1 00:00:01,599 --> 00:00:02,132 All right. 2 00:00:02,132 --> 00:00:03,332 Welcome 3 00:00:03,798 --> 00:00:08,930 to the first video in a series of videos which are meant to convey 4 00:00:08,930 --> 00:00:12,129 some of the basics of Vectorworks Designer. 5 00:00:13,462 --> 00:00:16,795 My name is Jonathon and I'm going to be using Vectorworks 6 00:00:16,795 --> 00:00:20,860 Designer 2021 for these 7 00:00:21,927 --> 00:00:24,726 demonstrations unless I indicate otherwise throughout. 8 00:00:25,659 --> 00:00:29,858 So the first thing that I want to do is set up some preferences 9 00:00:29,858 --> 00:00:33,857 that are going to help you throughout the process here. 10 00:00:33,857 --> 00:00:37,189 And I should say in these videos are really geared toward 11 00:00:37,656 --> 00:00:43,521 the THEA 4540 Drawing and Rendering course 12 00:00:43,521 --> 00:00:46,653 that's offered here at East Tennessee State University. 13 00:00:47,786 --> 00:00:49,786 So first of all, you're going to open Vectorworks 14 00:00:50,386 --> 00:00:52,918 and here we are with the software already open. 15 00:00:53,251 --> 00:00:55,984 I know it can take a while depending on your computer for that to open. 16 00:00:56,384 --> 00:01:00,383 And so this is a good time for me to tell you feel free at any point 17 00:01:00,383 --> 00:01:04,315 to pause, to rewind, to look again 18 00:01:04,448 --> 00:01:08,247 at whatever the material is that I've given you in these videos. 19 00:01:08,781 --> 00:01:11,513 Because learning a new piece of software 20 00:01:12,313 --> 00:01:17,245 is always a tricky and difficult proposition. 21 00:01:17,245 --> 00:01:17,911 Right? 22 00:01:18,378 --> 00:01:21,777 You may latch on to the information very quickly. 23 00:01:21,977 --> 00:01:25,243 It may take a little bit of time, right? So 24 00:01:26,509 --> 00:01:28,508 make sure that you're giving yourself the time, 25 00:01:28,508 --> 00:01:32,107 the patience, the grace to find your way through. 26 00:01:32,507 --> 00:01:35,173 And again, feel free to hit that pause button 27 00:01:35,307 --> 00:01:37,506 whenever you need to 28 00:01:38,172 --> 00:01:40,372 and so if your Vectorworks software has not finished 29 00:01:40,372 --> 00:01:43,971 opening, please go ahead and hit pause now until it does. 30 00:01:44,437 --> 00:01:47,370 If, however, you have Vectorworks open 31 00:01:47,637 --> 00:01:50,036 let's go through and set some of our preferences. 32 00:01:50,569 --> 00:01:51,902 So first of all, 33 00:01:51,902 --> 00:01:55,101 we're going to start with the Vectorworks menu here, and I am working on a Mac. 34 00:01:55,768 --> 00:01:58,167 If you're on a PC you're actually going to do this 35 00:01:58,167 --> 00:01:59,966 a slightly different way and I'll show you that. 36 00:01:59,966 --> 00:02:02,499 But for those of you on a Mac Vectorworks. 37 00:02:02,966 --> 00:02:07,364 And then if you go to preferences, you'll open this floating 38 00:02:07,364 --> 00:02:11,230 dialog box on a PC, you can go to tools 39 00:02:12,363 --> 00:02:14,362 are options 40 00:02:14,962 --> 00:02:18,695 Vectorworks preferences and it will open that same dialog box. 41 00:02:19,028 --> 00:02:19,761 All right. 42 00:02:21,161 --> 00:02:24,560 And that second trick, as you saw, works well for Mac or PC. 43 00:02:25,159 --> 00:02:29,892 So here in this first screen we're over clicked on edit here. 44 00:02:29,892 --> 00:02:33,757 So this section of the window looks different to you. 45 00:02:34,357 --> 00:02:38,089 Make sure you're clicked on edit over here and all I want you to do 46 00:02:38,289 --> 00:02:43,488 is match up your radio boxes here with what I have selected and selected. 