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Speed Improvements to Title Block Border (Multi-Thread process)


Amorphous - Julian

Question

We want our titleblock to list all the drawings which we want to issue. 

So we have to tick the option 'This Titleblock is Active' 

This is a 30-second process, PER DRAWING! See enclosed video. 

10 drawings is 300 seconds, or 5 minutes. 
100 drawings is close to one hour. 
Please improve. 

 

Edited by Amorphous - Julian
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Hi @Nikolay Zhelyazkov

 

(1) FOLLOWING UP ON TITLEBLOCK IMPROVEMENTS 

 

Following our conversation back in October 2019, I want to check-in to see what has been implemented to speed up the performance of Titleblock?

 

Our conversation at that time revolved around multi-threading the processes related to titleblock. At that time, you pointed out if titleblocks needs to be sequentially numbered (1 of 20, 2 of 20), then mulit-threading woudln't work. 

 

We later established this was the only sequential operation of the titleblock, and if the choice was to trade speed and performance for it, it is better to forego this sequential numbering. 

 

Do you have any updates to share with us on improving Titleblock performance?

 

(2) BIG ISSUE WITH TITLEBLOCK IN PROJECT SHARING

 

I would like to take this opportunity to point out a significant issue when using titleblock in 'Project Sharing'. 

 

If a user (User 1) wants to make changes to any Titleblock, while any other Titleblock is checked out by another user (User 2). An error message prompt appears for 'User 1' to cancel the operation. 

 

Upon 'Cancel', Vectorworks will try to 'undo' the steps 'User 1' has made to Titleblock. We get the spinning beachball. 

 

This process will last for AT LEAST 10 minutes. Sometimes it doesn't end and we have to force quit. See below video for partial video. 

 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Hello @Amorphous - Julian,

 

37 minutes ago, Amorphous - Julian said:

(1) FOLLOWING UP ON TITLEBLOCK IMPROVEMENTS 

- I can only tell you that there are no planned improvements on the TBB for VW2020 or any of its coming service packs. I will try to analyze this as soon as the time allows and will let you know of the results.

 

40 minutes ago, Amorphous - Julian said:

(2) BIG ISSUE WITH TITLEBLOCK IN PROJECT SHARING

- If you are not changing anything affecting all TBBs, such as Document Options or Project Data or adding/deleting fields of Sheet Data, you should not be required to check out more than the edited TBB. Could you tell me the exact steps you are doing? Keep in mind that the TBManager is for multi TBB changes and is always requiring all TBBs in the file to be checked out.

 

Best Regards,

Nikolay Zhelyazkov

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3 hours ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

Could you tell me the exact steps you are doing?

 

It just happened to me again now.

The exact steps was: I attempted to re-ordering layer stacking order in the Navigation Panel, and I had an error message stating that this will affect titleblock objects which is checked out to someone else. 

 

So I have to 'cancel' the operation. 

 

Upon 'cancel', Vectorworks has gone into spinning beach ball. 

 

It seems as though NO MATTER WHAT THE STEPS ARE, if I 'Cancel' an operation that has anything to do with titleblocks, Vectorworks will give the spinning-beach-ball for 10 minutes or more.


Just to be clear. Any action that requires 'Cancel' operation to affecting Titleblock Object will make me wait for at least 10 minutes of spinning beach ball. 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Hello @Amorphous - Julian,

 

Changing the stacking order of the layers changes the Page Number of the Sheet Data, which is requiring all of the TBBs to be checked out.

 

As a workaround for now, you could try working with TBBs that have This Title Block is Active not checked, which should speed up most of the operations but also disable the auto TBB data syncing.

 

Best Regards,

Nikolay Zhelyazkov

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With @Boh's worksheet above (thanks boh!) we were able to turn off 'This Titleblock is Active' very quickly

But @Nikolay Zhelyazkov we are still not getting speed improvements. 

If Vectorworks is only designed for projects with 50 or less pages of drawings , then please let me know because this would definitely NOT be the software my company should grow with. 


If Vectorworks is intended for any scale of projects, with the ability to handle hundreds of pages of drawing, then @Nikolay Zhelyazkov please improve your Titleblock PIO so it can handle that amount of Titleblock data efficiently. This needs to happen quite soon for us (we have lots of drawings) 

 

On 2/19/2020 at 3:52 PM, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

there are no planned improvements on the TBB for VW2020 or any of its coming service packs.


So, unfortunately I need a better answer than this. 


Thanks. 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Hello @Amorphous - Julian,

 

Thank you for your feedback again!

 

I have thought about your issues and here are my suggestions that I want you to consider and let me know if you are ok with them:

 

1) Add This Title Block is Active in the TBB Preferences dialog. This will allow you to create inactive TBBs if you want to, which will create immediately, without any waiting time.

2) Add This Title Block is Active in the TBManager dialog. Having it there will allow you to modify this state from one place for multiple TBBs simultaneously. The idea here is to make the TBManager the best place for making bulk changes to TBBs and apply them at once.

3) Improve the way TBManager handles and applies changes, so that it becomes faster. That way, for example, clicking on Cancel should take a few seconds, not more than 5-10. Clicking on OK will still take some more time, if there are general changes that affect record definitions or document options, but this time should be less than before I hope.

 

Let me know if you agree with these suggestions and I will keep you informed with what I can.

 

Best Regards,

Nikolay Zhelyazkov

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54 minutes ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

1) Add This Title Block is Active in the TBB Preferences dialog. This will allow you to create inactive TBBs if you want to, which will create immediately, without any waiting time.

 

Love this 

 

54 minutes ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

2) Add This Title Block is Active in the TBManager dialog. Having it there will allow you to modify this state from one place for multiple TBBs simultaneously. The idea here is to make the TBManager the best place for making bulk changes to TBBs and apply them at once.

 

Love this 

 

55 minutes ago, Nikolay Zhelyazkov said:

3) Improve the way TBManager handles and applies changes, so that it becomes faster. That way, for example, clicking on Cancel should take a few seconds, not more than 5-10. Clicking on OK will still take some more time, if there are general changes that affect record definitions or document options, but this time should be less than before I hope.

 

Yes please! Love it!

 

If you can implement all of the above, @Nikolay Zhelyazkov, it would be much appreciated.

 

Do you think these can come through in 2020SP4?

In the long run though, if you can think of multi-threading the process to make it even more efficient, it would be best. 

Thanks for your prompt response. 


Regards, 


Julian

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@Nikolay Zhelyazkov if possible, can you also make the Titleblock Manager PIO to check for permission conflicts (Project Share) before any operations, instead of at the very end of operations. 

Because of the slowness of the operations, we often will do the step-by-step process of adding 'issues', which takes up to 15 minutes. 

If, only at the very end after clicking 'ok', that the PIO checks for permission, then we would have wasted 15 minute.

 

This happens to us quite often. And it happened again tonight. 

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