v.2020 now available

[Tom Klaber]

I am partly excited that this release is not chalked full of new tools - as it might mean that energy was spent on the back of house stuff - but a bigger part of me is saddened that there is not more to be excited about.  I am scared that these even more cartoonish icons constitute a UI refresh in VW's mind.  Why the half measure? 

 

Our friends in lighting and entertainment seem to have a lot more to be excited about for 2020.  I have mentioned this before - but I am scared that VW is slowly shifting to an entertainment-focused software.   

 

The architecture video is pretty sad - concentrating so much on inline / in-menu editing - which is great - but long overdue.  

 

Heres hoping that the new stair tool and UI just take a couple of years to get right and we will have a landmark release in 2021.

[mjm]

42 minutes ago, Tom Klaber said:

I am partly excited that this release is not chalked full of new tools - as it might mean that energy was spent on the back of house stuff - but a bigger part of me is saddened that there is not more to be excited about.  I am scared that these even more cartoonish icons constitute a UI refresh in VW's mind.  Why the half measure? 

 

Our friends in lighting and entertainment seem to have a lot more to be excited about for 2020.  I have mentioned this before - but I am scared that VW is slowly shifting to an entertainment-focused software.   

 

The architecture video is pretty sad - concentrating so much on inline / in-menu editing - which is great - but long overdue.  

 

Heres hoping that the new stair tool and UI just take a couple of years to get right and we will have a landmark release in 2021.

Stabilty first and foremost. If that what this means, I'll be skied!

[rb-arch]

The status bar / message bar update that would show progress for saving, saving committing, updating viewports etc. doesn't work on my Mac.  Pretty annoying and I hope they didn't take away that functionality.  

[Christiaan]

3 hours ago, mjm said:

Stabilty first and foremost. If that what this means, I'll be skied!

 

Put it this way, I converted a couple of important projects during beta testing and I have the whole office running SP0 today with all current projects converted to 2020.

 

There'll be some glitches that I haven't come across of course but I've been hitting deadlines without 2020 ever getting in the way.

 

P.S. on top of that I'm running macOS 10.15 beta

Edited September 10, 2019 by Christiaan

[ThreeDot]

You’ve had better luck than I have. I converted a simple 2D file to 2020. Within the first minute, I selected an object and hit the M key to move. Apparently 2020 does not migrate custom keyboard shortcuts. The M key toggled to multi-view mode and froze my computer. Vectorworks, macOS, and iMac were completely unresponsive. No beach ball. Nothing. I had to force reboot with a physical button on my iMac. It’s been years since I’ve had to force reboot with a hardware button. Yikes.

[TKA]

that's strange, I installed 2020 today for testing and the first that came up was 2020 asking what do I want to migrate with options for workspaces, shortcuts, libraries etc

 

[Matt Overton]

Are "Great Sections" really great or still grating?

Odd the What's new for Great sections shows a plan but says nothing about the ability to cut a horizontal section.

Either marketing misunderstood or that is the hidden gem.

 

I suspect the former given there are no examples of said "great sections" and it would be trival to show the improvement.

 

 

Also maybe I misunderstood as I don't do a lot of intense 3D modelling but isn't "History based modelling" already mostly a thing just with more history. You still have to walk the tree of operations and deal with alignment changes on the way back up again. 

Edited September 10, 2019 by Matt Overton

[ThreeDot]

I have the same workspace profile on two machines (MacBook Pro and iMac). I installed 2020 on both machines and got different migration results. I reset and rebuilt the workspace, but I thought that was odd.

[Andy Broomell]

53 minutes ago, Matt Overton said:

Also maybe I misunderstood as I don't do a lot of intense 3D modelling but isn't "History based modelling" already mostly a thing just with more history. You still have to walk the tree of operations and deal with alignment changes on the way back up again. 

 

History-based modeling didn't exist at all (sans ungrouping) for certain object types, such as 3D fillets, chamfers, and shells. Having this is HUGE in my book. It brings these tools in line with other 3D tools that already had history-based modeling.

