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Title block madness


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I skipped from VW2015 to 2019 so maybe others have already become accustomed to the new title block system but honestly:

 

This is the most confusingly organized thing I have ever seen.

What happened to the old concept of WYSIWYG?

 

It would be really useful if VW gave us a simple WYSIWYG option to use when all this complicated stuff becomes impossible.

 

I would like my bloody business address to show up in the Design Firm cell and if you open the Title Block Manager it is indeed showing up in fields multiple times but only the name on the sheet.

 

Getting my address to show up isn't the only problem I have had with this thing. I found someone talking about problems with the sheet number (I had too) and a response suggested some steps in places I would have never imagined to check. I got it to change but it is not really what I want and I still don't understand it.

 

The below window pops up all the time and I can understand the idea of either changing all Title Blocks in a file to be consistent or just the one on that sheet.

VW2019TitleBlckQWdw.thumb.jpg.bdf437c021590a2743102bf136c4cae2.jpg

 

I think that is what this window may be referring to but maybe not. I mean, what is it referring to when it says, "... load the opened files now"? 

If the files are opened, why would they need loading? What files are they anyway?

And if I need to select sheets for edit, that sounds like I am working on the sheets in the file I already have loaded, right? 

 

What is the difference between a "currently opened file" and an "active file"?

 

The way this window is worded, I don't really understand what it is saying and trying it different ways does not seem to produce an understandable result.

 

Sorry VW, I don't enjoy reading rants and hate to be the ranting party even more, but it just seems that the software team needs to step back and give more common sense, consistent language, plain English, logical menus, and a rigid limit on how many steps it takes to do what seems like ought to be the mundane.

 

If you must have the super-sophisticated features for your sophisticated large-firm clients, okay. But you are leaving the smaller of us in the dust. Keep a simple option in addition to the sophisticated ones so the rest of us can keep working.

 

Hmph! Okay, stepping down from the soap box ...

(And if anyone still has the patience to offer a pointer or two on the Title Block, grace be to you.)

 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Hello @Mik,

 

1 hour ago, Mik said:

I would like my bloody business address to show up in the Design Firm cell and if you open the Title Block Manager it is indeed showing up in fields multiple times but only the name on the sheet.

- Could you send me an example simple file of what is going wrong here and maybe an image showing what do you want to happen?

 

1 hour ago, Mik said:

Getting my address to show up isn't the only problem I have had with this thing. I found someone talking about problems with the sheet number (I had too) and a response suggested some steps in places I would have never imagined to check. I got it to change but it is not really what I want and I still don't understand it.

- What exactly is your issue with the Sheet Number?

 

1 hour ago, Mik said:

I think that is what this window may be referring to but maybe not. I mean, what is it referring to when it says, "... load the opened files now"? 

If the files are opened, why would they need loading? What files are they anyway? 

- You see that window when you have multiple files opened and you are opening the TBManager from your active file. The TBManager is designed to work with multiple TBBs at the same time and not only with the active file but with other opened or not opened files. That is why you get that question. If you are going to use the Manager for the active file only, you could simply select the checkbox to always do the selected action and press "Load active file only".

 

1 hour ago, Mik said:

What is the difference between a "currently opened file" and an "active file"?

- We have all the information about the active file all the time. If you want to load the information in the TBManager about other files, that are currently opened in the VW session, VW will have to switch back and forth to these files in order to load this information in the TBManager. The "currently opened files" are like the tabs in your web browser that you have opened. You could have multiple tabs opened but only one is active and visible to you - the active one. The same goes for the files in VW.

 

1 hour ago, Mik said:

The way this window is worded, I don't really understand what it is saying and trying it different ways does not seem to produce an understandable result.

- As the TBManager could be editing files that are not opened and not loaded for it, it could not know how many TBBs are there in a single layer. That is why we use the term "sheet" for the selection in the TBManager, as you could be editing one sheet but it could have many TBBs in it so you are actually editing multiple TBBs at the same time. If you want to change the sheets, which the TBManager is editing, you could do this by clicking the button "Select sheets to use" and from there select the desired layers with TBBs in them.

