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I have to agree with Kevin C, I am getting a ridiculous amount of crashing daily with v2018 SP1 - several times a day. It seems to crash after I save. It appears to take too long to write to the file and if I touch anything before I wait for it to save (large file), it crashes. I can't have 5 to 8 crashes a day on a pretty powerful computer. Not acceptable.

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My question is really more about the functionality of the updated title block tool. It has already been established that copying and pasting title blocks from previous versions does not work, they are forced to update and in doing so, my title block completely disappears. In building a new one with the current tool, Id like to recreate the functionality I had from previous versions in that the sheet number/title would be auto populated etc. but that just double clicking on the title block would bring up a dialogue box where specific fields could be altered in both a sheet and project tab, letting items in the project tab be replicated through all sheets, and sheet specific fields applied to that particular page. As far as I can see there is only the edit settings dialogue followed by the tedious methods @Andy Broomelleluded to above. Am I missing something? I'm unable to see this as a step forward, its far more tedious to work with. Thank you all.

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I am in agreement with Haydenovative on this one.  This is the first time in all my years of losing vectorworks that a new version has lost significant functionality.  A lot of the 'improvements' which have been brought in over the years have been brought in in such a way that we have been able to adapt and change our workflows over time to suit, but this change in the title border is fundamental to producing drawings.

 

Other supposed improvements like Marionette (which I have never had the time to even look at), have been brought in a way that as users we can choose whether to use or not, the title border is a cornerstone of producing information and is required every time I create and issue a drawing.

 

There are so many other things which Vectorworks could and should be concentrating on fixing, this should have been way down the list.  There was not much wrong with the title block, it just needed a few tweaks to get it perfect.

 

Vectorworks should have given clear guidance for this change when 2018 was released.  I would like to see what the brief was that was given to the Engineers for this, as it has either been completely ignored or the brief was wrong. 

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Also,

 

Can someone please advise where custom title blocks are stored - and how can they be made available to the rest of the office??

 

I do not use any of the standard title blocks (never have done) as they are not fit for purpose.  Take as an example - Where is the standard attribute box do we input the client details? - Do you not have clients?  Is there a way that they can be deleted from the system?

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Hello Kevin,

 

On 10/17/2017 at 0:35 AM, Kevin C said:

I tried to recreate the revision box manually, but the text formatting will only go upwards irrespective of the formatting chosen in the title border setup

 

You could choose the direction, in which Issues/Revisions are displayed, from the Direction popup in Title Block Settings... dialog -> Issue/Revision Data panes.

 

Best Regards,

Nikolay Zhelyazkov

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Hello Haydenovative,

 

On 10/18/2017 at 9:14 AM, Haydenovative said:

Id like to recreate the functionality I had from previous versions in that the sheet number/title would be auto populated

 

Sheet Number/Title are auto populated in Title Block Border objects that are in Sheet Layers and have "Use Auto Drawing Coordination" checked.

 

Best Regards,

Nikolay Zhelyazkov

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Hello ptoner,

 

On 10/19/2017 at 0:27 PM, ptoner said:

Another Titleblock related issue, used to be able to scale down, lower than a factor of 1, the title blocks themselves. No longer possible.

 

This is possible through the Scale Factor control in Title Block Settings dialog -> Title Block pane from SP-1.

 

Best Regards,

Nikolay Zhelyazkov

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3 minutes ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

Hello ptoner,

 

 

This is possible through the Scale Factor control in Title Block Settings dialog -> Title Block pane from SP-1.

 

Best Regards,

Nikolay Zhelyazkov



yes you can scale from 1 up... but not make the titleblcok smaller by using 0.8 for example. Thats using SP1

 

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15 minutes ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

I am testing it in SP1, build 390873, and it is working. If it is not working for you, please fill in a bug report.

 

Thanks,

ScaleLessThan1.png

Yes, you can insert the 0.5 scale factor, but it will not actually change anything.
You guys really need to test it properly before commenting.

 

Edited by ptoner
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On 13/09/2017 at 9:13 AM, markdd said:

tioning issue, I found this. If you change the origin of your sheet layer to the centre then all is well. Use the Move Page tool (nested under the Pan tool) to move the page to the centre. This seems to be the case with my drawin

Your build differs from mine and I am using titleblocks that we created ourselves, that have been updated, to suit the new title block parameters/settings/dialog boxes.
So I am thinking its a conversion issue, with 2017 titleblocks.
I imagine it is a bug. I will report it.

Screen Shot 2017-10-20 at 15.39.30.jpg

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I was happy to just now learn that "Scale Factor" has been re-implemented for title blocks (I haven't been using 2018 in practice much yet), but I just tried it and my title blocks do not scale up or down either. Whenever I go back in to Settings, the Scale Factor always resets itself to "0" (which doesn't really make sense as a scale factor; I'd assume the default would be "1"). Scale Factor doesn't work with either the standard or my custom title blocks.