47 00:02:43,954 --> 00:02:48,153 So you're going to de-select enable quick drag drawing, 48 00:02:48,620 --> 00:02:51,752 you're going to de-select offset duplications. 49 00:02:52,219 --> 00:02:55,351 You're going to want to make sure that display eight reshape handles 50 00:02:55,951 --> 00:02:59,417 auto join walls, separate sheet views 51 00:02:59,750 --> 00:03:02,949 and enable mouse wheel zooms are checked. 52 00:03:03,682 --> 00:03:04,549 All right. 53 00:03:04,549 --> 00:03:06,348 So one more time just take a look at this. 54 00:03:06,348 --> 00:03:08,881 Now that I click that separate sheet views 55 00:03:11,680 --> 00:03:12,346 make sure 56 00:03:12,346 --> 00:03:16,545 that everything matches here on your screen. 57 00:03:17,478 --> 00:03:21,611 Now, if we select display, I just want you to make sure here 58 00:03:21,611 --> 00:03:24,676 that show rulers is checked. 59 00:03:25,743 --> 00:03:30,808 Optionally, you can also check use dark background. 60 00:03:30,808 --> 00:03:33,674 So if you're used to working in dark mode 61 00:03:34,474 --> 00:03:39,072 on your on your devices or if you have issues 62 00:03:39,072 --> 00:03:41,738 with staring at white screens a lot, 63 00:03:42,605 --> 00:03:45,271 you may want to try this dark background. 64 00:03:45,671 --> 00:03:49,403 I just because I've gotten used to the white background and vector works 65 00:03:49,403 --> 00:03:52,535 even though I use dark mode everywhere else, 66 00:03:52,935 --> 00:03:55,868 I don't tend to use it here so I'm going to leave that selected. 67 00:03:56,201 --> 00:03:59,200 But you feel free to try that 68 00:03:59,200 --> 00:04:02,866 in dark mode or in the white background 69 00:04:04,599 --> 00:04:07,198 under auto save. 70 00:04:07,531 --> 00:04:08,864 This is another sort of a 71 00:04:09,797 --> 00:04:11,064 personal thing, right? 72 00:04:11,064 --> 00:04:13,796 How much work do you want to potentially lose 73 00:04:14,263 --> 00:04:17,329 as you're going through 74 00:04:17,795 --> 00:04:20,461 the process of drawing something? 75 00:04:20,461 --> 00:04:21,727 So right now this says auto save. 76 00:04:21,727 --> 00:04:24,260 Every 5 minutes. 77 00:04:24,260 --> 00:04:26,659 I'm going to go ahead and change that to 78 00:04:26,659 --> 00:04:28,725 to 10 minutes 79 00:04:30,258 --> 00:04:33,857 I'm not going to ask it to confirm before it saves it. 80 00:04:33,857 --> 00:04:37,123 Otherwise, a confirmation dialog box will 81 00:04:38,389 --> 00:04:42,522 will pop up you may still get that dialog box popping up. 82 00:04:42,855 --> 00:04:45,121 So you may if you set this at 5 minutes 83 00:04:45,854 --> 00:04:48,720 in that dialog box, if for some reason it's not listening to this 84 00:04:50,919 --> 00:04:54,118 this d selected confirmed before Save Radio button, 85 00:04:54,785 --> 00:04:57,717 you may want to go back in here and adjust it for a longer period. 86 00:04:57,717 --> 00:05:02,116 So the pop up is happening all the time, but hopefully it'll work for you here. 87 00:05:02,116 --> 00:05:04,182 Again, just personal. 88 00:05:04,182 --> 00:05:06,848 I auto save a backup copy 89 00:05:06,848 --> 00:05:09,781 to a specific location so I know where to go to look for it. 90 00:05:10,581 --> 00:05:14,313 You're welcome to auto save to the original location. 