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Consistent Visual language in dropdown menus and pallets.


nwfonseca

Question

We could use a more consistent visual language with regards to drop down menus and pallets. For instance, in the Navigation Pallet the last thing you clicked on is highlighted grey and Bold rather than the current active Saved View, Class, Layer, etc. In the main taskbar at the top of the screen the layer drop down highlights the layer you are on in bold and with grey "highlight" over it. That is very concrete about which layer you are on and is active. However, that visual language is not consistent across drop down menus. Working planes are only Bold, Saved Views have no indication, Classes are the same as layers.

 

It would be helpful if the current saved view etc. that you are in or are active were highlighted and used consistently throughout menus. I have on occasion accidentally selected the view just above or below the one I am on and redefined its properties instead as that is the one highlighted. Not the end of the world, but busy work to fix nonetheless.

 

OS: Windows 10

Vectorworks Version: 2020

Edited by nwfonseca
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3 minutes ago, Pat Stanford said:

Saved Views are not a state of the drawing. They are only a script that runs and changes the settings.

 

So it really doesn't make sense to indicate which Saved View was run last because as soon as you change something then you are lying to yourself about what the settings are.

That depends on what is saved in the view. I have often used it as the equivalent of the layer states in DWG, i.e. to save multiple sets of different visibilities of classes and layers. The other thing I have used it for is to quickly navigate from area of a site to another area kilometres away without having to pan/zoom etc.

 

Yes, if you are in a saved view and then turn a class on or off then the saved view is no longer an accurate representation of its settings. In that case the saved view could lose its highlight or e.g. have its name become italic to indicate there has been a change to its settings.

If it also includes a view then it gets a bit more complicated on when/how it would still be useful to indicate the saved view is no longer current depending on what else has changed.

 

This could be solved by having an option when saving the view to indicate that it should somehow show that a change from the saved view has occurred. In case of layers/classes visibility this could be useful to see, in case of view differences after panning there is probably not much to be gained by showing it has changed.

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21 minutes ago, Pat Stanford said:

Saved Views are not a state of the drawing. They are only a script that runs and changes the settings.

 

So it really doesn't make sense to indicate which Saved View was run last because as soon as you change something then you are lying to yourself about what the settings are.

We use saved views to navigate to and create different views in separate galleries for doing live walk-throughs. If I make a change to the viewer height, camera angle etc. of a specific view I redefine to save the view. If I am in a view named gallery "gallery 2 looking north as an example" and I change the camera angle and viewer height in that saved view and need to redefine the view to save the change and I accidentally redefine the wrong view say, "gallery 3 looking south" for instance, we end up with "gallery 3 looking south" as a duplicate of "gallery 2 looking north" If I could easily have visual confirmation in the pallet of what scene I was "in" it would make it easier to be sure I was selecting the correct view. For us, each saved view is a state of seeing a view.

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I understand what you WANT saved views to be. But that is not what the ARE.

 

If all you want is a marker of what the last saved view applied was, that could be reasonable. To have the marker go away when the user makes a change that invalidates the saved view is probably not as VW would have to check the Viewport after every click and menu command in the drawing.

 

It is not an easy problem to provide functionality without also slowing down the program.

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As Pat says, no matter what you will never be "in" a Saved View even if you think of it that way.

 

However, I agree with your original sentiment that it might be helpful to have an indication of the most recently-activated Saved View. I seem to remember that before the Saved View dropdown was redone a version or two ago it did show that somehow, maybe it stayed bold? Not positive though.

 

 

Regardless, if this were implemented it would actually make more sense to not be indicated the same way Active Class and Active Layer are, since it's an inherently different concept. Perhaps some sort of "recent" icon.

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1 hour ago, Pat Stanford said:

If all you want is a marker of what the last saved view applied was, that could be reasonable.

 

 

That is exactly what I am asking for. Or more technically a marker of what I currently have selected. Usually when you select something there is visual feedback for what you select. You sort of get the feedback I mention in the navigation pallet if you right click>activate but if you activate a saved view from the drop down menu at the top of the page it doesn't change in the navigation pallet and the previously activated view is left highlighted. If you look at every drop down menu on the upper task bar that has a twin in the navigation pallet, what you select in each will highlight or be selected in the navigation pallet, one to one with the exception of saved views. You end up with muscle memory from the other drop downs that translate over to saved views in the navigation pallet. I understand that you can't technically be "in" a saved view, but it reads that way in app and in instructional videos from VW. In the meantime I'll just train myself to only select saved views in the navigation pallet to reduce confusion

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You might also enjoy the Saved View "Script Palette" which can be turned on under the Window menu, just below the current filename there's a flyout called Script Palettes. Turn on Saved Views. With this palette you can double click a Saved View and the most recent one activated via that palette stays highlighted in grey. (It's still the case that it doesn't sync to the other Saved View lists though)

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18 hours ago, Andy Broomell said:

You might also enjoy the Saved View "Script Palette" which can be turned on under the Window menu, just below the current filename there's a flyout called Script Palettes. Turn on Saved Views. With this palette you can double click a Saved View and the most recent one activated via that palette stays highlighted in grey. (It's still the case that it doesn't sync to the other Saved View lists though)

Cool, I haven't seen that pallet before. These applications are completely insane, there seems to be no end to what you can learn. Unfortunately, in university you learn on a specific application. Then you find employer who uses an application you haven't worked with and you are dumped straight into doing the job and you learn as you go. That is what I have been doing for the past 12 years, playing catch-up. Not to mention I am also a sculptor, so when I am not doing this I am trying keep that alive and raising children which doesn't leave a lot of time for learning new things. That is what is so invaluable about these forums, being able to tap into people who are far more knowledgeable. 

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