 

Hopefully by SP2 the new title blocks will be usable...

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2 hours ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

I am testing it in SP1, build 390873, and it is working. If it is not working for you, please fill in a bug report.

 

Thanks,

ScaleLessThan1.png

 

Scaling the title block doesn't work in the public build of VW2018 SP1 (393917). More than that the initial value displays as zero when I open the Title Block Border Settings to edit it. I can set a value and close the dialog, but when I reopen it it has reset to zero again. I am assuming the initial value should be 1, which is the starting value for all other scalable objects in Vectorworks.

 

Kevin

 

Edit. I have bug submitted the issue with a link to this thread and an example file.

 

59ea267b11b9c_ScreenShot2017-10-20at9_34_35AM.png.6e54c1d5ff07d942cec2c7f7b726f8d4.png

Edited by Kevin McAllister
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On 20/10/2017 at 2:36 PM, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

Hello Kevin,

 

 

You could choose the direction, in which Issues/Revisions are displayed, from the Direction popup in Title Block Settings... dialog -> Issue/Revision Data panes.

 

Best Regards,

Nikolay Zhelyazkov

Nikolay,

 

I have been too busy (trying to earn a living) to respond the the last few posts on this, but - I tried that.  The revisions in my case go upwards no matter what formatting is chosen in this new title block settings (believe me I have tried) - As I have now said a few times,  this 'enhancement' was rolled out with absolutely no consideration of the existing users.

 

My title blocks are created using a custom block and graphics (not anything from VW) - something that was promoted by VW as part of the design series versions of VW to which I had added fields which linked the drawing number to the sheet number,  the description to the sheet name and so on.  This allowed my drawings to be formatted and issued in a very similar way to what the new title block settings do for 2018 - I can no longer do this as you have removed the facility to keep using our old title blocks for legacy projects and forced us to change the way that we operate. As a result, I cannot use any drawing that was created in 2017 in 2018 as I am unable to issue a revision to a drawing - unless you think it is acceptable that I throw everything out of the window, explode the title block and manually do revisions as text???

 

Putting this catastrophic 'xxxx-up' to one side - VW has also removed the possibility of having office standards.  All new title borders in VW2018 are machine and user specific and the only title blocks which can be accessed seem to be VW title blocks with no way of sharing them apart from manually copying them from drawing to drawing as there is no guidance whatsoever on how to share them - I have tried to find the location off the title borders - with no success, they seem to have been hard coded into the software.

 

This is still a major problem - can someone please provide some meaningful guidance to do at least the following:

  1. How to remove the VW standard title blocks and replace them with our own - We don't want your, they are of no use
  2. How to import custom title blocks that utilised the VW revision box made up from previous versions of VW (say 2017) and either retain their functionality  - and I mean the revisions, or import them in a working format into the new system
  3. How to share office standards (again specifically with title blocks) for more than one user and machine.

Kevin C.

 

Edited by Kevin C
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On 21/10/2017 at 7:41 AM, Kevin McAllister said:

After my bug submission I received an email reply with the steps to reset my VW user folder and preferences. This solved the title block scaling issue for me in the current public build of VW2018 SP1 (unfortunately it created another issue where I get an error dialog about the Vision Libraries which I'm working with Tech Support to solve).

 

Kevin

 

What was the procedure that they told you to do, in order to get the scaling of the titleblocks reset?

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
On 10/20/2017 at 7:05 PM, Andy Broomell said:

I was happy to just now learn that "Scale Factor" has been re-implemented for title blocks (I haven't been using 2018 in practice much yet), but I just tried it and my title blocks do not scale up or down either. Whenever I go back in to Settings, the Scale Factor always resets itself to "0" (which doesn't really make sense as a scale factor; I'd assume the default would be "1"). Scale Factor doesn't work with either the standard or my custom title blocks.

 

Hopefully by SP2 the new title blocks will be usable...

 

On 10/20/2017 at 7:38 PM, Kevin McAllister said:

Scaling the title block doesn't work in the public build of VW2018 SP1 (393917). More than that the initial value displays as zero when I open the Title Block Border Settings to edit it. I can set a value and close the dialog, but when I reopen it it has reset to zero again. I am assuming the initial value should be 1, which is the starting value for all other scalable objects in Vectorworks.

 

Kevin

 

Edit. I have bug submitted the issue with a link to this thread and an example file.

 

Hello Andy and Kevin,

 

The initial value for Scale Factor is set to 1 and it is really strange that it defaults to 0 for you. Could you give me link to the submitted bug, or attach the files, that have this issue, here, so that I could investigate the problem further more? Steps to reproduce the bug or screen recording showing it will be helpful too.

 

Thanks,

Nikolay Zhelyazkov

 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
15 hours ago, Kevin C said:

Nikolay,

 

I have been too busy (trying to earn a living) to respond the the last few posts on this, but - I tried that.  The revisions in my case go upwards no matter what formatting is chosen in this new title block settings (believe me I have tried) - As I have now said a few times,  this 'enhancement' was rolled out with absolutely no consideration of the existing users.

