Plug-in objects fail to display properly in 2D plan view

[mdawson69]

I am currently evaluating Vectorworks 2018 in order to replace my old Vectorworks 9 installation. Long story short, I am not a professional draftsman, I design houses for fun, had an academic license for Vectorworks 9 when I was in college, I prefer the Vectorworks workflow paradigm to the AutoCAD paradigm used by most CAD packages, time flew by, yada, yada, yada. One of the first things I needed to learn with 2018 was converting my old Vectorworks 9 drawings to Vectorworks 2018 drawings. Easy enough. I eventually noticed that plug-in objects, such as doors and windows, were locked; that is, I could not change their parameters as nearly all were disabled. I learned about the Update Plug-in Objects feature. Again, easy enough except one caveat.

 

When I updated plug-in objects in a converted old drawing I noticed that doors and windows were not properly displaying in 2D plan view. Both object types showed as breaks in their respective walls, but not much else. Windows only showed the jamb and sill/stool, or perhaps just the wall lines, but the framing was not present. Doors only showed the jamb, but the actual door and swing line(s) are not visible. This issue also appears in older drawings that have been converted, but in which I have not updated the existing plug-in objects. When I create new doors or windows in these drawings they initially display these objects as expected, but after working on the drawing for some time they eventually begin to effectively display in the 2D plan view as cased openings as I described previously; the existing doors and windows that have not been updated display fine. Once the issue arises any new door or window added to the drawing improperly displays incorrectly upon insertion into the drawing. Note that in 3D views, all doors and windows have thus far appeared to render as expected.

 

I have been using my exiting drawings to evaluate Vectorworks 2018 to date, and I plan on attempting to redo one of my simpler homes in 2018 from scratch soon to get a better feel for the new workflow; obviously there have been considerable UI and workflow changes since Vectorworks 9. As such, I do not know if this issue arises in native Vectorworks 2018 drawings although doors and windows that have inserted into new blank drawings appear to display as expected.

 

Has anyone else come across this issue of plug-in objects not displaying properly in 2D plan view? If so, does anyone know what causes this to occur and if this issue only occurs with older drawing that have been converted?

 

 

[Matt Panzer]

The First thing I would check is the class visibilitys in your file. I’m thinking the updated plug-ins may’ve added some additional default classes. If that’s not the case, can you attach a small file showing the issue?

[mdawson69]

I actually looked into that based on what I read about plug-in objects in the online help. As it turns out, that seemed to be the issue. Although I explored the addition of default classes before I missed the correct class because it was not obvious. The doors and door swing line are apparently in the Sill class; I tend to think of sills with regard to windows, but technically doorways also have sills. Similarly, the window sashes were in that class.

 

Now that I know the problem was due to default class visibility, I now know why doors and windows that I added to the old drawings using Vectorworks 2018 were initially visible then suddenly began to not display correctly. My old drawings have saved views, which were called “sheets” in Vectorworks 9, so it took some time for me to find the (renamed) feature. Once I found out that sheets were now saved views and began using them to navigate the drawing, the default classes added by the new doors and windows were deactivated, as they did not exist in the original drawing. I have updated the saved views to include the Sill class.

 

Thans for your help.

[Matt Panzer]

You're welcome!

I'm glad you got them showing now.

-Matt

[hamilton-black]

hello......I would like to follow up wth this issue. I'm new to vectorworks in 3D and i'm having the same problem with the plug-in doors. It's not a Layer issue cause they're all turned on. Basically i dont unterstand why the 3D form of the door, cannot be at least displayed in 2D Plan view. Why shouldnt it be automatically done? I'm sorry, if i misunderstood something and thank you in advance for your advice.