Concept: Product workspaces
Difficulty level: Beginner
Each Vectorworks product has a unique workspace, with a set of tools and commands that are tailored to the industry. The Fundamentals workspace tools and commands contain the basic functionality needed for general 2D drawing and 3D modeling; these tools and commands also appear in all Design Suite product workspaces. Each Design Suite product is installed with an additional set of industry-specific tools and commands that, along with the Fundamentals tools and commands, comprise the workspace for that product. The Design Suite workspace contains tools and commands from all products.
Vectorworks default workspaces are installed in the application folder [Vectorworks]\Workspaces. You can also create custom workspaces, based on a default workspace, or entirely of your own creation, as described in Customizing workspaces. Any changes you make to the default workspaces are automatically saved in the user folder, to maintain the integrity of both the default and custom workspaces. Custom workspaces can also be saved to a workgroup or project folder (see Vectorworks preferences: User Folders pane for information about setting up workgroup and project folders). Custom workspaces can be migrated to new versions of Vectorworks when you update.
To switch between workspaces, select Tools > Workspaces, and then select the workspace from the list of those available. If multiple workspaces have the same name (for example, if there is both the Vectorworks default Landmark workspace in the application folder and a customized Landmark workspace in the user folder) the location of each version of the workspace displays in parenthesis, so you can select the one you need; hold the cursor over a workspace name to see its filepath.
The Architect product has two workspaces: the traditional Architect workspace, 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.
The Braceworks product does not have its own workspace; rather, the Braceworks commands and tools are fully integrated into the Spotlight and Design Suite workspaces. The Braceworks licensure requirements for certain tools and commands apply.
In some cases, a command or tool available with the Fundamentals product has extended functionality in the Vectorworks Design Suite products, and the location in the workspace may be different. Examples of commands and tools with extended functionality in Design Suite products include title block borders and callouts. Some commands and tools are only in the Fundamentals workspace, because there are more advanced options in the Design Suite product workspaces; however all Fundamentals commands and tools can be added to the other workspaces, if needed.
If a command, tool, or parameter described in the documentation requires a specific product, an icon or text indicates that requirement.
See the Commands and tools PDF, available from the Help system Table of Contents, for a detailed list of the products where each tool and command is available.
