Viewport Crop

[Andrew Davies]

Could the process of cropping a viewport be simplified ?

At the moment, the viewport crop object is only visible if the relevant class is visible, both document wide and within the viewport.

Don't see why this is the case. Why does the crop object need a class assigning at all - the viewport itself has a class anyway.

[Ray Libby]

A good wish.

In the meantime, always assign your viewport crop object the none class.

[brudgers]

I give mine a zero thickness to keep them from displaying in the viewport.

When I want to select it, I just use a window.

[Ray Libby]

This is about class visibility, being able to select. If the crop object is in a class that is not visible, you are unable to select or modify by any means.

[brudgers]

Right, but if you don't want it to be visible, you can control it "by object" rather than "by class."

Because there is only one crop object per viewport, "by class" doesn't make a lot of sense (to me).

If it's in a class that always visible, then all you have to do is select it with a window...and in the case of a veiwport crop, figuring out where to draw the window is really really easy.

[Jonathan Pickup]

I wish the crop object was always assigned to the None class, with a tick box on the Object Info palette to hide or show the crop

[brudgers]

I wish the crop object was always assigned to the None class, with a tick box on the Object Info palette to hide or show the crop

You would still be in the position of having to select it.

The logical place to control the display of the crop would be the OIP for the VP. Then you could turn it on and off from the sheet or design layer.

And for what its worth, I'm completely against hardcoding anything into a class, let alone hardcoding something else to a class.

But as I see it, the OP's issue is more one of workflow than Vectorworks features.

Edited April 25, 2009 by brudgers

[Ray Libby]

I agree, crop objects should automatically be assigned the none class.

[brudgers]

Why?

How would that make the program more flexible?

[Ray Libby]

There's nothing to be gained in classing a viewport crop object. Being able to assign classes to a crop object only leads to problems.

[islandmon]

Sometimes I use the Crop as a Frame and sometimes it is just invisible lines.. why not ?

As far as I'm concerned the Crop is perfect the way it is ... if it ain't broke ...

[Dieter @ DWorks]

I agree, crop objects should automatically be assigned the none class.

Absolutely not!

I have viewports that hasn't turned on the none class, because I only want to show the walls above.

My solution is: Just make a seperate class for viewport crops and annotations. And if you make two classes for it, you can show/hide annotations and crops seperately.

But please don't use any predefined classes! I really hate them. We should always be able to choose them.

[VincentCuclair]

Why not just have a check box in the OIP with Show/Hide Viewport Crop Object and while were at it, it would be good if we could just change the Viewport Crop size/shape with its handles and then when you're happy, have another check box in the OIP with Lock Viewport Crop......this would save a lot of (double) clicking and opening dialog windows.

[Ray Libby]

islandmon, how do classes help with this?

[Jonathan Pickup]

Sometimes I use the Crop as a Frame and sometimes it is just invisible lines.. why not ?

As far as I'm concerned the Crop is perfect the way it is ... if it ain't broke ...

It works well for me too, but many people accidently assign the crop to a class, then turn that class off. then they can't find the crop object. Of course, if they assigned the crop object to the correct class, they wouldn't have this problem.

[brudgers]

It works well for me too, but many people accidently assign the crop to a class, then turn that class off. then they can't find the crop object. Of course, if they assigned the crop object to the correct class, they wouldn't have this problem.

Well poorly trained users always have problems. Making the crop default to the none class won't fix that.

[DBLand]

1. You can turn off annotations separately to crop outline if you assign all annotations to a class from within the edit annotations window. Then select the VP (which must be on a different class) and turn off your annotation class on the VP OIP.

[grant_PD]

hmmmm... seems a discussion curiously close to my wishlist post as well.

I don't think anyone is claiming to be poorly trained, or claiming that they can't assign a class to a crop object. I doubt that it's possible for any object to exist without a class (hence...the NONE class).

I think what people are really talking about is the inconsistency of the program structure. NNA has developed a dimension class that can be set to always default to a particular class. They have shown that they can do it, that they can make it controllable. I imagine their original logic was something like:

when is a dimension not a dimension? Never. So this particular object should always default to it's particular class.

Now, following that logic, when is a crop object not a crop object? When is a viewport not a viewport?

[AndiACD]

Grant, i love your train of thought.

Perhaps you could start a training course for a specific group of people(who shall remain unnamed for now) . . . .

[Pat Stanford]

The dimension class is vestigial from the Minicad days. Then all dimensions HAD to be in the dimension class. That limitation was removed around VW8 (?).

You now have the option of forcing dimensions to use Dimension or any other class of your choosing.

If you really want the option to put your viewports in a class it should only be about a three line (alright, probably 30) PIO.

Pseudo code below:

DoMenuTextByName(CreateViewport);

SetClass(LNewObject,'ViewportClass');

Then just edit your workspace to hide the regular Viewport command and add your version.

[Miguel Barrera]

Brudgers,

Rather than using a window to select the zero thickness crop object, it may be easier to just select all (Ctrl+A) since there can only be one object.