Can we have a statement on the window/door tools?

[Christiaan]

 

Is it possible to have a statement on why the window/door tools are not on the Roadmap, apart from wall returns? 

 

From the outside it's as if VW doesn't understand the importance of these tools. But that can't be the case.

https://forum.vectorworks.net/index.php?/topic/64381-window-and-door-tool-maturity/

 

Perhaps it's that there are other pieces that need to be in place first before changes can happen? If so, why is it taking more than a decade? Or perhaps your own canvassing of customers says windows/doors are not a priority? That would surprise me, but it's a big market.

 

Why is it acceptable, for instance, to continue releasing such an important tool year after year with a sill feature that doesn't do what it's designed to do, let alone what we need it to do? Or a window tool that can't schedule many common window sash types? Or a door tool that can't do a basic element of many buildings: bi-folding sliding doors?

Edited December 5, 2020 by Christiaan

[Matt Panzer]

I would say the roadmap is more of a general big picture of where we're headed, but it does not include everything we're planning and working on.  The work being done on walls will require work on the doors and windows in order for them to work together.  That is why that is mentioned in the roadmap along with wall stuff.  These changes must be done before we continue with other planned improvements.  That said, the issues you mention are very important to us and are certainly on the radar.

[Christiaan]

Thanks Matt, much appreciated.

[jnr]

Hey Christiaan:

 

Can we throw the piece of garbage that is the stair tool on the heaping mound of essential but neglected tools that never gets improved? I just looked at the roadmap. "in development"? Give me a break. It needs to be a priority. Competing CAD software is leaving this company in the dust for such an essential tool. At this rate another 10 years before it ever gets fixed/revamped. Wear me out.

[Christiaan]

Well the roadmap for the Stair Tool sounds awesome to me: "Stair Tool: Interactive editing & improved geometry."

 

Disappointing that it's not in the Scheduled section I guess, but there are some pretty big development tasks in that zone at the mo.

[jnr]

C --I agree that interactive editing and geometry is ideal, but when? Users have been screaming for years and Vectorworks' Nemetschek sister, Archicad, has had this for what, two years? WTF. As noted, users will take stability, interoperability (its and Autodesk world),  and existing tool improvement over the next Bling.  Year after year of marginalizing three important tools (doors, windows, stairs) for a major part of your user base,  feels like lip service by NNA with no change in course or direction, transparency or not. It's a bad business decision.

[DBrown]

On 2/19/2021 at 10:09 AM, jnr said:

C --I agree that interactive editing and geometry is ideal, but when? Users have been screaming for years and Vectorworks' Nemetschek sister, Archicad, has had this for what, two years? WTF. As noted, users will take stability, interoperability (its and Autodesk world),  and existing tool improvement over the next Bling.  Year after year of marginalizing three important tools (doors, windows, stairs) for a major part of your user base,  feels like lip service by NNA with no change in course or direction, transparency or not. It's a bad business decision.

I'm with you on that, all the others BIM applications have stairs that put our stair tool to shame, the other day one of the interns was saying that Vectorworks is like an old beta version of Revit....

[MarcelP102]

Still nothing about window and doors improvements in the updated roadmap. 😑

[bpsabatier]

I've mentioned this before, but it is worth repeating.  I tried Chief Architect a couple of years ago.  The interface was a bit weird getting used to, and the 2d capabilities were clunky at best.  And getting drawings to look a certain way was not its strong suit.  But one look at the tools for residential architecture, and it made you wonder why Vectorworks is consistently neglecting such a large base of their customers.  Doors and windows were completely customizable, with the capability to use trim profiles instead of a flat trim.  The stair tool, while not perfect, was years beyond what I am forced to work with everyday.  I could curve treads!  What a novel idea!  I could combine straight sections AND curved sections. Amazing!  Rooms (spaces) had trim work built in, with profile selections for baseboard and crown.  There was no need to draw it separately.  You simply assigned it to the room and it was done.  But to top it all off was their amazing cabinet tool.  Simply a joy to design with.

 

In the end, the complexity of the models we produced slowed the drawing files down and increased time to complete our drawing sets, so we abandoned the product in favor of what we knew.  But every year I search for something better due to VW's lack of attention to our needs.  I guess set designers rank higher on the pecking order.

 

One day, that time will come... and VW will see their market share drop within our community.  As I've suggested before, it would behoove the engineers at VW to purchase a copy of Chief Architect and steal the good ideas they have incorporated into that program.  And release it all at once, not in small increments to keep us on the yearly maintenance program that never fails to dash our hopes year after year.

 

That is my rant for the day.  

 

[Matt Panzer]

While I cannot disclose anything at the moment about future Door and Window improvements, I do want to make sure you know about the availability of the WinDoor plugin via the "Install Partner Products" command under the Help menu in Vectorworks.  To be clear, us acquiring and making WinDoor available does not mean we plan to ignore our built in tools in any way.  However, it does allow you to take advantage of what WinDoor has to offer right now.

