Location of Standards Folder

[David Aynardi]

Is their a way to locate the Standrds Folder on the network, making a customized standard level/layer list available to everyone in my office? I want the customized list to be availabe in the drop-down windows next to the AIA standards, in "create new layers" and "create new class".

[jfmarch]

the standards folder is located within the vectorworks folder. every 'seat' should have one. we haven't tried to network the folder, but have standardized the workspaces- they get backed up along with other items on our server. we haven't attempted to create a new standard file with our class/layer names, but since we use the aia pretty straight, we haven't pursued it. i gues it can be done, though. we have written a script that sets up our standard class/layer names that is part of the workspace- it works pretty well....

[Guest]

You cannot network the standards folder. In order for it to work, it must be in the VW folder. Since you can't share the application, the standards folder cannot be networked.

You can set all the files in the standards folder for one computer and then copy that folder to the other computers in the office.

[Jonathan Pickup]

Katie,

can you put the standrads folderon the networks and put a shortcut or alias in the VectorWorks folder?

[David Aynardi]

Katie

Unfortunate about the standards folder. We will copy files around the office as you suggest, but this is a clunky solution.

Making this a networkable resource wouldn't weaken your license control and should be easy to accomplish. I'm not talking about networking the application, just the user-customized standards. VW should have an easily editable startup file that tells it where to look for standards, templates, and preferences. The default could be local, but users in a network environment should be able to specify a remote location.

[David Aynardi]

Jim McAuliffe, RA

In your post on 12-01, you say that you have placed your workspace files on your network. How was this accomplished?

[jfmarch]

david- no, the workspaces are not on the network, they are backed up there. each station has a copy of the workspace in the VW folder, but we distribute from the server file. that way, every station has the same workspace and plugins. its a new discipline for us- to make sure all stations have the same commands and appearance.

[Jonathan Pickup]

Katie,

do you have an answer to using a shortcut or alias?

[Jonathan Pickup]

don?t worry, I've tried this and it doesn?t work...

[Andrew Bell@NV]

What you should probably look into is some sort of Revision Control System. Then you could check your standards files into that RCS, and each person would periodically synchronize locally on the latest rewvision of the standards.

RCSes are a good idea in general, given that the time to handle lost data is usually rather more than the cost of revision control, and you can just do one backup (of the RCS data) for a whole group of people.

[PeterT]

I have the same problem as this one with the Templates folder, but I have found a work-around that may work for the "Standards" or "Workspaces" folder as well.

I would like to use the Templates (Stationary Pads) that I have created years ago and keep on my network server. I update these templates regularly so keeping them on each work station in the individual VectorWorks folders is not practical.

If I make aliases of each template on the server and put them in the Templates folder on my local machine, VectorWorks will not recognize the files in the "Use Document Template" pull down in the create "New" document window.

However, if I make an alias of the entire folder of templates on my server, copy that to my local VectorWorks folder and rename the folder alias "Templates", VectorWorks will now open any of the networked templates.

i.e. VectorWorks will not open alias templates in the local Templates folder, but if the Templates folder itself is the alias, it will open the templates inside.

The only hitch to this is that the server must be mounted on the local machine before VectorWorks is launched in order for it to see the folder.

Hope this works for the other folders as well.

Regards,

Peter

[Teun at KCAP]

It's very usefull to have a network folder for your templates and favorites etc.

We use windows, and we have moved the standards/templates/workspaces folders to a UNC path on the server, made three shortcuts in the vectorworks folder (on every PC) named standards templates workspaces and is just working fine for our 20 pc's.

But i agree it isn't the normal way, but i don't now a better way in vectorworks.

Teun