[SeanOSkea]

9 hours ago, Tom Klaber said:

 

Our friends in lighting and entertainment seem to have a lot more to be excited about for 2020.  I have mentioned this before - but I am scared that VW is slowly shifting to an entertainment-focused software.   

 

Funny, I was thinking just the opposite. Doesn't seem like there is much there for Entertainment either. 

[SeanOSkea]

12 hours ago, Andy Broomell said:

The OpenGL speed improvements that were discussed in a Teaser Tuesday are immediately noticeable. I was able to load a complex model in OpenGL and navigate much more quickly than in previous versions, which is a welcomed improvement!

 

All of the icons in the program were redrawn. Some for the better, some will take some getting used to. Looking forward to that full UI redesign some day!

I wish they would let the marketing people redesign the UI. Everything looks so cool in the commercials. 

[SeanOSkea]

@Jim W Wait? What?! Jim W has left Vectorworks! Oh for F sake. The best person in the tech support has left. This is a sad day. 

[Kevin McAllister]

58 minutes ago, SeanOSkea said:

I wish they would let the marketing people redesign the UI. Everything looks so cool in the commercials. 

That happens every year..... many of us have wished for the same in the past 🙂

 

Kevin

 

[Andrew Davies]

1 hour ago, SeanOSkea said:

@Jim W Wait? What?! Jim W has left Vectorworks! Oh for F sake. The best person in the tech support has left. This is a sad day. 

 

I’m afraid he left a while ago. Teaser Tuesdays just weren’t the same this year. He is still lurking on the forums somewhere. A bit like the Loch Ness monster. He’s there - but you rarely see him. 

[Andrew Davies]

34 minutes ago, Kevin McAllister said:

That happens every year..... many of us have wished for the same in the past 🙂

 

Kevin

 

 

I thought it was less obvious this year.  I seem to remember 2019 installer showing lots of lovely looking UI boxes - only to finish and leave you staring at the same old UI from the 1990’s. Quite shocking really. 

 

I haven’t noticed it as much this year. 

 

That said - I really like dark mode on the Mac.  That’s a big improvement for me. 

 

[line-weight]

8 hours ago, Andy Broomell said:

 

History-based modeling didn't exist at all (sans ungrouping) for certain object types, such as 3D fillets, chamfers, and shells. Having this is HUGE in my book. It brings these tools in line with other 3D tools that already had history-based modeling.

 

I wonder if this will have any effect on the tendency for objects with a 'long' history to at some point go bad, and start refusing certain 3d operations. I tend to "convert to generic solids" at fairly regular intervals in an attempt to avoid this - losing the history.

[barkest]

27 minutes ago, line-weight said:

I wonder if this will have any effect on the tendency for objects with a 'long' history to at some point go bad, and start refusing certain 3d operations. I tend to "convert to generic solids" at fairly regular intervals in an attempt to avoid this - losing the history.

 

Longer history affects performance and converting to solids would be the right approach. For more complex objects I tend to copy them and move them out of the way just in case I have to amend them. The new history update is good news but its more of an extension rather than a brand new option (that's the way I see it). Very welcome addition although as you say it can lead to issues.

[Tom Klaber]

11 hours ago, SeanOSkea said:

Funny, I was thinking just the opposite. Doesn't seem like there is much there for Entertainment either. 

The grass is always lusher!

[Taproot]

After a day of testing out version 2020, my overall experience is positive.

 

A bunch of us have been asking the software team to forego new features in exchange for quality, ease of use, stability, better implementation of existing tools, etc.

While there is still so much on the "wish list," this release suggests that shift is in fact happening.

 

Core Improvements

Stability:  The fact that Christiaan feels comfortable enough to migrate the whole office to a SP0 release says a lot.

File Size:  We're finding about a 40% compression rate for our files.  Removing the excess and making the file structure leaner is great engineering IMHO.

Dark Mode & Retooled Icons:  Demonstrates that there is an awareness to updating the user interface and experience.

Rendering Speed Enhancement:  Open GL is snappy - Moving about the model now feels like it should.  Wow good job on that one!