 

The reason there are no new Door/Window configurations in Vectorworks 2022 is because our Door and Window object underwent significant under the hood changes in order to support the new component based insert location and wall closure (profiles and wrapping) features.  So, while you may not notice much "new" in the Door and Window interface, you should notice something new with how they interact with walls.  This all has to do with the wall reengineering efforts for Vectorworks 2022 that help lay the groundwork for future things to come.

[E|FA]

@Matt Panzer Thanks for keeping us informed to the level you are allowed to.  The acquisition of WinDoor coupled with the ongoing development of the native doors & windows raises the questions of what workflow to go with with a long term eye to the future.  While I'm intrigued with switching to the options available in WinDoor, it would be a waste of effort to transition to that workflow, only to see WinDoor being "legacied" as the native window & door objects continue to be developed, and then need to switch back.  

 

Can you comment on whether WinDoor will also see continuing development, or if using WinDoor should be seen as a stop gap until the planned native object enhancements are made.

[Matt Panzer]

58 minutes ago, E|FA said:

Can you comment on whether WinDoor will also see continuing development, or if using WinDoor should be seen as a stop gap until the planned native object enhancements are made.

 

Given that WinDoor is written in Vectorscript, I think it's safe to assume that we'll be focusing our efforts on improving our native objects.

[Itchy]

What is the plan going forward with the native door & window tools. Will we see updates with services packs, or do we need to wait for a full release? I have been playing around with the window tool, and have managed to get it to work in both 3D and 2D to suit my needs. Then trying to copy those same settings over to the door tool though and you can't copy between the two, and there are simple differences between the two (not able to have the architrave under sill/stool in the door) that mean I can't get it to look the same as the window, and will have to revert back to WinDoor again.
My hopes were built up with the window, and then came crashing down with the door...

[Matt Panzer]

9 hours ago, Itchy said:

What is the plan going forward with the native door & window tools. Will we see updates with services packs, or do we need to wait for a full release? I have been playing around with the window tool, and have managed to get it to work in both 3D and 2D to suit my needs. Then trying to copy those same settings over to the door tool though and you can't copy between the two, and there are simple differences between the two (not able to have the architrave under sill/stool in the door) that mean I can't get it to look the same as the window, and will have to revert back to WinDoor again.
My hopes were built up with the window, and then came crashing down with the door...

 

In general, service packs do not introduce new internal features to Vectorworks.  The main reason is that introducing new features can sometimes had unintended consequences on other parts of the software.

[zoomer]

On 10/1/2021 at 10:56 PM, Matt Panzer said:

 

Given that WinDoor is written in Vectorscript, I think it's safe to assume that we'll be focusing our efforts on improving our native objects.

 

 

Interesting,

but also a bit sad.

 

For my current (or usual) project(s) i can still deal with VW US default Windows and Doors.

What I have seen so far, WinDoor(s) are FAR superior.

I have not used WinDoor so far, just watched some tutorials. But thought these are the way

to go for the future. And they produce nice Solids for DWG Exports too (!?)

 

Is "written in Vectorscript" so bad ?

I think it is about speed ?

I remember that I avoided initial Curtain Walls after first try because of being too slow.

Also Vectorscript ?

(Used just standard Windows + custom Solids for Posts and Bars instead)

I had to use Curtain Walls again lately and I thought they got much faster in VW 2021+2022.

Does this mean these were meanwhile rewritten in C++ or such language ?

 

Edited Wednesday at 07:08 PM by zoomer

[Art V]

19 hours ago, Matt Panzer said:

In general, service packs do not introduce new internal features to Vectorworks.  The main reason is that introducing new features can sometimes had unintended consequences on other parts of the software.

How about doing a mid-release update/SP that does introduce new internal features? My other CAD program has bug fixes released when needed and a mid-release cyle update that often introduces new (sometimes major) features. VW will have time to test it and people don't have to wait a full year before something new is included.

 

I do realize that Vectorworks doesn't have the resources of e.g. Autodesk but some things do seem to take forever to get solved/fixed (if at all).

 

Not to hijack this topic but to show what I mean... VW Landmark still has not proper 4-way crossing in its road tools, have been asking for years, it should be simple because it's just another leg so the programming should be there already, and I simply gave up bringing it up again and now either overlap two T-crossings or create my own for each road size.

Why hasn't this been solved by now, it is probably the most common road crossing in the world together with the T-crossing and it's still not included, WHY???

Rinse and repeat for other tools like the S...r tool that has been talked about to death in the past. Sometimes these seem very simple things to fix, the S...r tool is different because it is complex but still.

[Matt Panzer]

19 hours ago, zoomer said:

Interesting,

but also a bit sad.

 

For my current (or usual) project(s) i can still deal with VW US default Windows and Doors.

What I have seen so far, WinDoor(s) are FAR superior.

I have not used WinDoor so far, just watched some tutorials. But thought these are the way

to go for the future. And they produce nice Solids for DWG Exports too (!?)

 

Is "written in Vectorscript" so bad ?

I think it is about speed ?

 

 A big part of the issue is speed but there are other disadvantages.

I believe the best way forward is to add the missing pieces (that WinDoor has) into our objects.