 

You could also check out the help site for more information about new functionality and workflows - http://app-help.vectorworks.net/2019/eng/index.htm#t=VW2019_Guide%2FSetup%2FTitle_Block_Manager.htm%23XREF_51932_Title_Block_Manager

 

Let me know if you have any more issues or questions and I will do my best to help with what I can. 🙂

 

Best Regards,

Nikolay Zhelyazkov

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Nikolay,

6 hours ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

Hello @Mik,

 

- Could you send me an example simple file of what is going wrong here and maybe an image showing what do you want to happen? 

Sending separately, thanks.

6 hours ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

- What exactly is your issue with the Sheet Number?

Sheet numbering appears in the format x of y sheets. Makes sense. In the TBM you can set the total number of sheets manually. But what sheet number any particular sheet is must be set in the sheet itself - I have been doing it from the Organization window since I read the post about checking the "Automatic Drawing Coordination" in Document Preferences. (Although I am not sure what all that setting is actually doing.)

Actually, automatic drawing coordination sounds like what would be helpful but either I am not using it properly or rather I see that phrase to mean something like I recommend as follows.

If this manual process of applying sheet numbers is the only way we can number the sheets in a set, it seems rather clumsy to me. During the course of a project development, any number of sheets may be created and added to the project. And where they go in sequence may change. Wouldn't it be easier if there was a toggle on each sheet for "Include" or not in an output set? Then VW can automatically arrange them numbered in sequence from the stacking order in the Organization window.

And this leads to the cover sheet index list. I have started to try to set that up with the little spreadsheet so that the index reflects the actual sheets in use after reading through its documentation. I am not finished with that but it looks like it is limited as well.

Again, if we could just "toggle" in a sheet for an output list, VW could not only number them from the stacking order but list them in an index. Why not make things more direct and easy to understand like that?

(And please forgive me if you can actually somehow do this and I am completely ignorant of it!)

 

6 hours ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

- You see that window when you have multiple files opened and you are opening the TBManager from your active file. The TBManager is designed to work with multiple TBBs at the same time and not only with the active file but with other opened or not opened files. That is why you get that question. If you are going to use the Manager for the active file only, you could simply select the checkbox to always do the selected action and press "Load active file only".

 

Okay. The terminology makes sense to me now. And the reason it was doing this was because every time I load VW, it opens a blank "Untitled" file. I have been just ignoring that and now understand it is triggering this window about multiple files. Can we set VW to stop opening up blank files?

 

6 hours ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

 

- We have all the information about the active file all the time. If you want to load the information in the TBManager about other files, that are currently opened in the VW session, VW will have to switch back and forth to these files in order to load this information in the TBManager. The "currently opened files" are like the tabs in your web browser that you have opened. You could have multiple tabs opened but only one is active and visible to you - the active one. The same goes for the files in VW.

Understood.

 

6 hours ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

- As the TBManager could be editing files that are not opened and not loaded for it, it could not know how many TBBs are there in a single layer. That is why we use the term "sheet" for the selection in the TBManager, as you could be editing one sheet but it could have many TBBs in it so you are actually editing multiple TBBs at the same time. If you want to change the sheets, which the TBManager is editing, you could do this by clicking the button "Select sheets to use" and from there select the desired layers with TBBs in them.

Okay now I think this is a good example of where sophistication is becoming complication.

Having multiple title blocks for the same sheet may be something that is routine for some but I am guessing most of us use only one title block on a sheet. I never imagined having many for one sheet.

