Vectorworks is a powerful tool and in our 2D drafting workflow I find it much quicker to get things done than, say, AutoCAD.
However, the origins of Vectorworks as MiniCAD betray it, when it comes to mission-critical construction drafting. It's very easy to manipulate any aspect of a drawing with a mouse-click or a keystroke, which means it's very easy to f**k things up too.
One might argue "what does it matter", when you have backups at both file level and drive level - if somebody messes up a drawing, you just retrieve the backup. Well, that's fine if the bungle is obvious, but of no use if the if the error goes unnoticed and the wrong data is issued.
I spend far too much of my time at work being the 'Red Adair' figure...being called in to our various workgroups to troubleshoot problems with Vectorworks files. These problems are always the same....file origins have been moved by accident, drawn objects have been moved by accident, objects are apparently 'missing', or our uniclass system has been polluted with rogue classes.
Vectorworks needs more robust foolproofing, and here's what I propose:
1. Remove shortcut to 'move origin'
Command-9 (on a Mac) should NOT be an default key shortcut to move a file's origin. WHY do you need to move the origin so often that it needs a shortcut? Moving an origin is a big decision and the way VW handles it (badly) means it can have major consequences, particularly for site plans. Putting the shortcut to move a file's origin directly adjacent to keystrokes for more everyday tasks has led to more problems for my office than I have space to recall here.
2. Remove ruler button to 'move origin'
Just like the keystroke, there's a cryptic button in the corner of the on-screen rulers to move the drawing origin. People press these buttons out of curiosity without understanding the consequences. I want to be able to remove this button from the rulers.
3. Preference to disable drag-move and drag-copy
Now that Duplicate is finally enabled by key-toggle (I key) on the Move By Points tool (Shift-M tool), we finally have the equivalent move/copy tools of other CAD programs, which require you to select an object and then perform a move/copy operation. Drag-move and drag-copy are quick and powerful, but I would trade that for the more foolproof stop-and-think method. It's all too easy to move an object when you mean to select it at the moment. You may disagree, that's why I propose it's a preference setting.
4. Nudge disabled by default
Some bright spark always shows our new users this handy little feature called Nudge (shift and cursor keys). Grrr. If you want to move something, move it by the millimeter or snap it into place. Nudge has a use, on say landscape plans, but it gets abused. I would like nudge disabled by default in the the pre-loaded workspaces OR a preference that can disable it without having to edit a workspace.
5. Command History
"What have I just done?" is a very familiar remark from new VW users. Did they just more something by accident? They're not sure...so they carry on drawing for a minute or two, before realizing that they probably DID move something. Of course, without a command history, theres no way to be sure....just keep hitting undo until they think they've put things right.. VW needs a command history for the last 10 or 20 commands, OR a Step Back list like Photoshop.
6. Enable layer-locking
Yep, we've been over this before on these boards, but I still believe it is necessary to add layer locking as a feature. It's all very well having object locking, but all too easy to undo that while editing. Layer locking would allow site survey files to be placed on their own layer and locked in place. Object locking and unlocking on top of this, for the site design, would then have no danger unlocking the entire survey. Yep, I know you can grey-snap layers, but users change the layer-option settings all the time.
7. Class Filter for clipboard-pasting
Clipboard-pasted objects are the main source of class-name contamination of files. Once a job-lot of class names are in a file it's an arduous task to go and prefix them all to group them. We need a firewall for the clipboard that intercepts objects and allows the user to manage the class names of the incoming objects.
8. 'By Class' settings...on by Default
Why do the included template files default to having the 'by class style' settings on the attribute palette turned off? It's laborious to manually set each attribute to 'by class' every time a user starts a new drawing...so hey, guess what...it doesn't happen. Then when they can't manage their class colors in the viewport..they wonder why. Please ensure all template files have 'by class style' set as the default for all attributes.
9. Sheet Layer "Show all used classes" preference
Even experienced users get caught out by this one. They've done the print run and are just checking the hard copies, when they realize that some of the objects from the sheet layer are missing. It's all too easy to switch to a sheet layer and forget to turn all the classes on that you've used for legends and keys. I'd like VW to have a preference that, when enabled, will automatically turn on all the classes used in a sheet layer whenever the layer is made active.
10. Fix the Grid snap constraint
That little grid button on the constraints palette is a pain in the ass. Users THINK it just turns the display grid on and off (which it doesn't), when it is actually toggling the snap-to-grid. I don't know who uses snap-to-grid, probably a minority of VW users, but I'd like the snap-to-grid setting to have a button of it's own, WITHOUT a keystroke in the default workspace. Too many times have users found themselves not concentrating on their snaps and found themselves drawing to a random 3mm grid.
I'm sure others will have foolproofing suggestions of their own to add to this list.
