Running two copies of VW

[HP Sauce]

If, like me, you're tired of waiting for that rendering to finish before you can do anything else in VW, you may wish to run a second copy of the app. To do so in OSX, simply open Terminal and type:

open -n

Then drag the application you wish to run another copy of into the Terminal window. Done. You can create a script or workflow of this Terminal command for faster usage later.

[Kool Aid]

Even easier: make a duplicate of the application?

Can be in the main VW folder.

[Pat Stanford]

In either of these cases, be careful. Both instances are going to use the same preferences and workspace files.

Changes you make in the working copy can effect the outcome of the renders in the render version.

This could also result in corrupted preferences, workspaces and/or other files.

I would backup my Application Support/Vectorworks/2010 folder before I tried either of the above options.

[Kool Aid]

Aren't the preference files changed only when one quits VW?

[Pat Stanford]

I don't know. It seems like that based on having to reset prefs after a crash.

I was just trying to point out that there may be unexpected consequences of running two instances of a given VW release at the same time.

I currently have two versions of VW2010 running, but there is only a single preferences file on my machine.