Creating new cable parts in cable configuration

[Sam Jones]

How do I create a Socapex-16 50ft cable part, or any kind of unlisted cable part in the dialog below or anywhere at all?

 

 

The following sentence is in the VW Help file

 

3.Advanced users can edit, add, or remove items from the cable parts list. Edit the symbols in the Cable Tools folder in the [User]\Libraries\Defaults folder. Click Update in the Manage Cable Parts dialog box to refresh the cable parts list.

 

There are no cable parts symbols in that pathway.  I have 26.0.2 (574483).

[Sam Jones]

Searching Help file in regard to the dialog above

 

 

[jcogdell]

The correct path for the cable parts libraries should be

 

Vectorworks 2021 > Libraries > Defaults > Cable Tools,  I will get the help page corrected

 

Once the cable parts library has been edited or new parts added the update button in the manage cable parts dialogue has to be used before the edited or new parts will be usable in a file or visible to the cable tools. This is done manually to prevent accidental data loss due to library updates in active files.

 

Currently new parts need to be saved into the default library location to be detected by the update button in the Cable parts manger. It is planned in the next update that new parts can be stored in user or workgroup library folders.

 

I can't reproduce either of the other issues, the only thing I found was that using a windows based machine the update button seems to be much faster than on a a mac, but in either case it didn't crash.

 

[Sam Jones]

8 hours ago, jcogdell said:

Vectorworks 2021 > Libraries > Defaults > Cable Tools,  I will get the help page corrected

 

Once the cable parts library has been edited

Editing this file is not possible.  Which means the user has no way of adding cable parts.  Let me know one of 2 things.

1. What am I missing in order to edit the files in that folder?

or

2. When will the preview tools become useable for users in the United States?

 

I am using:  

[jcogdell]

Using file explorer or the mac equivalent go to

C:\Vectorworks 2021\Libraries\Defaults\Cable Tools (path may vary depending on where you installed VW)

 

This folder contains 5 VWX files, in addition to the resources for the old cable tools, one for each cable type and the fifth is for distributor objects.

To create a new cable part or edit an existing part you have to open the appropriate file as if it is a normal Spotlight file.

 

Once you have opened the file the cable parts are stored in it in the same way as symbols and other resources are stored in a normal file.

 

To create a new cable part you can either duplicate and edit an existing part in the resource manager using the attach record command to edit the cable part data record

or create a new part by creating a symbol, attaching the cable parts data record and filling in the data

 

Once you have finished editing or adding new parts save the file, keeping the file name and location the same. In the next SP it is planned that the updated library file can be saved in a user or work-group folder in the same way as most other resources and symbols.

 

The last step once you have saved the updated parts file is to import the updated library into the cable tools

,open a new Spotlight file and use the update button in the manage cable parts dialogue to import the changes and update all parts of the cable tools.

 

 

 

[Sam Jones]

Jesse,

I had a permissions issue.  I can now duplicate a file.  Unfortunately, I cannot duplicate a folder.  I will need to duplicate each of the Socapex-19 Pin cables, rename them, move them to a new folder, edit them.

I need to differentiate cables that share ground and those that do not; we use both in the US, usually lighting uses the former and sound uses the latter.  Any chance VW could do that with the next shipping version.  I'm going to need to keep 2 copies of every cable I create, one in the correct place, and one outside the VW folder so that I don't lose them on the next upgrade.

[Pat Stanford]

You should be able to put your files in the Defaults folder (similar path as above) of your Workgroup (yes you can create one even if it is just for you) or User folder. Then the files will not be overwritten by a VW update.

 

Files with the same filename in the User Folder override those in the Workgroup which override those in the Application folder. Give them different names in the same folder path and they should still show as defaults.

 

At least that is how most of the other PIO defaults work. I can't confirm that Spotlight works that way also.

[Marco Erbert]

 

Unfortunately this workflow doesn't work for the cables. With other symbols you are right. 

[jcogdell]

16 hours ago, Marco Erbert said:

Unfortunately this workflow doesn't work for the cables. With other symbols you are right.

The dev team are aware of the issue regarding the new cable tools not working with user and work-group folders, and are working on a fix.

 

21 hours ago, Sam Jones said:

 Any chance VW could do that with the next shipping version.

I'll ask the content team but I don't have an overview of how busy they are currently.
 

 

 

[mankanj]

Any update on this? It seems to me like it still is working in this way. I would really like to have the ability to store all cables in the workgroup folder.

[jcogdell]

This has already been fixed, I think since update 2 2024, but it was definetly working last time I checked it.