 

19 hours ago, zoomer said:

I remember that I avoided initial Curtain Walls after first try because of being too slow.

Also Vectorscript ?

(Used just standard Windows + custom Solids for Posts and Bars instead)

I had to use Curtain Walls again lately and I thought they got much faster in VW 2021+2022.

Does this mean these were meanwhile rewritten in C++ or such language ?

 

Curtain Walls were never written in Vectorscript.  Being part of the Wall, they're a core Vectorworks object.  I believe performance improvements were made somewhere along to line - but I don't know any details.

[Matt Panzer]

4 hours ago, Art V said:

How about doing a mid-release update/SP that does introduce new internal features? My other CAD program has bug fixes released when needed and a mid-release cyle update that often introduces new (sometimes major) features. VW will have time to test it and people don't have to wait a full year before something new is included.

 

I do realize that Vectorworks doesn't have the resources of e.g. Autodesk but some things do seem to take forever to get solved/fixed (if at all).

 

Not to hijack this topic but to show what I mean... VW Landmark still has not proper 4-way crossing in its road tools, have been asking for years, it should be simple because it's just another leg so the programming should be there already, and I simply gave up bringing it up again and now either overlap two T-crossings or create my own for each road size.

Why hasn't this been solved by now, it is probably the most common road crossing in the world together with the T-crossing and it's still not included, WHY???

Rinse and repeat for other tools like the S...r tool that has been talked about to death in the past. Sometimes these seem very simple things to fix, the S...r tool is different because it is complex but still.

 

I get your frustration but introducing significant internal features in service pack is not going to help us address the issues you mentioned any faster.  It very likely could, however, decrease the stability of the software.  

[Christiaan]

17 hours ago, Matt Panzer said:

I believe the best way forward is to add the missing pieces (that WinDoor has) into our objects.

When I used WinDoor I loved it because it did everything I needed a window/door object to do and it did it really well and reliably. But I actually find the native window object interface a little more intuitive, especially for example the Custom Sash Options. So I would love to see it brought up to feature parity with WinDoor; I just don't want that to take years.

[Markvl]

1 hour ago, Christiaan said:

When I used WinDoor I loved it because it did everything I needed a window/door object to do and it did it really well and reliably. But I actually find the native window object interface a little more intuitive, especially for example the Custom Sash Options. So I would love to see it brought up to feature parity with WinDoor; I just don't want that to take years.

Well I'm not the only one who thinks Windoor is not intuitive.  I want to like it but man some of it takes time to get my head around.

[M5d]

On 10/2/2021 at 6:56 AM, Matt Panzer said:

 

Given that WinDoor is written in Vectorscript, I think it's safe to assume that we'll be focusing our efforts on improving our native objects.

 

I assume NV was well aware of this prior to the acquisition @Matt Panzer?

 

The Vectorworks blog gave this move a positive spin, and making WinDoor more widely available also implied a future . . ,   

 

On 8/20/2021 at 1:45 PM, JuanP said:

We just acquired OzCAD and we are evaluating all their tools to see which can serve the needs in other countries so that we can integrate them for the other English-speaking markets. I'll keep you all posted.

 

On 8/28/2021 at 2:27 AM, JuanP said:

"Windoor will become available to Design Series product users outside of these geographies (Australia & New Zealand) through our Partner Network for version 2022”

 

 but from your 'Vectorscript' comment, it sounds as though WinDoor is effectively counting down to being made a legacy plugin?

 

(Apologies for posting in two places, was following another thread where this came up.)

[line-weight]

I'm going to start using Windoor even if the official line is that the long term solution is to improve the native tools. That's because there's no reason to have any confidence that they will be fixed on a timescale measured in anything other than years. Even if they were magically fixed in VW2023, then on the basis that most VW releases are not really safe to use until SP3 or so, that's more from a year away from now.

[Boh]

I would hope that the improved native window and door tools would actually incorporate the best bits of the Windoor tools that are currently lacking. That’s what seemed to have happened with the title block border tool improvements from a while back which seems to have used a lot of the features of the now redundant OzCad VAA titleblock.

[Matt Panzer]

4 hours ago, Boh said:

I would hope that the improved native window and door tools would actually incorporate the best bits of the Windoor tools that are currently lacking. That’s what seemed to have happened with the title block border tool improvements from a while back which seems to have used a lot of the features of the now redundant OzCad VAA titleblock.

 

Right.  That's the best way to look at it.  Making WinDoor available now lets you take advantage of the features now.

[Pat Stanford]

I look at this as a good thing. It shows that VW cares about its Distributors and Customers.

 

For those of you who are long time Mac people, you might have heard the term of something being "Sherlocked".  There was a really cool general search application named Sherlock. And then Apple added the Spotlight (Mac function not VW module) function to do search that did about 80% of what Sherlock did. And Sherlock's business went away.

 

VW could have "been inspired by" Win/Door for a long time. But they didn't do that. They chose to not compete on those. But now they own Win/Door, so there is no longer any competition. They can take and use what they want and everyone can be happy. Or at least happier. 😉