tool selection precision

[jameson]

when selecting tools i'll click on the tool thinking it's selected and click on the drawing to use that tool only to find it wasn't selected. I then have to click on the tool very slowly and deliberately to activate it. VW is the only software i use that has this problem. has anyone else encountered this and were you able to correct it? also my "move" dialog box sometimes allows me to tab through the fields, and other times it won't and i must click in the fields to enter info. These are very annoying glitches to me that affect my steady work flow. Any tips?

[jameson]

robert, thanks, windows XP, VW 11.5.1, pentium IV - 3 ghz, 1 gig ram

[Robert Anderson]

jameson, what platform are you on, what VW version, what CPU speed, etc?

[Guest]

Have you recently (within the last 4 or 5 months) updated your video driver?

[jameson]

thanks katie, i have never knowingly updated my video driver

[Guest]

I would start with doing that - it's likely the culprit to the problem you are having.

Please let me know if you need help with this procedure.

[jameson]

Katie, thanks, yes help would be appreciated.

[Guest]

Right click on the desktop and select Properties.

Click on the Settings Tab

Click on the Advanced button

Click on the Adapter Tab

This section should show you the video card manufacture and model.

If it says Nvidia GeForce FX, then Nvidia is the manufacture and GeForce is the model.

Go to Nvidia.com (or whatever the manufacturer is)

and follow the steps for downloading the driver.

If you can't find the downloads, I'll need your manufacture and model video card info.

[jameson]

thanks katie, update sucsessful, i'll let you know if it fixes my problem

[jameson]

after working in VW for a bit it seems the problem is still there and it must be something particular to my setup because it seems no one else has these problems. i do notice a slight improvement. my video driver is radeon x300 series and i downloaded ATI catalyst control center radeon driver bundle. any other suggestions.

[alanmac]

John

I think it would be wise to mention, as you did before, that this problem is only occuring in Vectorworks.

It's all very well recommending updating drivers and ensuring service packs, OS is up to date, and its good advice from Katie, but if the problem only manifests itself in VW clearly its to do with VW and how its working with your system.

I would try a re install of VW, making sure all traces of original are gone.

Does this happen straight away or after a period of time. I'm thinking of memory issues others have experience before now.

One other area to check, is what mouse are you using. My cordless one was affected by a cordless digital phone stood close by to the receiver unit. Just a long shot, especially as you say it's only VW that has this problem.

Alan

[ 12-21-2005, 03:31 PM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

[Guest]

I think you have sufficient memory in the computer for the purpose of VW along iwth other software packages.

Are you using a custom workspace or one of the standard workspaces?

If you are using your own, try to switch to one of the standard workspaces and see if the problem persists.

I noticed you said that others in the office are not having the same problem. Do they have the same computer as you? (type, video card, version of VW, etc.)

The description of the problem tends to lean towards a display issue, if this is the only area of slow downs while using VectorWorks. This is why I asked you to check the video drivers. Once we've knocked that out of the way, the next is to evaluate workspaces, since menus and tools are directly liked to the workspace definition.

It's likely you would notice this in other applications if the other apps running are not heavy on display or CPU processing. It's not uncommon to see a problem related to drivers/hardware only happen in VW since most people are not running multiple applications that rely heavily on display or hardware such as VectorWorks does.

Out of curiosity -

How often do you restart the computer?

What other applications are you running alognside VW?

Are you running any anti-virus software such as MacAffee or Norton?

[alanmac]

Hi Katie

If the first line of your reply was in response to my mentioning memory issues, this was not refering to the amount of ram installed, although this of course is important and 1 GB should I thought be fine.

It was in reference to some users experiencing what has been described as memory leakage, whereby the longer they are in VW the slower it gets to the point of unusability with only closing the program and restarting it sees it return to speed, but slows the longer in the program needing the same action to get it usable again.

Looking into their systems they were seeing the memory usage just continue to climb rather than rise and fall as normal.

I don't know if a successful outcome came to these issues raised.

Alan

[ 12-21-2005, 05:27 PM: Message edited by: alanmac ]

[jameson]

Katie and Alan, thank you for your input. Yes, these slow down problems don't start happening until I've been working in VW for 10 or 15 minutes. I had to remove the video driver I installed yesterday because it caused my system to freeze up upon startup. My mouse is corded MS optical. I use the architect workspace. I shutdown system at night and re-start in the morning. I am usually running outlook and may have some office applications running concurrently as well as explorer. I also have MacAffee running also.

[Guest]

Try turning MacAffee off and running VectorWorks. If the security of MacAffee is set really high, 10-15 minutes after VW launches is about the perfect time for MacAffee to start to scan VW.

If turning MacAffee off reduces or eliminates the problem, it's likely the virus software is set really high and could be turned down a few notches. You may also be able to set a rule for MacAffee to ignore VectorWorks.

[jameson]

thanks katie, i'll give it a shot

[jameson]

turning MacAffee off makes no difference. VW runs fine at first but more problems show up the longer it is running. examples:

a) must click on tools 2 or 3 times before they become selected.

b) some dialog boxes (move for instance) won't allow tabbing through fields.

c) must deselect a newly created object then select it before adding line thickness or fill attributes (most notable in 2D polygon tool).

i must say though that VW really fulfills my CAD needs and fixing these little quirks would just make things that much nicer for me.

thanks

[ErichR]

Try setting undos to 0,

Set active layer to Top/2D View,

Set rendering to Wireframe,

Activate one layer at a time,

Work locally, not on a network-based file

Edit or draw from within a group or a symbol, so that you are otherwise isolated from the drawing file.

If any of these suggestions help, then the drawing or layer is too complex or VW is constantly trying to render.

Curved polygons (site contours) take up lots of processing time for me. So do complex 3d objects.

[ 12-29-2005, 09:01 PM: Message edited by: ErichR ]