Conventions
Vectorworks is a cross-platform product. Most Vectorworks features are the same in the Windows and Mac versions; however, in instances where differences exist, they are explained in detail.
As described below, a product icon indicates which products are required for certain functionality. In addition, text occasionally indicates that a "Design Suite product is required" for certain parameters that are not available in the Fundamentals product. In this case, what is meant is either that one of the Design Suite products or the entire Design Suite is required to access the feature.
The conventions are as follows:
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Convention |
Definition |
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For features in products other than Vectorworks Fundamentals, icons indicate the Vectorworks product required to access that functionality. The D icon indicates that it is a Design Suite product (one of the products or the Design Suite product); A indicates Architect; L indicates Landmark; S indicates Spotlight, B indicates Braceworks, and C indicates ConnectCAD. Where documentation does not have an icon, the functionality is available with a Fundamentals license. The Architect product has two workspaces: the Architect workspace familiar to users of Vectorworks 2018 and earlier, and the Architect-BIM workspace, where many of the tools needed for the most common building information modeling operations are collected in a BIM tool set. Both of these workspaces are available with the Architect product (A icon) and contain the same tools and commands. The help system provides the tool set information only for the classic Architect workspace. |
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Enter (Windows)/return (Mac) and Backspace (Windows)/delete (Mac) |
To reduce unnecessary wordiness, both operating system terms will not be used; we have standardized upon “Enter” and “Backspace.” The meaning should be evident for users of either operating system. |
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indented, colored text |
Indicates a note, tip, or warning |
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click-click |
Click the mouse button once and release. Move the cursor to the desired location and click again. This is the default drawing preference for the program at installation. See Vectorworks preferences: Edit pane to change the drawing preference to click-drag. |
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click-drag |
Click the mouse button once and do not release. Drag (move) the cursor to a desired location and then release. |
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click and hold |
Click the mouse button while the cursor is over an object such as a tool, and press it until the desired action occurs |
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Context menu |
A menu command accessed by a right-click |
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[object] settings |
Some objects have identical dialog boxes named Object Properties, [Object] Preferences, [Object] Settings and possibly also [Object] Style, depending on when and how they are opened. When referring to parameters that can be set from any of these dialog boxes, this help system uses the term "[object] settings." |
All instructions are based on click-click drawing.