2021 Drawing Label change

[Hamo 8]

I'm trying to understand the logic behind how the 'Drawing Label' change in 2021 is more efficient than the legacy version. 

 

As far as I can make out, if I need to get my drawing labels to look like the Legacy version (see attached image) I have to go through a whole process of editing the style.

 

Somebody enlighten please.

[jBH3 0]

This is what happens when someone "fixes" something that is not broken. I find it incredibly frustrating. I don't use upper & lower case lettering so I can't get the word "Scale" to change to "SCALE". I have tried to edit it in the style but it goes right back to "Scale". Can someone tell me how to fix this; I have to be doing something incorrectly.

[michaelk 508]

I have to disagree about the previous drawing label not being broken.  The new one is MUCH more flexible and uses the same paradigm as data tags and reference markers to edit.  

 

The answer to changing scale to be upper case:  Edit the drawing label style > Edit Drawing Label Layout > Select the scale text > OIP: Define Drawing Label Field > in the Current Field Definition change Scale to SCALE.

 

Having worked in the past with office graphic standards that were impossible to accomplish with the old drawing label tool, I'm enjoying the new one.

 

[Taproot 278]

Is there a simple way to add a graphic scale to the new Drawing Label? 

We've just been dropping one in manually, but if this can be automated, that would be great!

[michaelk 508]

@Taproot Good question.  I can't think of a way to drop a graphic scale in.  I do it the same way you do :-).

[gvictoria1 0]

I am so missing the ability to adjust the size of the text in the drawing label from the OIP - 

Drawing # -= Drawing Name - Scale- 

now you have to dig two levels deep to change the size of the text and you can't do for the individual label - you have to edit the actual style - 

I like the ability to save styles - that's great - but I think this trade off is extreme - 

Does anyone have a simpler way to adjust text sizes? 

[Matt Panzer 823]

Maybe try duplicating the style in the Resource Manager and change the text size as you need.  You could create a few styles with common variations of text sizes.  Then, you can replace the style of drawing labels in your document with these styles as needed.

[Eliot Hartzler 9]

@gvictoria1  Although it still involves a few clicks to change the text size for each individual drawing label, you can set the "Drawing Label Layout" under the style settings to be By Instance instead of By Style so that you can change the text size for each label individually. Doing this makes it so that there is still flexibility to change the text size for multiple labels of the same style. However, as Matt mentioned, the quickest workflow is probably to take advantage of the ability to use styles and to take a few minutes and create some new drawing label styles. In this way, through styles, you can still directly change the text size of your drawing labels by changing the drawing label style right in the OIP.

[Christiaan 913]

The new drawing labels are infinitely better than the old ones. Not only can we actually make labels exactly the way we want them to look but managing them as part of office standards is also infinitely easier. Once you've used them for a while you won't want to go back.

[Boh 461]

Also a big improvement is the ability to show back references on the labels - something that had been requested for some years finally came through!

[drelARCH 56]

While there is no doubt it is great improvement and really joy to work with I am missing two things:

- way to globally change one style that is present in many instances in drawing ...something sort of replace texture, material dialogue box when you hit delete for that resource ...or am I missing something?

- field for custom text for example for subtitle

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 09:58 PM by drelARCH

[Boh 461]

32 minutes ago, drelARCH said:

While there is no doubt it is great improvement and really joy to work with I am missing two things:

- way to globally change one style that is present in many instances in drawing ...something sort of replace texture, material dialogue box when you hit delete for that resource ...or am I missing something?

- field for custom text for example for subtitle

Totally agree with this! It's annoying that when you delete a style you don't get the option to replace instances with that style with another style (as you do when delete standard symbols). All you get is a bunch of unstyled instances. i've tried using a worksheet to change styles but that doesn't work (it does help you locate all the instances of the style however).

 

For adding notes/subtitles to drawing labels I often just use the "Custom Scale" option. You can however add an extra piece of text to the style definition and then link it to one of your own custom records and edit it via the data pane of the OIP. I just tried it and it works...

 

 

 

[Jonathan Pickup 285]

I didn't think that this was too much of an issue. Once you have edited the default drawing label style, you can import it into another file to replace the one that Vectorworks has made by default. This should replace all the drawing labels of that style. 

 

I looked at editing the drawing label in my Novedge webinar this morning, around the 24 minute mark. 

 

 

[Boh 461]

That's a good approach Jonathan. Doesn't quite work though where you have several label styles in the same drawing and you want one style to be just like another one. You could edit it as you suggest however then you have two styles that are the same- which is fine I guess but not ideal. It would be better to be able to delete one and replace it.

 

Or did I miss something? I'll try to watch the whole video soon... 🙂

[Andy Broomell 1,081]

10 hours ago, Boh said:

Totally agree with this! It's annoying that when you delete a style you don't get the option to replace instances with that style with another style (as you do when delete standard symbols). All you get is a bunch of unstyled instances. i've tried using a worksheet to change styles but that doesn't work (it does help you locate all the instances of the style however).

 

I agree that having the option to replace a style globally upon deleting it in the RM would be nice.

 

In the meantime, if you want to change Drawing Label styles across many viewports quickly, this can be done using Tools > Custom Modification, making sure that components of Viewport Annotations is checked

 

If you want to change ALL the Drawing Labels in the file, simply set the criterion to be "Type" "is" "Drawing Label".

 

If you want to change all instances of one particular Style, set the criterion to be "Plug-In Style" "is" "[name of particular Style you want to replace]".

 

 

Then click OK, and you'll get a floating Properties window that's essentially the OIP for all of those Drawing Labels at once. 

 

Then you can use the Style dropdown to Replace the Style for all of the pertinent Drawing Labels.

 

 

If you're creative with the criteria you could accomplish other things. For example, to only find unstyled Drawing Labels without affecting those that are already using a Style, set up the criteria so that "Type" "is" "Drawing Label" and "Plug-In Style" "is not" "[name of one of your Styles]" and "Plug-In Style" "is not" "[name of one of your other Styles]" etc.

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 08:43 AM by Andy Broomell

[drelARCH 56]

Thanks @Boh @Jonathan Pickup @Andy Broomell.

For now custom modification is the way to go when one is not willing to change style itself. Thanks for detailed instructions. Not used custom modification much but this tool has definitely quite important place in toolset i guess. 

 

You know it is just matter of consistency. One would expect same dialogue to appear when style is deleted from RM as is case with other resources...

 

@Boh custom scale is field that I use too. Bringing it from pre 2021 release.

Nice to know we can connect label with custom records so there are definitely some option.

[Boh 461]

2 hours ago, Andy Broomell said:

In the meantime, if you want to change Drawing Labels styles across many viewports quickly, this can be done using Tools > Custom Modification,

Great tip! Thanks @Andy Broomell