Auto Dimension from Locus / Guides

[Darrell Henry]

There are a number of different applications where I want to be able to create a symbol that automatically calculates its distance from a fixed point and displays it within the symbol. In other words, create a symbol and attach a record that measures its x,y offset from a specific point and have that appear as part of the symbol.

I would also love to see good old fashioned guidelines -- not construction lines, not lines in a class that I have to create, but lines that stretch infinitely in the X or Y dimension that do not print by default and have a simple keyboard shortcut to toggle on/off. Could be implemented in plan view only or in a more complex manner as 3D.

[bcd]

...and could be dragged into the drawing from the borders as in photoshop

[Benson Shaw]

Didn't full cursor mode used to make infinite xy lines from 2d loci? There is/was some pref that would do that.

-B

[bcd]

yes 2d loci used to do that in the days before smart points

[PVA - Admin]

For the location-reporting text:

We do have an object that will report its X,Y coordinates (Stake Object, in Landmark and Designer) however when you place it in a symbol, it loses this intelligence and then always displays the last value it had before being converted into a symbol. So the technology already exists within the application to make something like this. Submitting a request now, preferably something available in all modules of Vectorworks.

For the Guides:

There used to be something called "Snap to Loci" that made lines go off infinitely in all directions from any 2D loci. That option was removed somewhere around VectorWorks 12 or 2008, but I do not know why. (It was widely used so there must have been a technology-based reason for its omission. I will attempt to find out.)

Submitting a request for guides as a UI element rather than something that has to be drafted within the document or managed via a template.

[AndiACD]

+1 on the Guides

Symbols knowing where they are with the option of displaying it, would be useful too.

Included in VW Designer please.

[mike m oz]

Jim Snap to Loci was removed to get rid of the very frequent problem of users complaining about having hairy lines all over their drawing.

The problem was very few uses knew how to turn them on and off and novice users used to freak out when they encountered them, usually after a DWG or DXF import. it was also a feature that only a few used.

For the greater good it was removed as an option. For those that still want it I think there is a script that can be used to turn it on and off.

I've just done a techboard search and found the script (contributed by Raymond Mullin. I've checked it and it does work in Vw 2014.

https://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=116987

Running it once turns them on. Running it again turns them off.

Edited June 1, 2014 by mike m oz

[Jonathan Pickup]

here is my script:

Procedure SnapToLoci;

BEGIN

IF GetPref(5) = True THEN

SetPref(5,False)

ELSE

SetPref(5,True);

END;

RUN(SnapToLoci);