91 00:05:14,779 --> 00:05:17,312 You're welcome to just overwrite 92 00:05:17,312 --> 00:05:21,711 the original file that is to just have it automatically save the file. 93 00:05:21,711 --> 00:05:24,243 So if you work on office online 94 00:05:24,243 --> 00:05:28,442 or even some versions of Word or Excel or other office products 95 00:05:30,242 --> 00:05:31,308 on your 96 00:05:31,308 --> 00:05:35,374 desktop or laptop machine, you may this may happen automatically 97 00:05:35,374 --> 00:05:38,906 for you already and that may be something that you're most comfortable with right? 98 00:05:39,706 --> 00:05:42,772 But for now, I'm going to keep mine here auto save a backup copy 99 00:05:43,638 --> 00:05:46,504 to this specific location, but you can pick 100 00:05:46,637 --> 00:05:51,236 whichever of these makes the most sense to you the number of backups to save. 101 00:05:51,236 --> 00:05:53,569 OK, I only want one. 102 00:05:53,569 --> 00:05:57,701 I don't typically need to step back 15 steps in the process 103 00:05:57,701 --> 00:06:01,633 and if I do, I can just undo it in in the software. 104 00:06:01,633 --> 00:06:04,099 But if you'd like multiple backups saved, 105 00:06:04,832 --> 00:06:07,232 feel free to select. 106 00:06:07,232 --> 00:06:09,231 I think you I'm not sure 107 00:06:10,164 --> 00:06:12,297 how many what the max number here is, 108 00:06:12,963 --> 00:06:16,696 but whatever makes you feel good 109 00:06:16,962 --> 00:06:19,295 A new feature of Vectorworks 2021 110 00:06:19,295 --> 00:06:22,827 are these smart options and I really didn't like them. 111 00:06:23,027 --> 00:06:26,960 So your screen may have this selected 112 00:06:27,359 --> 00:06:30,892 and I would just suggest that you do select it 113 00:06:33,491 --> 00:06:34,424 again. 114 00:06:34,757 --> 00:06:37,023 You're welcome to leave those on to try those. 115 00:06:37,290 --> 00:06:39,556 But I found them to be really, really annoying. 116 00:06:39,956 --> 00:06:42,822 So I'm going to go ahead and turn those off and then I'm going to hit OK. 117 00:06:44,888 --> 00:06:46,687 So that's, that's that screen. 118 00:06:46,687 --> 00:06:49,620 There are a few more preferences to set. 119 00:06:50,486 --> 00:06:53,352 So back on the main screen here, 120 00:06:53,619 --> 00:06:55,685 let's go to file 121 00:06:56,885 --> 00:07:00,017 document settings, document preferences. 122 00:07:01,150 --> 00:07:03,816 We're going to select the Dimensions tab here 123 00:07:04,216 --> 00:07:09,481 and your dimension standard wants to be this USITT. 124 00:07:09,948 --> 00:07:10,281 All right. 125 00:07:10,281 --> 00:07:15,946 So you can click down here and from the list make sure you select USITT. 126 00:07:15,946 --> 00:07:20,212 And USITT stands for United States Institute for Theater Technology. 127 00:07:20,545 --> 00:07:24,144 And it is a custom dimension standard that I've created. 128 00:07:24,144 --> 00:07:27,876 So if you've not been able to import that into your document, 129 00:07:28,942 --> 00:07:31,009 we can go ahead and create it new. 130 00:07:31,009 --> 00:07:32,475 So I'll show you those. 131 00:07:32,475 --> 00:07:33,075 I'll show you how to do that. 132 00:07:33,075 --> 00:07:36,007 So just if it's not there, if it's not in your list, there's no USITT. 133 00:07:36,007 --> 00:07:39,806 Go and click on custom 134 00:07:39,806 --> 00:07:41,872 and even though it's here, go ahead and click. 135 00:07:41,872 --> 00:07:42,872 It won't be here for you. 136 00:07:42,872 --> 00:07:45,138 It's only here for me because I've already imported it. 137 00:07:45,605 --> 00:07:47,404 Go ahead and say new. 138 00:07:47,404 --> 00:07:47,737 Right? 139 00:07:47,737 --> 00:07:51,203 And you're going to name the standard and you can just name your USITT. 