 

My title blocks are created using a custom block and graphics (not anything from VW) - something that was promoted by VW as part of the design series versions of VW to which I had added fields which linked the drawing number to the sheet number,  the description to the sheet name and so on.  This allowed my drawings to be formatted and issued in a very similar way to what the new title block settings do for 2018 - I can no longer do this as you have removed the facility to keep using our old title blocks for legacy projects and forced us to change the way that we operate. As a result, I cannot use any drawing that was created in 2017 in 2018 as I am unable to issue a revision to a drawing - unless you think it is acceptable that I throw everything out of the window, explode the title block and manually do revisions as text???

 

Putting this catastrophic 'xxxx-up' to one side - VW has also removed the possibility of having office standards.  All new title borders in VW2018 are machine and user specific and the only title blocks which can be accessed seem to be VW title blocks with no way of sharing them apart from manually copying them from drawing to drawing as there is no guidance whatsoever on how to share them - I have tried to find the location off the title borders - with no success, they seem to have been hard coded into the software.

 

This is still a major problem - can someone please provide some meaningful guidance to do at least the following:

  1. How to remove the VW standard title blocks and replace them with our own - We don't want your, they are of no use
  2. How to import custom title blocks that utilised the VW revision box made up from previous versions of VW (say 2017) and either retain their functionality  - and I mean the revisions, or import them in a working format into the new system
  3. How to share office standards (again specifically with title blocks) for more than one user and machine.

Kevin C.

 

Hello Kevin,

 

As for revisions not ordering the way you want, could you create a bug report with the file that is having this issue or attach the file here?

 

The default Title Block Border styles are located in "autobuild folder\Libraries\Object Styles\Title Block Border".

 

One way to add your title blocks to the VW library is to edit the files in "autobuild folder\Libraries\Object Styles\Title Block Border" and in there create your own Title Block Border Styles that you want to use.

Another way is to update your 2017 title blocks, which will make title block border styles, edit them further more if needed and save the file. After that put the file in "VW 2018 user folder\Libraries\Object Styles\Title Block Border", refresh libraries from resource manager and you will be able to see and use the styles from these files.

 

About the sharing of custom title blocks, could you tell me how did you do that in VW 2017?

 

Best Regards,

Nikolay Zhelyazkov

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Nikolay,

 

A bug report was submitted this morning.

 

On the location of the standard title blocks - where was this shown in the documentation? Very strange location.

 

I made the title block folder a shared dropbox folder, with the master copy on the server - Not ideal, but it works.  Would have liked to be able to direct the libraries to a server folder directly - but you don't allow that.  Any reason??

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Nikolay,

 

Sorry - I've just noticed that you said "autobuild folder", which if I am correct, means the folder that is created by VW.  I added my title blocks to that folder and guess what they don't appear - Also, when I delete the VW title blocks, they still appear in the resource manager (but are no longer there as they have been deleted) and mine do not appear - they only ever appear in the drawing which they currently exist.

 

The only way for me to get a title border in a drawing is (from what I have seen and tried) to open a previous drawing and direct the resource broker to it and then copy to.

 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Kevin,

 

There are 2 cases to work with, using Symbol objects or Title Block Border Style objects.

1) Using Symbol objects

 If you want to use symbol objects as title blocks you will have to put these symbols in "autobuild folder\Libraries\Defaults\Sheet Border - Title Blocks" or in "VW 2018 user folder\Libraries\Defaults\Sheet Border - Title Blocks". After that, you have to "Refresh Libraries" from Resource Manager and then you could use these symbols from Title Block Border Settings -> Title Block pane -> Import Title Block Graphics button.

2) Using Title Block Border styles

 If you want to work with Title Block Border styles, you have to put them in one of the paths mentioned in my previous comments, again "Refresh Libraries" from Resource Manager and then replace styles from Title Block Border tool mode bar, Object Info Palette, Title Block Manager menu command or Settings dialog.

 

If you want to use symbol, the following workflow should work:

1. Place the files on the server, but preserve the folder hierarchy mentioned above. For example, if you are using styles, the files should be placed in "server folder\Libraries\Object Styles\Title Block Border".

2. Open Vectorworks -> Vecotrworks Preferences -> User Folders pane -> Add.. in Workgroup and Project folders -> select the server folder where is located the Libraries folder.

3. "Refresh Libraries" from Resource Manager.

4. Title Blocks should be visible in the respecting locations, whether you are using symbols or styles as mentioned above. For example styles should be visible from OIP -> replace style under workgroup libraries.

 

P.S. When using styles, files will be visible if they are VW 2018 files. So, VW2017 files will have to be first opened in VW2018 and saved as VW2018 files in order to be visible in the Resource Manager.

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