Problems with Plant List worksheet

[pch]

All,

I?ve been having a problem with the Plant List worksheet. All my plants have the ?On Plant List? tick-box checked in the Resource Brower. In addition within the Plant Catalog I have included comments in the ?Schedule Comments? and ?Schedule Size? fields. When I create a Plant List on my drawing some of the fields for a particular plant are blank. For example, I may have entered comments in both the ?Schedule Comments? and ?Schedule Size? for the plant but those comments do not appear in the Plant List. Interestingly enough the total number of plants calculated by the worksheet is correct but the comments are blank. Another strange point is that not all the plants exhibit this behavior. Some of the comments are included while others are not. I have not been able to identify a pattern or common thread that may indicate why some plants? comments show up in the worksheet while others do not. I have deleted and re-added the worksheet a number of different times but the behavior is always the same. One note: none of these plants are in the Plant Reference Database. I have only added them to the Plant Catalog. Any help or insight would be appreciated.

OS: Windows XP

Version: Vectorworks 10.1.2

[Robert Anderson]

The plant objects have two records associated with them; Their parameter record (this stores all the settings you create in your plant) and the Plant Record, which is the record whose contents show up in the schedule. Items that are entered as a part of the Plant Definition and that are maintained by the Plant object are:

Quantity fields: area, count, dripline area;

Latin name;

Common name;

Plant list description;

Scheduled size;

Height;

Spread;

Spacing;

Comments; (This is written the first time only, then it is left alone, so you can edit it directly in the Data pane of the OI Palette)

SKU;

Price;

Extended Price;

All the other datafields in the Plant Record are written when the Plant Reference Database is accessed during the creation of a plant. These are then left alone for you to alter in the Data pane of the OI Palette if you so desire.

If you uncheck the "On Plant List" item, the Plant Record is deleted. Then if you check it back on again, only the above items are maintained (not including the Comments field, because it is written first-time only on the plant).

When I implemented the Plant feature, I wondered if the first-time-only aspect of the Comments field would be a problem. I didn't know how much people would go back to the Edit Plant Catalog... command to maintain this stuff, vs. just using the Data pane. I didn't want the plant definition overwriting any item-specific comments entered in the DP, but once the item is taken off the list, the Comments field is not easily restored. I'll treat this as a bug and try and get a fix for it into the next major release.

The short answer for you is to do this: open your plant list in its own worksheet window, and check the "database headers" command from the worksheet menu. In the new row that appears (it should be row 3), click on the field right under the "remarks" label. You should see something like this in your formula bar:

='Plant Record'.Notes

Just change this to:

= Plant.Notes

Now what will happen is that the plant lists will get their info always from the plant parameter record (which is updated always) instead of the attached plant data record (which has only some fields that are always updated).

This is probably a lot more info than you wanted to know! But it will solve your problem. This has occurred because you unchecked the 'On Plant List' option and then re-checked it. I'll get after this bug.

[pch]

Robert,

THANK YOU. Great info. I'll give it a try later today.