140 00:07:51,203 --> 00:07:55,269 I'm going to call mine USITT with a lowercase b there 141 00:07:55,668 --> 00:07:58,068 just so that i know what's the different one. 142 00:07:58,601 --> 00:08:02,267 I'm going to say, ok, and it's going to appear now in this list 143 00:08:02,933 --> 00:08:07,665 go ahead and highlight that, select it highlighted and click the edit button. 144 00:08:10,264 --> 00:08:11,931 Now. Right. 145 00:08:11,931 --> 00:08:16,129 I've got all of these custom dimensions standards that I need to create. 146 00:08:16,996 --> 00:08:20,062 So this one, it actually already has filled 147 00:08:20,062 --> 00:08:23,327 in all of the dimensions standards that I need it to have. 148 00:08:23,727 --> 00:08:27,860 So what you need to do is go ahead and hit the pause button real quick 149 00:08:28,393 --> 00:08:33,258 and change everything that you see on your screen to match 150 00:08:33,591 --> 00:08:38,057 what you see here in this added custom dimension, the standard 151 00:08:38,123 --> 00:08:41,922 floating box. 152 00:08:43,055 --> 00:08:44,055 All right. 153 00:08:44,922 --> 00:08:47,121 So again, go ahead and hit pause, 154 00:08:47,121 --> 00:08:51,053 take a second and make those changes, making sure that you're changing 155 00:08:51,053 --> 00:08:56,118 the linear markers, the other markers and the leader line markers here. 156 00:08:56,785 --> 00:08:57,851 All right. 157 00:09:01,250 --> 00:09:04,516 OK, assuming you've done that, go ahead and hit. 158 00:09:04,516 --> 00:09:08,715 OK, and then you'll hit OK one more time. 159 00:09:08,915 --> 00:09:09,381 Right. 160 00:09:09,381 --> 00:09:13,580 So now in my list, I'm going to have USITTb, 161 00:09:14,180 --> 00:09:15,380 but they're both of the same thing. 162 00:09:15,380 --> 00:09:19,245 So I'm going to actually to check my USITT, leave that selected 163 00:09:20,445 --> 00:09:23,644 and then that's it for this 164 00:09:23,644 --> 00:09:25,310 for this document preferences screen. 165 00:09:25,310 --> 00:09:29,776 So I'm going to say, OK, back here now, again on the main screen, 166 00:09:30,842 --> 00:09:33,108 let's go to file 167 00:09:33,108 --> 00:09:35,508 document settings and units. 168 00:09:36,641 --> 00:09:36,974 All right. 169 00:09:36,974 --> 00:09:39,706 So here we just want to make sure 170 00:09:40,173 --> 00:09:42,706 that we are working here 171 00:09:42,706 --> 00:09:45,905 in feet and inches, right? 172 00:09:46,438 --> 00:09:49,370 We want to make sure that our rounding style is fractional 173 00:09:49,904 --> 00:09:53,503 and that the fraction precision is 1/32 of an inch. 174 00:09:54,369 --> 00:09:55,369 All right. 175 00:09:55,969 --> 00:09:57,835 Everything else should be pretty standard. 176 00:09:57,835 --> 00:10:01,900 But if you would just take a minute, make sure everything on your screen 177 00:10:02,300 --> 00:10:04,766 matches everything on my screen. 178 00:10:12,231 --> 00:10:12,564 All right? 179 00:10:12,564 --> 00:10:16,163 Once all of that matches, go ahead and hit save 180 00:10:17,363 --> 00:10:22,228 and call this THEA Preset. 181 00:10:22,228 --> 00:10:24,361 All right. 182 00:10:24,827 --> 00:10:28,360 And then you'll hit OK. 183 00:10:29,159 --> 00:10:30,692 Now, when you go back, 184 00:10:30,692 --> 00:10:34,758 you can select THEA preset, and there it is. 185 00:10:35,158 --> 00:10:36,824 If you, if anything is changed... 186 00:10:36,824 --> 00:10:39,023 Let's just say it's all off 187 00:10:40,023 --> 00:10:41,689 and kind of crazy here. 188 00:10:41,689 --> 00:10:42,556 All right. 189 00:10:42,556 --> 00:10:43,422 Terrible things. 