Trouble with customising plug-ins

[little toddy]

I want to customise the parameters of the "Detail Cut Wood" plugin so that the timber sizes available in the list are the sizes of timber actually in use in NZ.

I've been into the Plug-in manager, entered the values into the Edit choices dialog box of the appropriate parameters, clicked all the OK buttons in sight, but the changes just don't seem to stick. When I re-open the Plug-in Manager I find that the values have reverted what they were previously.

 

Any ideas what's going wrong?

I suspect the issue is to do with permissions, i.e. Windows not allowing VW to make changes to the file in which these changes are stored, but I haven't managed to track down any such file in order to investigate that possibility.

[Pat Stanford]

Most of the default plugin objects are transitioning from being Vectorscript based to being SDK based for better performance.

 

Unfortunately, this greatly limits the ability of the end user to change the defaults. I am not certain if that is what is happening in your case or not. Your idea about permissions could very well be correct. Try moving the Plugin from the Application folder to your user folder. Use the same relative path and quit VW before you do the move. Then try and edit the parameters from there.

[little toddy]

16 hours ago, Pat Stanford said:

Most of the default plugin objects are transitioning from being Vectorscript based to being SDK based for better performance.

 

Unfortunately, this greatly limits the ability of the end user to change the defaults. I am not certain if that is what is happening in your case or not. Your idea about permissions could very well be correct. Try moving the Plugin from the Application folder to your user folder. Use the same relative path and quit VW before you do the move. Then try and edit the parameters from there.

 

Thanks Pat

Could you just walk me through this suggestion... When you say move the plug-in, I presume you're meaning that I move the .vso file from the Vectorworks 2017\Plug-ins folder, out to somewhere not fettered by user permissions. What do you mean by the "same relative path"?

And how would I edit the parameters once it's no longer in the Vectorworks 2017\Plug-ins folder? I presuming that VW will then be unable to access it, or is that where the relative path comes in?

[Pat Stanford]

I'll try. I'm on a Mac, so the exact paths on Windows will be different.

 

I would move the file Detail Cut Wood.vso from:  Applications\Vectorworks 2017\Plug-Ins to  Pat\Library\Application Support\Vectorworks\2017\Libraries\Plug-ins.  I think the destination path on Windows would be 

• on Windows it would be by default the folder [userName] /AppData/Roaming/Nemetschek/Vectorworks/2017/Plug-ins

It probably would be wise to double check that the file has User access permissions before you restart VW. You will probably need to update your Workspace by removing the VSO and re-adding it so VW knows the new location.

 

The Detail Cut Wood.vso should then show up in the Plug-in Manager in the Custom Plug-In pane instead of in the Built-In Plug-ins pane.  Edit the parameters just as you have before. Hopefully now the changes will be saved.

 

 

[rDesign]

To follow on Pat's answer, another thing to check is that when using Windows, Vw recommends that you always Run as Administrator.

Perhaps that could be the reason the plugin custom parameters are not sticking.

 

Here's a link to a tangentially related thread: Plug-In Script Edits Not Saved

Edited June 20, 2017 by rDesign

[little toddy]

Thanks heap Pat, that works a treat now.

[Peter Telleman]

@rDesign

Hi, came here with a similar issue, where can i set VW to run as administrator in VW2024??

[Pat Stanford]

Run as Administrator is a Windows function, not a VW2024 function. Location the application and open the Properties window from Explorer.

[Peter Telleman]

@Pat StanfordThanks Pat, found it.