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Chris D
Robust Foolproofing
Vectorworks is a powerful tool and in our 2D drafting workflow I find it much quicker to get things done than, say, AutoCAD.
However, the origins of Vectorworks as MiniCAD betray it, when it comes to mission-critical construction drafting. It's very easy to manipulate any aspect of a drawing with a mouse-click or a keystroke, which means it's very easy to f**k things up too.
One might argue "what does it matter", when you have backups at both file level and drive level - if somebody messes up a drawing, you just retrieve the backup. Well, that's fine if the bungle is obvious, but of no use if the if the error goes unnoticed and the wrong data is issued.
I spend far too much of my time at work being the 'Red Adair' figure...being called in to our various workgroups to troubleshoot problems with Vectorworks files. These problems are always the same....file origins have been moved by accident, drawn objects have been moved by accident, objects are apparently 'missing', or our uniclass system has been polluted with rogue classes.
Vectorworks needs more robust foolproofing, and here's what I propose:
1. Remove shortcut to 'move origin'
Command-9 (on a Mac) should NOT be an default key shortcut to move a file's origin. WHY do you need to move the origin so often that it needs a shortcut? Moving an origin is a big decision and the way VW handles it (badly) means it can have major consequences, particularly for site plans. Putting the shortcut to move a file's origin directly adjacent to keystrokes for more everyday tasks has led to more problems for my office than I have space to recall here.
2. Remove ruler button to 'move origin'
Just like the keystroke, there's a cryptic button in the corner of the on-screen rulers to move the drawing origin. People press these buttons out of curiosity without understanding the consequences. I want to be able to remove this button from the rulers.
3. Preference to disable drag-move and drag-copy
Now that Duplicate is finally enabled by key-toggle (I key) on the Move By Points tool (Shift-M tool), we finally have the equivalent move/copy tools of other CAD programs, which require you to select an object and then perform a move/copy operation. Drag-move and drag-copy are quick and powerful, but I would trade that for the more foolproof stop-and-think method. It's all too easy to move an object when you mean to select it at the moment. You may disagree, that's why I propose it's a preference setting.
4. Nudge disabled by default
Some bright spark always shows our new users this handy little feature called Nudge (shift and cursor keys). Grrr. If you want to move something, move it by the millimeter or snap it into place. Nudge has a use, on say landscape plans, but it gets abused. I would like nudge disabled by default in the the pre-loaded workspaces OR a preference that can disable it without having to edit a workspace.
5. Command History
"What have I just done?" is a very familiar remark from new VW users. Did they just more something by accident? They're not sure...so they carry on drawing for a minute or two, before realizing that they probably DID move something. Of course, without a command history, theres no way to be sure....just keep hitting undo until they think they've put things right.. VW needs a command history for the last 10 or 20 commands, OR a Step Back list like Photoshop.
6. Enable layer-locking
Yep, we've been over this before on these boards, but I still believe it is necessary to add layer locking as a feature. It's all very well having object locking, but all too easy to undo that while editing. Layer locking would allow site survey files to be placed on their own layer and locked in place. Object locking and unlocking on top of this, for the site design, would then have no danger unlocking the entire survey. Yep, I know you can grey-snap layers, but users change the layer-option settings all the time.
7. Class Filter for clipboard-pasting
Clipboard-pasted objects are the main source of class-name contamination of files. Once a job-lot of class names are in a file it's an arduous task to go and prefix them all to group them. We need a firewall for the clipboard that intercepts objects and allows the user to manage the class names of the incoming objects.
8. 'By Class' settings...on by Default
Why do the included template files default to having the 'by class style' settings on the attribute palette turned off? It's laborious to manually set each attribute to 'by class' every time a user starts a new drawing...so hey, guess what...it doesn't happen. Then when they can't manage their class colors in the viewport..they wonder why. Please ensure all template files have 'by class style' set as the default for all attributes.
9. Sheet Layer "Show all used classes" preference
Even experienced users get caught out by this one. They've done the print run and are just checking the hard copies, when they realize that some of the objects from the sheet layer are missing. It's all too easy to switch to a sheet layer and forget to turn all the classes on that you've used for legends and keys. I'd like VW to have a preference that, when enabled, will automatically turn on all the classes used in a sheet layer whenever the layer is made active.
10. Fix the Grid snap constraint
That little grid button on the constraints palette is a pain in the ass. Users THINK it just turns the display grid on and off (which it doesn't), when it is actually toggling the snap-to-grid. I don't know who uses snap-to-grid, probably a minority of VW users, but I'd like the snap-to-grid setting to have a button of it's own, WITHOUT a keystroke in the default workspace. Too many times have users found themselves not concentrating on their snaps and found themselves drawing to a random 3mm grid.
I'm sure others will have foolproofing suggestions of their own to add to this list.
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