Classes in symbols

[Andrew Davies]

Hello -

Am hoping someone can help.

I use the "Show Others" & "Active Only" options a lot in the class options drop down so that I can happily move objects around knowing I am not screwing anything else up in my drawing.

However, if a symbol is created on one class (ie. chair) but is then assigned a different class (ie. furniture) this doesn't work. It gets more complicated if a symbol has two or more different class assignments within its definition.

Is there a workaround, or is it just a case of only assigning one class to all objects within symbols and inserting them onto the same class ??

Many thanks,

Andrew

[Ray Libby]

You are correct, the only way to have the symbols contents visible is by having the class of the objects inside the container visible. If you don't want to use this feature, put the symbol's contents in the none class and make sure it's always turned on.

[gmm18]

To get what you are asking you would need a way for the objects within the symbol to be set to "Use Symbol Class," kind of similar to the way wall styles work, where you

can set their attributes to "Use Class Attributes."

Doesn't exist yet...but I think it would be a great feature.

The reason this would be better than the method Ray suggests is that then the graphic attributes of the objects within the symbol could still be controlled by class settings. If we make everything in symbols in the None class, then we lose that ability.

One example might be you have a sink symbol, and you have one sink that is going to be removed, so you assign it to the "demolition" class, the lines inside that sink symbol take on the graphic attributes of that class,

and you have another sink that is new, so you put another instance of that same symbol and put in the "plumbing" class, that one takes on the graphic attributes of that class.

I am sure there are problems with this, situations where it could be a nightmare, but perhaps these could be avoided if this was simply an option that could be turned off.

[Andrew Davies]

Thanks for the help chaps. Much appreciated.

Glad I'm not just missing something. Seems I won't really be able to use "Show others" & "Active Only" quite as much as I would like.

Best wishes,

Andrew

[Andrew Davies]

Sorry to bring this back up, but I am really struggling with the way Vectorworks handles classes.

It seems to me as if the Active only etc. class options are more or less redundant - given that most symbols I create / use have objects assigned to two or three classes inside them.

Bring on the "Use symbol class" option as purported by gmm18 !

[Jonathan Pickup]

the class options for active only, grey others and so on are redundant for me, and maybe for you as well. this doesn't make them redundant for everyone.