Increased efficiency with less clicks:

[VincentCuclair]

Please put (some/all) of the stair settings directly in the OIP please:

Please introduce a direction option for flipping symbols (especially doors where I need to click 3 times instead of once to change the door swing):

Edited March 28, 2014 by Vincent C

[Kevin McAllister]

Wait. Do we really need a checkbox or radio button for custom scale? Couldn't you just type it in the existing scale text box if you need it and the drop down would automatically switch to Custom Scale. That way if you wanted to type a normal scale you could do that too and the drop down would switch to the appropriate scale. The scale text box could just always be active instead of greyed out, couldn't it?

This is where a good interface designer is needed... (one of those broad, no place to go wishes :-) )

Kevin

[PVA - Admin]

I think the toggle makes more sense, then it becomes immediately obvious to a user why one of the options is grayed, since its either custom or not. I would think they shouldn't both be active at the same time as then it would be confusing as to why there were two separate fields that controlled exactly the same thing.

It also lets you remove the "custom" option from the dropdown (where you then would have needed to type in the value below anyway) and makes it faster to change scale if the user prefers keyboard entry to list selection.

[Kevin McAllister]

I guess.

One of the most useful things that VW does right now is fill in the equivalent 1: value in the custom scale box when you change the scale drop down. I wouldn't want to lose that functionality. Often scaling is not about an actual measured value, but about getting perspective viewports to be a consistent size.

KM

[PVA - Admin]

Would reshape handles directly on the viewport that only allowed symmetric resizing be a better solution there? Just have the OIP report the resulting value in that mode?

[Kevin McAllister]

They wouldn't be a bad thing, but the numeric scale value is the easiest way to make things match perfectly.

This is a common problem in VW. Making things match, especially if they aren't symmetrical.

For example, if you had 10 images you wanted to size all the same width but some were 4:3 and some were 16:9. There's currently no easy way to do this in VW other than manually (I usually draw two guidelines the correct distance apart and snap using the scale handles but you could do it with math). If there was a maintain proportions checkbox in the OIP, you could select all the images, click the checkbox to make it active on all the selected objects and enter one x value for width.

Similar problem with a series of perspective viewports, for example a series of viewports that show the scenic state for each scene in a Shakespeare play from various views. What if you want to organize them graphically on a grid but because they're from different viewpoints they have slightly different aspect ratios...

Kevin

[PVA - Admin]

That makes good sense, let me work that over in a bit with others here and see what we come up with.

[rDesign]

On 5/30/2014 at 7:52 AM, JimW said:

There is a thing coming that will work pretty much like you describe, not specifically for stairs, I mean more of a direct-edit UI that lets you modify an object "directly" by grabbing portions of it and moving them rather than having to control it solely from the OIP.

I think they are going to see how this is received by the user base, then its entirely possible you will see a lot more direct modeling come to Vectorworks.

(I am genuinely sorry that I can not be more specific, but just wanted to let you know that that sort of UI is indeed being tested here and may come to pass.)

 

@JimW- what was the direct-edit UI "thing" that you were describing in this post from 5/30/2014? Has it already been implemented? 

[PVA - Admin]

2 hours ago, rDesign said:

 

@JimW- what was the direct-edit UI "thing" that you were describing in this post from 5/30/2014? Has it already been implemented? 

 

It has not yet, it was picked up by engineering and moved quite far along but I suspect it may not make it into 2018. There is another large UI improvement coming in 2018 that I think everyone will appreciate even more that took most of the UI/graphics teams resources this cycle. I do not think you will be disappointed.

[rDesign]

JimW - thanks for the reply and the tease. I'll keep my fingers crossed for good things to come in Vw2018.

[geo44rey]

On 5/21/2014 at 8:51 PM, Andy Broomell said:

This seems kind of related...

For Callouts, I always find myself wanting to hit 'Enter' when I'm finished typing the text into the dialogue box. But since 'Enter' is a carriage return to the next line (as it should be), I need to manually move my mouse to the 'Ok' button and click. It's a small thing but it adds up.

So it would be nice if there were a way to complete the callout via the keyboard only, such as 'Shift-Enter' for example.

 

Agreed.  I set a letter key to escape in general, which of course for editing text isn't ideal (i.e. won't work.)

How about a "quick click" to exit, which you could set to your own personal preference as to how quick you want it.

 

Classes are powerful, but sometimes it would be nice to be a able to change line types by setting quick keys. (like 1 for a .25pt line, 2 for .5pt, 3 for 1pt, etc and dash types / fills, etc.)  Is is possible to open up the keyboard customization more?

 

For UI in general reducing clicks is the key to elegance, and what makes so many people prefer Sketchup.  

VW is super powerful, but the UI could definitely be improved with outright copying of SKP interface, for example:

   The MOVE / COPY function: you click to start moving, and in the Dimension window, you enter you length.  Not satisfied with the dimension you entered?  You can change it by simply entering a different number.  Super great when you might not know how far you might want to move something.  And then you can COPY the object (12x for 12 copies, or dividing  /12) in that same window...again you want fewer copies?  Just change the numbers....this all happens without having to undo or re-move the object, etc.

  TAPE MEASURE TOOL allows copying of lines parallel to solid edges to be used as temporary guides.

  RENDERING FACES: change a face texture by clicking on that face...no need to go searching the OIP for the right/left/etc.  (No doubt the VW interface CAN be powerful, but also needs an option to edit in 3D more intuitively and directly.)

   SUN path settings is two small sliders, and allows fast generation of shadows with intensity default settings on a separate palette.  You can turn the shadows on/off for speed, even though it renders shadows on even complicated models very quickly.

   SELECTING: drag a window from upper left to lower right, and you select only the objects fully inside.  Go from lower right to upper left, and you select any object that the window touches.

   ORBIT: the SKP orbit / zoom tool is so very smooth and intuitive.  And, that isn't a keystroke issue, but you can change the views of your model, and click one or more undos separately from the view changes.  Very helpful when designing something, not necessarily just model it.

 

This is likely covered elsewhere, but the leader / text line is sort of weird and clunky and hard to align a bunch of text unless you copy notes down and then change the text.  A simple click on the object, drag the line to where you want the text to start, start typing, and then be able to change the text box later without changing the leader.

   

 

[Andy Broomell]

On 5/21/2014 at 6:51 PM, Andy Broomell said:

For Callouts, I always find myself wanting to hit 'Enter' when I'm finished typing the text into the dialogue box. But since 'Enter' is a carriage return to the next line (as it should be), I need to manually move my mouse to the 'Ok' button and click. It's a small thing but it adds up.

So it would be nice if there were a way to complete the callout via the keyboard only, such as 'Shift-Enter' for example.

 

So I just recently realized on a MBP you can hit "fn+return" to finish a callout. Love it.

[geo44rey]

On a MBP, you can hit the "cursor" button on the Touch Bar.  But, that means that you have to stop typing and go up and find that...does it take a long time to do?  No.  But if you are entering a lot of text quickly, a bit annoying.

 

It would be appreciated if you could quick click into the drawing to start a new text.

 

And, it would be nice to separate the text with the leaders more efficiently.  Aligning text in separate lines to neaten up the annotation, then add the arrows.  If you need to move the callouts later, it is somewhat clunky, since a) you can't see the text when you move the bounding box, and b) the leaders push the arrows around so you have to manually fuss with the ending points.