Font Size of Equipment Item (in Rack Elevation)

[CHA]

Whenever I have (physical) smaller devices in the Rack Elevation Layer the automated labelling of the Equipment Item's Name gets in the way of the Make and Model, as shown in the screenshot below.

The font attributes of the Name can easily be edited via the Text drop down in the top bar.

Where do I edit these attributes for the other label?

 

THX,

Chris

 

[Kevin Krautle]

I don't think you can currently set that size right now. You can change the font by creating a text style, and assigning it to the Sys-Equip-Front Class which might help your cause.

[Conrad Preen]

Hi Christian,

 

Select the Equipment Items to change and use the Font > Size menu to adjust. You'll probably have to set a really small size because of the layer scaling.

 

Conrad

[CHA]

Hi Conrad,

 

Maybe I didn't explain too well, or you have read too quick...

 

I attached a picture of a full rack size item where the problem doesn't appear, but it's easier to see what I mean:

 

The Text drop down menu affects only the name (red circle), but I want to change the font size of Make and Model (green circle).

When you have a physical smaller device (e.g. half rack) these two labels overlap each other and I want to avoid this by using smaller text size.

 

Regards,

Christian

 

 

[Conrad Preen]

Hi Christian,

 

Thanks for clarifying. The idea with this is that the Equipment Item should automatically adjust font size to fit the box and maintain readability. Once the Make Model text gets too small it should automatically be dropped leaving only the Name. I think we have a case here that defeated us. Is this in the file you sent me?

 

Conrad

[Conrad Preen]

So, yes I can see the issue there even in our latest research build. Let me ask you to play software designer for a moment.

 

What do you think the rules should be for sizing and displaying Name and Make-Model? At the moment we fit the Name into the top 1U of rack-mount equipment. That seems to give a nice consistent size for Name. Make-Model is sized to go into 1U like this:

 

Make
Model

 

Right justified if the Name is Left or Center, left justified if the Name is Right. The problems begin around 1U high half-rack size. We can't shrink text indefinitely it becomes unreadable. Should we simply drop the Make-Model in that case?

 

What do you think?

 

Conrad

[CHA]

19 minutes ago, Conrad Preen said:

Should we simply drop the Make-Model in that case?

 

What do you think?

That's +1 for dropping.

 

Name is the 1st/main indicator.

Make&Model or details and can be viewed when the item is selected.

[CHA]

I'm not starting a new thread, because I think this definitely has the same topic "Font Size of Equipment Item (in Rack Elevation)", even though it feels like a different bug compared to the behaviour described above.

 

After updating rack elevation all drawn equipment appears in the rack elevation layer, but not all drawn equipment lives in racks.

On that layer I create layout rooms with racks and place the rack equipment in the racks. (as probably everybody)

The other equipment I put into the dedicated rooms more or less where they do appear in the real room.

With equipment in the racks I can edit the font (for me important is the font size) via the font drop down menu. The equipment not sitting in racks are not editable. 

Even worse: if I move any of that equipment through the room the font and equipment size jumps unwanted to something completely new.

(The equipment in these rooms was put together in VW19 and then exported to VW20 looking fine.)

 

In the attached file you see what happens to a piece of equipment (high lighted) after moving it one pixel, ending up uneditable.

After putting the item into a rack, edit it in there, then I can move it in the room and it stays as edited.

[Conrad Preen]

Thanks Christian,

 

Entering a bug for that. The equipment item in Vectorworks 2020 has a new checkbox Draw in Front View which is automatically set if the equipment is in a rack and is an option outside of rack. If this is checked the font size is adjustable with the menu - if not it isn't, and yes that's a bug.

 

Conrad

[CHA]

13 minutes ago, Conrad Preen said:

The equipment item in Vectorworks 2020 has a new checkbox Draw in Front View which is automatically set if the equipment is in a rack and is an option outside of rack. If this is checked the font size is adjustable with the menu -

 

Thank you @Conrad Preen. For my workflow I can work around the bug with the checkbox.