190 00:10:43,422 --> 00:10:47,488 Now, when I go to hit a preset: blam! 191 00:10:47,621 --> 00:10:49,954 Right? It's all back where it's supposed to be. 192 00:10:49,954 --> 00:10:52,153 Feet and inches. Fractional. 193 00:10:52,153 --> 00:10:55,086 Fractional displays should be this first button fraction 194 00:10:55,086 --> 00:10:59,751 precision 1/32" and that is it for that box. 195 00:10:59,751 --> 00:11:02,750 So we'll go ahead and hit OK. 196 00:11:02,750 --> 00:11:06,549 Now we're back on the Vectorworks main screen. 197 00:11:06,549 --> 00:11:09,082 We're going to open file once again 198 00:11:10,348 --> 00:11:14,014 and we're going to say Save as Template. 199 00:11:14,080 --> 00:11:19,212 What this will do is allow us to not have to go through this process 200 00:11:19,212 --> 00:11:21,412 every single time. 201 00:11:21,412 --> 00:11:23,811 OK, so we're going to save as template 202 00:11:25,944 --> 00:11:27,143 it should be called default 203 00:11:27,143 --> 00:11:31,142 with a capital D, the file type should be Vectorworks 204 00:11:31,142 --> 00:11:36,141 Templates with this *.sta and it should be in the templates folder. 205 00:11:36,608 --> 00:11:37,607 All right. 206 00:11:37,874 --> 00:11:39,873 So we're going to save once all that's correct, 207 00:11:40,606 --> 00:11:43,006 just as it appears on my screen. 208 00:11:43,006 --> 00:11:44,072 We're going to hit save, 209 00:11:45,938 --> 00:11:46,272 right. 210 00:11:46,272 --> 00:11:48,671 And it may oh, it may already exist. 211 00:11:48,671 --> 00:11:49,871 Do we want to replace it? 212 00:11:49,871 --> 00:11:51,004 Absolutely. 213 00:11:51,004 --> 00:11:53,603 We do replace it. 214 00:11:53,603 --> 00:11:53,869 All right. 215 00:11:53,869 --> 00:11:58,601 So now I close out my untitled file here, and yours may just be untitled 216 00:11:58,601 --> 00:12:00,734 one or untitled two. And that's OK. 217 00:12:01,334 --> 00:12:02,334 Close that up. 218 00:12:02,334 --> 00:12:05,333 Now, we'll say file new 219 00:12:06,666 --> 00:12:11,265 and we want to use may be automatically click clicked on create blank document. 220 00:12:11,398 --> 00:12:16,130 Well, we want to use the document template and we want it to be from this list, 221 00:12:16,263 --> 00:12:19,396 the Default.sta document. 222 00:12:19,996 --> 00:12:22,528 And so when I hit OK 223 00:12:22,528 --> 00:12:25,061 it has saved all of those preferences. 224 00:12:25,394 --> 00:12:26,327 All right. 225 00:12:26,327 --> 00:12:30,593 And we're going to continue to build on that will build a bit in the videos 226 00:12:30,593 --> 00:12:34,458 that are subsequent to this one will build a bit on it in class. 227 00:12:35,058 --> 00:12:37,924 So just make sure that you're familiar with what we're doing there. 228 00:12:37,924 --> 00:12:42,189 We're essentially changing the way that we interact with Vectorworks, 229 00:12:42,656 --> 00:12:46,455 and we want to keep those changes as we move forward 230 00:12:47,121 --> 00:12:49,121 with the software, with learning the software. 231 00:12:50,054 --> 00:12:52,053 All right. That's it for this video. 232 00:12:52,120 --> 00:12:55,519 You've set up the software, changed some preferences, 233 00:12:55,919 --> 00:12:58,652 and hopefully gotten just the tiniest peek 234 00:12:59,451 --> 00:13:02,917 into Vectorworks and maybe even into some of what Vectorworks can do. 235 00:13:04,117 --> 00:13:05,116 Next, we'll talk 236 00:13:05,116 --> 00:13:07,449 about navigating this main screen 237 00:13:08,182 --> 00:13:11,448 and understanding some of the functionality of the software. 238 00:13:12,048 --> 00:13:12,981 All right, thanks.