Question about selecting lighting units

[TAmes]

In VW 2018, the process to choose lighting instruments seems to be missing an important step. At no point does anyone address the dropdown menu. When i went to work on existing plots, I was faced with not being able to select or even find units from the library for any units. I kept getting There are no items to show in this view message. Quite a bit of consternation and frustration ensued and my fix was to copy from other drawings and paste into the new plot. After days of repeated review of the process in Help and getting nowhere, I finally noticed a new window for this version that said Hatches. This then led me to see it was a dropdown menu to determine what resources are being displayed. At which point, it begs the question as to why there is a dropdown menu in the first place since one chooses what resources are needed when you enter the library?

Thanks

[JBenghiat]

I assume you are referring to finding symbols in the Resource Manager.  While many library files contain only one type of resource (like the ones for hatches), your active file usually contains many kinds of resources, which makes the filter useful.  Even the instrument library files contain symbols, record formats, and textures, so using the filter might have an application there.

 

Tools that employ the pop-up Resource Manager, like the Lighting Device insertion tool (in the mode bar) or the attributes palette will automatically apply various filters so you only see the applicable resources.  The general Resource Manager is designer to do more than just browse libraries, so there are many view options.

 

The Resource Manager should be set to show all resources by default, not just hatches.  If it did seem to be set that way when you first started using 2018, that would definitely be a bug.

[Andy Broomell]

Joshua is correct.

 

That being said, I agree that the message "There are no items to show in this view" is very unhelpful in the situation.

 

I just made a wishlist item for it to be improved - upvote there if you agree.

 

 

[TAmes]

Thanks to you both for the replies and I will upvote as you indicated Andy. Josh, the browser was set to hatches when I started with 2018. And as much as filters for resources are good to determine what type you need, it is not helpful when you have already determined what you are doing and that dropdown confuses the issue and prevent selection.

If I am in the library for lighting instruments why are hatches even to be considered? That is the point here I am attempting to make.

[JBenghiat]

The Resource Manager is meant to be library agnostic.  Being "in the library" for lighting instruments only means you are browsing the folder that happens to contain a lot of lighting symbols.  What if you are looking to import a hatch that happens to be utilized by a lighting symbol?  The Resource Manager allows you to do that.  I don't think we want the Resource Manager automatically changing filters depending on what file we are browsing, as any file can contain any resource type.

 

In contrast, if you use the Resource dropdown for the Lighting Instrument Tool, then that IS set to show only symbols.  Similarly, if you are browsing for a hatch in the attributes palette, that is set to only show hatches.