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"Line Thickness" preference location


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Hi,

I am wondering where the "Prefereed Line Thicknesses" information is located within the application folder. I have duplicated my preferences to a number of other co-workers, and this particular data did not transfer (as I assumed it would.)

Is this an xml. file or something which I can transfer amongst a number of employees, or will I have to go into everyone's computer and manually adjust it?

thanks,

Matt

(Now on VW 2010, not VW12.5)

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Hi Matt, I don't know where this resides in the Application or User Folders, but there is a pretty easy way to set it on each machine. There is a (somewhat hidden) menu item: Tools/Options/Line Thickness. Open it and you will get a dialog which allows user defined line weights for up to 10 presets. See attachments. I know this isn;t a perfect solution, but hopefully it will suffice... P

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Is this an xml. file or something which I can transfer amongst a number of employees, or will I have to go into everyone's computer and manually adjust it?

It is probably a part of the preferences XML, but what you should do is to install a toggle command to each computer. See eg.

Zoom line thickness

There would be pre-made menu commands floating around, too, but learning to make & install one from supplied code is a good idea.

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Thanks Brudgers. You learn something new each day! Found the file no problem on a Mac in: HD/App's/VW's/Settings. The field is exactly as you say and is easily modifiable. I am curious though about what happens when this file is copied, as Matt desires. Of course it starts out the same in everyone's machine, but I assume all the various copies will end up differing as/when each user changes any other preference. In other words, this field is part of a larger pref file and cannot be isolated from it. Therefore, I wonder what happens when one (or more) user(s) need their prefs reset for whatever reason. Everybody will be forced to use the exact same settings?? Mainly curious as to what the typical multi-user office does....

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Thanks so much - this is exactly what I needed to know,

I have already pointed everyone's "Vectorworks Preferences.xml" file on the network, and so it won't take me much time to manually edit them. At least this way I don't have to log in, open Vectorworks, and change it thru the gui.

Matt

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I think you are doing it the right way, but just to clarify for others.

You can either make everyone's preference file available on the network or point an alias/shortcut to a preference file that is sitting on a server somewhere, but you still need to have a separate preferences file for each user.

If you only have one file, the last person to quit VW will have their preferences saved to the file and everyone will get that the next time they start up. This WILL be very confusing and annoying.

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Thats certainly what I hope :)

I have simply pointed everyone's VW prefences folder to their own folder on the network, and off of their machine. All the users preferences are now subfolders within a "Vectorworks Users Preferences" folder. This way everything is in one location and not scattered about.

Frankly, the remote preference location ability was one of the big reasons why we've finally upgraded from 12.5.

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A good question, Mr. Pallet!

The overall preferences dictate the workflow, too. The Dictator may have been in any part of that whilst the user may be in another. So, the poor user may need to change the workspace and the active tool set every morning; move the pallets and what have you.

Not a good idea, this is. Can't be done on the fly.

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Sometimes it is not possible to solve a personnel management problem with technology, or at least not with simple technology.

If users are changing preferences and drawing in a way you don't like, it is a management problem, not a VW problem. Create a standard so they know what to do and provide rewards/punishments for doing/not doing.

I don't know if you can write protect the preferences or not and I am not going to try it.

VW is designed to store data about the users operating environment in the preferences, if you take that ability away, you limit the capabilities of the program.

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Don't know about preferences but Matt was talking about preferred line thicknesses, is this a part of preferences? In this case it should be possible to make it project related (possibly with local user override settings to keep a certain flexibility). Especially now that NNA has chosen the multi-file workgroup setup.

I think it is rather strange if not everyone in the same project uses the same line thicknesses?! If not this could mean that 1 drawing output may look different coming from each individual user (without the user even being aware of this)?

Edited by Vincent C
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Oh dear. I think I now realise what he is talking about? Didn't before?

In the file VectorWorks Preferences.xml, there is this section


2
5
7
10
14
20
28
39
55
79
0

which seems to carry the, well, Preferred Line Thicknesses in the famous units of mils. A red face day for me, once again.

Anyway, since it is a part of the entire global preference settings, it should have been transferred. Maybe there was a non-restarting issue?

As we all know A mil (mile in English) is a unit of length, usually used to measure geographic distance, fairly common in Norway and Sweden. Today, it measures by definition 10 kilometres, but earlier in history it had different values.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian/Swedish_mil

In Finland, it is called ?peninkulma?, or actually ?peninkuuluma?, meaning the distance a dog's bark (Peni is a generic dog's name) can be heard. Closely related to ?poronkusema?, which is the distance a sleigh-pulling reindeer ("poro") runs between urinations; the Sami people measure distances with this unit.

A ?peninkulma? is the smallest distance to the closest neighbour a True Finnsman can tolerate; any closer, and he'll fetch his axe and take care of the intruder.

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Don't know about preferences but Matt was talking about preferred line thicknesses, is this a part of preferences? In this case it should be possible to make it project related (possibly with local user override settings to keep a certain flexibility). Especially now that NNA has chosen the multi-file workgroup setup.

I think it is rather strange if not everyone in the same project uses the same line thicknesses?! If not this could mean that 1 drawing output may look different coming from each individual user (without the user even being aware of this)?

It's not quite that bad.

Objects retain their "thickness" (aka line weight) regardless of the user preferences stored in the XML file.

The preference setting just determines which lineweights are available for default selection.

Otherwise the user has to select "set thickness" from the listbox and assign the weight manually.

All line weights are always available, but only certain ones are convenient.

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Aha...sounds logical......should have been??.....

This is how it (I believe) works:

When someone launches VW, the settings are read into memory. If they're changed, only in memory. When one quits VW, the settings are rewritten. If the friendly Network Admin has meanwhile copied a new settings-file into one's computer, that will be overwritten. Including the thickness of the weightless lines.

with an axe? (not a snow mobile??) :)

While Finland is the only country in the world which gets regular snow-cover to its entire area, it is not covered with snow all the year. Besides, the tradition precedes snow-mobiles (except skis and reindeer-sleighs) by a few thousand years.

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