- Can be edited using Clip Surface and Add Surface. Double clicking allows you to edit the source 2D shape directly.

- VW 2009 Floor Objects can have different textures for each of the top, bottom and side surfaces.

- If you double click on a Floor Object and select the source 2D shape you will be able to read its area off on the OIP.

- The areas of Floor Objects can be reported.

3. CEILING OBJECT

- Simple extruded ceilings can be created from walls using the Create Ceiling from Walls comand (can also just be a surface if you use Convert to 3D Polygon).

- The Ceiling Grid tool can be used for tiled ceilings and can be used to model flush ceilings by setting the grid to very large parameters.

- Ceiling Grid objects can be edited using Clip Surface and Add Surface, and reshaped with the 2D Reshape tool.

4. RECTANGLES

- Can be converted to Floor Objects via the AEC menu.

- Can be converted to a Ceiling Grid object via the Objects from Polyline tool.

- Can be extruded directly to form a simple ceiling object.

- Can be converted to a 3D Polygon to form a ceiling surface.

FURTHER COMMENTS ON FLUSH CEILINGS AND APPLYING A TEXTURE ONLY TO THE UNDERSIDE SURFACE:

- If you do want to only have the texture applied to the underside of a flush ceiling then this can be done in VW 2009 by using a thin Floor Object for the ceiling. I agree that a dedicated ceiling object that worked this way would be better.

- You can convert an extrude to a Group and you will get 3D polygon surfaces that you can apply textures to individually.

[B.Balemi]

Yeah thanks Mike.

Your Presumption is right.

I did know about the classes but forgot. Similar to layers scrolling. Thanks for that. Gee you know alot about VW's seriously.

But in some instances your answer proves my point. they are like work arounds which I do often do.

These are all mutiple functions to do tho..

I am sort of asking for more intuative functions on Vectorwoks.

Stop having to go into parent objects unneccesarily if you can help it its all millions of nano secounds we are burning up.

Illustration:

If you save in new zealand $20-00 per week for 20 yrs you have over 40 k now. but of course no where to invest safely.

Thousands of clicks and screen refereshes would save you the same amount of money very quickly.

It all adds up.

Moral of the story for a time context ,if we watch our cents the dollars will look after themselves.

Cheers Brendan

Edited October 6, 2008 by B.Balemi