VW9 Impressions

[Donald Wardlaw]

Last night the Northern California User group took our first look at VW9. There were numerous improvements to cheer about. And cheer we did. There also were a few changes we did not like at all, and it could be that we simply missed something, being that we are all new to this version. Here are 3 things most of us did not appreciate.

1. There does not seem to be a trim commmand any more. Was there a good and necessary reason to make us change the way we work?

2. The extend to line command seemed to require dragging the cursor from one line to the other. Here I think we must not have seen how to operate the tool because if this were so it would be a terrible design decision. Often we want to extend lines to some point way off the screen and making each connection is much much slower in operation. Even with the interactive zoom and pan, which we all loved, this is not an efficient way to work. I think we missed some toggle and if anyone can enlighten that would be neat.

3. We could not find the leader line tool. The new text box thing makes autocad look elegant. It looks awful on the drawing even with all the options, it puts the leader line in the wrong places, and it requires us to go into this dialog to edit text, unless as we found we ungroup the thing. Can we take the leader line tool from VW8 files and put in on a VW9 pallette using workspace editor? Personally, I depend on the leader line tool and cannot imagine why it would be eliminated. I don't mind adding this new thing, some will surely like it. But I would hate to be required to use it. If I have to give up the leader line tool, which works great and has for a long time, I won't upgrade.

Thanks in advance for comments, corrections and suggestions,

Donald

[Geoff Briggs]

Hi,

I cant speak to number two but try the new split tool in place of the trim command. And yes the leader line is available in the workspace editor along with a whole bunch of plug ins required to make all the stuff in the Object Browser work.

Geoff Briggs

[Donald Wardlaw]

Geoff,

Thanks for feedback on the leader line tool. Guess I will upgrade after all. I will give the split tool a spin. What I look for in these tools is the ability to draw things exactly as I want with the smoothest motion, in the least time, and the minimum amount of mousing around to menus and tool pallettes. I've never gone for tools that "sort of" do everything. Other peoples idea of the "solutions" I need never fit closely to my particulars.

Best,

Donald

[rudjil]

Perhaps you have found it by now, but trim tool lives in the editing palette. Works like a charm. Rudd