Long schedules

[Bill Carter]

Often we need to work on large buildings with many spaces. This generates many window, door and room symbols or objects. Unfortunately all these objects are attached to the single window, door or room record that is created to link these objects to their respective schedules. When the schedules are set down on their respective sheets for plotting, they run well off the bottom of the sheet because they are so long. I have taken to creating additional records and schedules (Door Record2, Door Schecule2, etc.), along with additional objects attached to these new records, and this works up to a point. Unfortunately I can't use the Room Name tool and the Assign Room Finish tool to operate on the objects attached to the new records. In order to assign room name and room finish info I have to manually enter all information in the OIP's Data pane for each secondary window, door or room name object. Obviously, all objects in the drawing attached to the first or default records can take advantage of using the Room Name and Assign Room Finish tools, but once the number of these legitimate objects is such that the schedules they are on reach the bottom of the drawing sheets, all other objects have to be assigned to the alternate records and manually fleshed out - a tremendous waste of time. To make matters even more complex, occasionally some drawing action will inadvertently reassign the default record to objects assigned to the secondary record, and then the objects start showing up on several schedules.

I've spoken to a tech representative about all this, but there is no help forthcoming apparently. I would like to know if anyone else has developed a clever way to handle long schedules. Thanks.

[jnr]

Unfortunately the only answer I have for this is to plead with NNA to make the worksheets "functionality" (schedules in this case) more robust. It is one of the lamest aspects of this software. I would like to use it to add my specs to my sets but I can't because it does not have the ability to wrap text. Furthermore, there is no way to spit the schedules into wrapping columns or sheets, which would solve your problem. There's a fabulous piece of software out there called EXCEL which does this. If NNA could get this software to accept a link to programs like EXCEL (go look at Adobe InDesign or Archicad for examples of how to do this), they would make the worksheets a powerful and useful tool. Until then, tie one hand behind your back.

[Kristen]

This isn't terribly clever, but we've gotten around this problem by putting enough room names or whatever to fill a drawing sheet on their own layer. Then we reference that layer to a new file, and create the worksheet for just that layer. This isn't great, because you can't just continue the worksheet in a second column on the same drawing sheet, but it does at least allow you to split the worksheets without splitting the records.

It seems like there's got to be a way to make a particular worksheet register only objects which are on a particular class or layer. But I haven't figured out the proper command yet.

[Robert Anderson]

There is a way to split a single database worksheet into two smaller worksheets. This technique involves an understanding of database criteria. It requires no scripting and doesn't require you to manage multiple records.

Here's how it works:

Let's say you have a standard VWA door schedule reporting on all the doors in your file. This is a database report that is returning field information on all items that have the attached record named "Door Record". Let's say the ID numbers on your doors run from "D-01" to "D-99" and you only have room for 60 rows on a sheet.

1. Open the worksheet, and verify that the "Database Headers" item is checked in the worksheet menu. The database header in a standard door schedule worksheet is row number 4. Click and hold on the row header for this row. You will see a menu. Choose the "Edit Criteria..." item in this menu.

2. You will see the Criteria dialog. It will be set up to list all the items where the record "Door Record" is present. Click the More Choices button. A new criteria row appears. Set the first pulldown to "Field Value". Set the second pulldown to "ID" under "Door Record". Set the third pulldown to the less-than sign <. In the final field, type "D-61". Click OK.

What you have done is to make the criteria for your door schedule more stringent. Instead of reporting on all doors, it is reporting only on those items with a "Door Record" and the ID field less than "D-60". Now, no matter how many doors are in your document, this particular schedule will only report on those doors which have an ID "smaller" (in ASCII terms) than "D-61". Close the worksheet.

3. Duplicate this worksheet with a new name in the Resource Browser. Open the newly created worksheet. Repeat steps 1 and 2 above, only set the criteria to greater than "D-60". Now this worksheet will report on the rest of your doors.

jnr, instead of tying one hand behind your back, use that hand to turn the pages of your manual, particularly the chapter on worksheets and database criteria...

[Kristen]

Wow Robert -- this sounds ideal. They should put your explanation in the manual.

I can get it to work great with "Layer" criteria, which will work for me. However, I can't get it to work with "field value" criteria.

For example, I want to list all the rooms on the 7th floor and up (beginning with room 700). I edit the criteria, and end up with this in the Database Header row:

=DATABASE(((R IN ['Room Name']) & ('Room Record'.ID>699)))

However, I get no listings. Can you tell me off-hand what the flaw is? Thanks for your help, once again.

[Robert Anderson]

The ID is a text field, not a number, so the criteria interpreter is looking for a string. Try:

=DATABASE(((R IN ['Room Name']) & ('Room Record'.ID>'699')))

[note the additional single quotes]

[Kristen]

Aha! Thank you very much. This is very useful information.

[Bill Carter]

Robert,

Kristen got it right - your explanation needs to be in the manual. You've been a tremendous help. Thanks again.

Bill

[jnr]

OK Robert, I'll make you a deal: I'll untie my the hand behind my back, and you all put this info in the manual. While were at it, do you think the concept of word wrap will ever make it into the worksheets? I include the specifications for my projects in the document sets (which I'm seeing more architects do by the way) and it would be increadibly useful for a spreadsheet function such as this, to have this capability.(I've seen window schedules in vectorworks sets runing all the way acros a page, which is silly) Currently I'm left with cutting and pasting from Excel to a document set which in the windows environment, converts the cells to a bit map, which then inflates the file size something fierce.

[TomD.Arch]

Well, I guess some of these posts answer my question about text wrap. Looks like I'm going to output a blank sheet for the Specifications page and open it in Illustrator, then set up the text columns and flow the text in. Not ideal...