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Newbie on Installing Plugins


Damon Design

Question

I fear this will make me seem completely clueless but even as I've used Vectorworks for decades I have never installed a 3rd party plugin and am not sure exactly how to do so. I found a Velux skylight from bimobject to download and it is a plugin, which I assume will then include some adjustable parameters to the skylight object. Regardless of this specific plugin, I think it is high time that I finally learned this to be able to access what seems to be a whole world of available useful plugins out there.

 

I see that I need to go to Tools>Plug-ins>Plug-in Manager and here is where I get lost. The downloaded file is a folder containing four items: a folder labeled -VMS Data containing 10 .txt scripts; a EmbedAH.qtr (I don't know exactly what this is) file describing a bunch of stuff about the geometry and display of the object; a Embed.rsrc executable file; and then the actual Velux Modular Skylight.vso plugin. When in the Plug-in manager I would assume I select >third party plugins>install and then locate the folder but in doing so everything is greyed in the folder. This is all I know.  

 

Is the folder supposed to be available to install or just the actual .vso file, and how do you know what type of object it is to select when you get to that dialogue box, and then how do you find it and use it if you successfully install it? And if you just install the .vso file, what do you do with the other stuff in the folder?

 

I'm sure this is not particularly complicated but just need one clear explanation of the process.

 

Thanks very much in advance for someone hopefully rolling their eyes but being able to clearly explain the basics I am missing.

 

Edit: I'm not even sure if this is the correct forum to post this so moderators please move if necessary to get a quicker response.- thanks!

 

 

Screen Shot 2016-10-16 at 2.35.04 PM.png

Edited by Damon Design
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I think this should be in General or Architecture @JimW move this?

 

Most PIOs come with installation instructions. Usually moving the files to the plug-ins folder is step 1, and putting the command/tool into the workspace is step 2. Restarting VW is step 3. But the authors instructions are what really counts.

Edited by RickR
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I ended up at this thread trying to install exact same plugin!

 

There are some instructions here:

 

http://scs-inc.us/Other/VectorWiki/index.php?title=Installing_Plug-ins

 

it's the ZIP file you need to select to install in the plugin manager.

 

Then it tells you that you need to restart Vectorworks in order to install plugins (but doesn't give any indication that you've successfully initiated the process). So you restart, and then it's there in the plugin manager.

 

You still have to go and edit your workspace to add it to one of the palettes.

 

In this case it's in a section called "Velux" in the workspace editor. Then you choose which palette to put it into.

 

Not the most user friendly process.

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