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MacCAD-reView: VectorWorks ARCHITECT - Part 3
Table of Contents for this Review Series
Part 3: Tools for Schematic and Design Development - Continued [Editor's note: this page updated 2 May see red brackets] The Task Manager is a new way of managing your drawing activity in VectorWorks wherein you decide what task you want to do, select it from the Task Manager, and start drawing. The Task Manger selects the proper layer and class settings allowing you to focus on drawing -- not switching between different layers, classes and changing the values of the Attributes palette (where pen width, color and type are assigned as well as fill colors and textures...for those not familiar with VectorWorks). The Task Manager has at most, three steps before click the OK button and begin drawing. In the standard VectorWorks you may have to change layers, change classes, change line pen color, change line page width and and change line type (as in dashed), all before you draw a single line or new element. This is standard activity for most CAD users -- determining their drawing/active layer, determining their line attributes and colors, etc. ARCHITECT does an admirable job of streamlining this task. However, this isn't to say it is perfect. For one thing, if you have used VectorWorks or MiniCAD for some time you know that you can organize your drawing activity to minimize the nature of switching between many different tasks in the course of drawing daily. In some cases you simply move to a different layer or different class within the standard drawing window by selecting a class or layer. You can even use keyboard shortcuts. With the Task Manager there is a keyboard shortcut to bring up the main Task Manager dialog box, but there is no 'pull-down menu' built-in to the main window -- similar to Layers or Classes -- which might allow you to simply switch "tasks", a one step procedure which could send you on your way toward drawing. Another issue which some new ARCHITECT users may experience is unexpected results of the default Task Manager settings. This is just really a difference of opinion about the way in which some information should be dealt with in an architectural CAD document. For example, in our first drawing attempts using ARCHITECT we placed the dimensions for the structural grid by first selecting the correct sheet (in our case Floor Plan 1) and then selecting Dimensions from the task pop-up menu. What happened was that these dimensions which are common to every sheet in which the plan shows the structural grid (like the foundation plan and roof plan) did not show up on these other sheets. OK, so that made sense, since choosing Dimensions as a task means placing specific dimensions for that sheet, regardless of dimensional activity. Hence, we needed to create a specific new Task related to placing the universal dimensions or place the dimensions on the Column Grid task. So we did just that.
In the dialog box above we created a new [Task] for drawing "column grid dimensions". This way those common grid dims could be drawn only once and shared among many drawings which showed the column grid. As we said we could have created the dimensions when we created the grid but there are advantages to having things separate (namely that we could apply different layers and classes for this particular activity).[Editor's note: currently VectorWorks users have the ability to simply draw items in one location (like on the None Class) and have theme shared among many different drawings. The emphasis in the above paragraph is that you may need to investigate what classes and layers are common to the sheets that ARCHITECT sets up via the ARCHITECT setup assistants.] To create a new 'task' you open the Task Manager and then click Edit. The standard Task Manager dialog box opens where you can edit existing 'tasks' (all 430+/- of them) or create new tasks. Simply creating a new task doesn't mean you have achieved all of your objectives for that particular drawing activity. You may for instance need to create a new layer or class with different line attributes or fill pattern attributes. You should set up new layers or classes prior to editing or creating new 'tasks' in the Task Manager. What you will Like and Not Like Getting used to drawing with the Task Manager takes all of one day mentally, at the most. Some users will love it instantly when they realize the true power behind it. Others it will grow on. In short, if you have used VectorWorks or MiniCAD before, you will like the speed and assurances the new Task Manager adds in ARCHITECT. You do literally shave seconds off each and every drawing task you undertake in CAD. And if you happen to be the real methodical type you will definitely most likely love the Task Manager. It will fit you. If however, you are quite erratic in your drawing methods, jumping from one type of item to another, or you draw very locally, you might find the Task Manager cumbersome. The reality is, however, your the type who needs it even more. For what the Task Manager lets you do is bounce about the drawing experience without concerning yourself, really, with consistency and drawing management. The Task Manger does it for you. [Editor's note: by drawing "locally" I mean you zoom into the sheet and complete one area at a time completely before moving to other areas of the sheet and working on different parts of the drawing process. In this case your (steps) drawing activety may look like this: draw a, then b, then c, then d. then finished; rather than draw a1, then a2, then a3, then b1, then b2, then b3, etc. etc..] Task Manager Improvements One of the things the Task Manager does well is present only the tasks that relate to a particular sheet. However, when we created a new task it didn't appear automatically on all of the sheets we thought. In fact, it didn't appear on any other task list under different drawing sheets. This is an excellent way of keeping task creation controlled so that new tasks aren't unnecessarily polluting pull-down lists on each and every sheet in the Task Manager. But what if you want the new task to be universal? Another feature improvement should be a quick way to switch to a task by just Control clicking the screen and bringing up a contextual menu listing the available tasks based upon that particular sheet shown at the moment. That would eliminate the need to go to the Task Manager dialog every time. Another option would be to place that same list up next to the layers menu or at the bottom next to the Saved Sheets popup menu -- which is an even better idea. Combined with a contextual menu that would be very powerful! Besides these minor weaknesses, the Task Manager by itself is an incredible new feature in VectorWorks ARCHITECT, something that makes drawing management and control much better than before, especially in large offices where "office drawing standards" are absolutely necessary. Next Page: Other Schematic/DD Tools Other Architosh News and Special Reports Architosh Seybold Report: Mac products for CAD/AEC - Part 1 solidThinking 3D app coming to Mac OS 9 and OS X VersaCAD returning to the Macintosh! iDisk to be powerful tool for AEC and "design pros"
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