 

6 hours ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

You could also check out the help site for more information about new functionality and workflows - http://app-help.vectorworks.net/2019/eng/index.htm#t=VW2019_Guide%2FSetup%2FTitle_Block_Manager.htm%23XREF_51932_Title_Block_Manager

 

Let me know if you have any more issues or questions and I will do my best to help with what I can. 🙂

 

Best Regards,

Nikolay Zhelyazkov

 

Thank you Nikolay for your effective answers. I learned from this already.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
13 minutes ago, Mik said:

I have been doing it from the Organization window since I read the post about checking the "Automatic Drawing Coordination" in Document Preferences. (Although I am not sure what all that setting is actually doing.) 

- The Auto Drawing Coordination from Document preferences is responsible for uptading of TBBs, when the Sheet Number/Title of the Sheet Layers containing them were changed. The Auto Drawing Coordination in the TBB settings is responsible for updating the Sheet Layer's Number/Title, when they have been edited in the TBB.

 

It sounds to me that you could get a better use of the Sheet Data field Page Number, instead of using Sheet Number. The Page Number is displaying the Stacking Order of the TBBs that have "This Title Block is Active" checked, if "Auto Generate Page Number" is checked. You could also manually edit this field from the Manager if "Auto Generate Page Number" is not checked. Let me know if this gets the job done for you.

 

17 minutes ago, Mik said:

Can we set VW to stop opening up blank files?

- Yes. You simply have to uncheck "Create a new document on startup" in the Session pane of Vectorworks Preferences dialog.

 

изображение.png

 

19 minutes ago, Mik said:

Okay now I think this is a good example of where sophistication is becoming complication.

Having multiple title blocks for the same sheet may be something that is routine for some but I am guessing most of us use only one title block on a sheet. I never imagined having many for one sheet.

- If you work only in the active file, the TBManager will have all the information it needs and you should be able to distinguish the different TBBs in the dialog easily by the "Editing sheet" static text located in the top, if you are in single selection mode, as you have just 1 TBB in each sheet.

 

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

So I've been thinking that our old symbol based Title block may need to be re-evaluated as there seems to be more functionality with a newer title block. Then I read this post after looking at Help & Service Select (BTW, most recent HOW TO in the SS on this topic is for VW 2011,12 &13; so there's that).

 

After carefully re-reading @Mik 's original post, & the reply's I come away with the feeling I should just put this idea down, & step carefully away backwards. Yes I will have to give up on some functions, but the main one I was looking for; automating my drawing list, does not seem worth the bother (I now take a screen Grab of my sheets from the navigation pallet that takes about 2 minutes). 

 

@Mik 's Crit is still valid not just for this tool but for so many tools, we should have so many more WYSIWYG tools not more boxy-clicky-programmy-whammy stuff. I gets that some folks LOVE to write code but many more of us got into this game because we like to draw pictures; so there's that.

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1 hour ago, Jim Smith said:

I gets that some folks LOVE to write code but many more of us got into this game because we like to draw pictures; so there's that.

 

Can't hold me back from commenting this ( just some thoughts when I read this ) :

 

I fear it's the opposite that is the unavoidable reality,- the computer does the drawing and we have to learn the language the machine understands. Creativity with drawing pictures is only when you use pen and paper. Don't know how others do that, but actually my projects always start with some ideas scribbled on a piece of paper. Maybe someone here starts with freehand lines in VW ?

 

It's a crazy brave new world we are in. I fear we are the last generation that has the chance to understand what the machines do since the machines are not (yet) perfect with WYSIWYG. Later generations will only have WYSIWYG and they will belive that this is the real world.

 

Edited by halfcouple
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5 hours ago, halfcouple said:

 

Creativity with drawing pictures is only when you use pen and paper.

 

Like you I carry a sketch book & a pen with me at all times, you never know when inspiration will strike or when one needs to communicate with a sketch. I need to work lots of ideas out on paper before committing to VW. 

6 hours ago, halfcouple said:

I fear it's the opposite that is the unavoidable reality,- the computer does the drawing and we have to learn the language the machine understands.

This reminds me of an article I read years ago about Auto Pilot systems were designed backwards; ie the Pilots were often doing the boring repetitive stuff & the Nav system was doing the fun flying part that humans were good at. 

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