Revisiting the Hunt and Peck

[edwinarkie]

So last time I logged into this forum, I put in a feature request that would allow you to search universally for a command. I'm tired of searching through dropdowns and changing workspaces to find some command that I know about, or think I know about, but don't use often.

The other readers of this forum poopoohed this idea.  This underscores the point that this forum appeals mostly to the most experienced users.  Just because the readers of this forum don't think something is necessary, does not mean it's not necessary.  It means it's not necessary for the few people who have an interest in responding to forums.  I used VWX for five years before I ever posted in any of these forums. I'm sure other less experienced users are the same.

 

I still need this feature.  I use a variety of workspaces. It's annoying to hunt and peck for something, and beyond annoying when it can't be found.  Today I can't find the clip cube.  I've used it thousands of times.  Wasn't it always in the View menu? Vectorworks Help tells me how to use the clip cube.  Not a word about where to find it.  Great.

 

Note that I do not want anyone to tell me where the clip cube is.   I want someone to understand that we ought to be able to easily find any command without having to first hunt out the icon. If you know the name of a command, that should be enough to find it. 

 

PS I found it, in the View Menu, which seems to have gotten longer and had a second column that it never had before. Vectorworks could easily have highlighted it for me if it had some sort of universal search feature for commands.

 

Edited March 28, 2019 by edwinarkie

[markdd]

I think that it is a very good idea. I don't have this problem too much because OSX has a menu search facility that Vectorworks utilises. It would be great if the Workspace editor had a search facility though.

 

Just because there was a small response to your post doesn't mean that it isn't good, its just that it didn't necessarily resonated with users at that moment. I frequently read posts that I think I would like to respond to but find myself busy alot of the time and get easily distracted. I posted a query the other day and got one response, so your post did a whole lot better than mine!

 

The forums are a really amazing resource and absolutely THE way I learned the program. The help files are getting better, but seem to assume quite alot of knowledge in some areas. There are many, many experienced users here who are very generous with their responses. There are an even greater number of users who just read and learn from others.

 

What is so good about these forums is that they are respectful of all comers and that was why I felt enabled to start posting over ten years ago. The tone on these forums is almost always tolerant which is quite unusual when compared to other software forums. You should see the facebook group/s which can get very "shouty" at times.....

[Art V]

This almost begs for a command  line interface to be added to VW, similar to what AutoCAD and the likes have. When you start typing in the command the possible commands show up for selection. (😱, ducking now)

 

There are some programs that allow something similar in menus, but you need to get the right menu first (e.g. View menu or Edit menu) before it works. So if you do know the command but don't remember which menu it resides is it will still be a hunt and peck issue. 

 

A middle way might be a command search dialog that does somehting similar as the DWG based competition as described above. Even after all these years I sometimes have to think hard where a rarely used (by me) command is residing if it is not the the logical place where I would expect it. (logical to me that is, even though the logic of some command locations escapes me once in a while).

[Peter Neufeld]

The Help which is really very good these days does show the path to where commands lie.

Cheers,

Peter

 

[Neil Barman]

I would imagine that you have already found this by now @edwinarkie but for anyone reading this thread who hasn’t.... Vectorworks 2021 now has such a feature. It is called Quick Search. More info here and a short video about it is here.