 

Hope for future tool refinement:

After studying the new door tool, the barn door functionality that was added appears to be a direct integration of the Marionette tool that was developed and posted elsewhere on this site.  If I am right in that regard, that means that the engineering team is using graphical scripting to code the standard tools AND that strikes me as a game changer for future tool development.  For example doors and windows can be constructed using if/then conditions versus all fixed parameters, etc. 

 

I think the team is laying the groundwork for some breakthrough implementation of things like the Door / Window / Stair tools that we have been asking for.  Perhaps, I'm being overly optimistic, but that seems like the natural progression of where this strategy is headed.

 

Challenges:

Not every implementation is perfect yet. 

• When switching to dark mode the text associated with my tool pallets doesn't toggle from black to white (or white to black) so it effectively disappears.  Fortunately, you can overcome this by entering the workspace editor and toggling the settings.  Once the workspace resets the screen condition it works fine.

• The Notes Manager can now list the notes with the Note Description as the list # - that is awesome (as in we can finally add CSI ID's or office standard addressing to our note blocks).  However, it took a bunch of steps back at the same time.

1. In 2019, the database note selection and note block organization were in one window, making the addition and organization of notes easy.  Now, they are in separate windows and the interface is cumbersome.
2. You can no longer add multiple notes at once, but instead have to add them one by one.  Imagine that I'm using this tool for my sheet specs ... way too slow.
3. Every time that you add a note, it forgets your current note database and requires you to reselect it...

More to explore...

 

[Jim W]

11 hours ago, SeanOSkea said:

@Jim W Wait? What?! Jim W has left Vectorworks! Oh for F sake. The best person in the tech support has left. This is a sad day. 

SEAN IM SORRY! 

 

I still lurk indeed! But I was by no means the best. The guys in tech support were miles ahead of where I had been when I was a tech, we built a lot of systems for sharing knowledge and discussion in my time there, they've got you. I was just possibly the noisiest member of support, lol.

[Jim W]

7 hours ago, line-weight said:

 

I wonder if this will have any effect on the tendency for objects with a 'long' history to at some point go bad, and start refusing certain 3d operations. I tend to "convert to generic solids" at fairly regular intervals in an attempt to avoid this - losing the history.

I know I heard discussion of how to make history based model objects much healthier than the older ones, but I never got to see the guts of what came out in 2020. I know they did have that top of mind in development talks.

 

I always converted to generic solids as well before exporting for a 3D print, but that was needed less and less in the later versions. Since I don't use modeling software in my daily work now I haven't seen what 2020 can do in person. I'd have loved to be able to keep each history aspect for powerful editing later and I wanna see about trying out 2020 myself at some point! Maybe I'll take a college class and get a student license. 👨‍🎓

[SeanOSkea]

@Andrew Davies Hey Andrew could you put up a screenshot of the dark mode for all us poor PC users? I'm just curious what it looks like. 

SO 

[SeanOSkea]

@Jim W Well, maybe there were people in the office who knew more than you, but you were always amazingly fast and helpful with your responses. I can't get over seeing the rank "Greenhorn" above the name Jim W! Good luck on your new adventures. 

Sean 

[Andrew Davies]

11 minutes ago, SeanOSkea said:

@Andrew Davies Hey Andrew could you put up a screenshot of the dark mode for all us poor PC users? I'm just curious what it looks like. 

SO 

Hey Sean - here you go!

 

I really like it - some of the icons (the linear dimension tools) could do with a bit of work, but on the whole I think it's great.  A breath of fresh air, long overdue!

 

A couple of flaws (odd that) - in some of the dialogue boxes, the row you have selected doesn't show up.  Hopefully that will be fixed, though it doesn't cause too much of an issue.  Bit sloppy though.

(PS - I enjoyed your tutorial videos by the way)

[Christiaan]

1 hour ago, Taproot said:

After studying the new door tool, the barn door functionality that was added appears to be a direct integration of the Marionette tool that was developed and posted elsewhere on this site.  If I am right in that regard, that means that the engineering team is using graphical scripting to code the standard tools AND that strikes me as a game changer for future tool development.  For example doors and windows can be constructed using if/then conditions versus all fixed parameters, etc.

 

That's interesting. How can you tell?