Landscape Special Interest Group July 2017 am

In this session, we showed step-by-step how to have resources downloaded from the Vectorworks site show up in the Resource Manager and discussed issues regarding the Vectorworks Plant Database.

Topics Covered:

• 00:19    We started out the session by comparing downloading resource files through the Resource Manager with downloading them online from Vectorworks Service Select (VSS). The challenge was to find out where our downloaded VSS files were being stored and why the Resource Manager couldn’t find them. Through a step-by-step example, we discovered how to make the connection for Vectorworks by using the Add New Favorites Files, Add Selected File to Favorites, and Remove from Favorites commands. In addition to adding your frequently used files to Favorites, you can create folders in Favorites to organize the files. Moreover, we proved the usefulness of the Show in Explorer (Show in Finder) command! If your Resource Manager seems too cluttered to you, remember that you can always move your most-used resources to the Favorites folder and turn off the Vectorworks and Subscription Libraries.
• 34:27    Next, we discussed whether to click “Yes” when Vectorworks asks for your permission to update the plant database. The challenge is whether entered information (e.g., water use data) or revised information (e.g., changed plant names) is added to the plant information that is kept when you select to update your plant database. It is also crucial to determine what database you’re connecting to, whether it’s the Vectorworks Plant Database or your own database. The information is always updated in a single direction, either from your project file to the database or from your database to the file. One must be careful which is the master (i.e., contains the most up-to-date data) and be sure that Vectorworks is set up to transfer the data in the correct direction.
• 40:22    The concern was voiced that, if you’ve made changes to the Vectorworks 2017 Plant Database (e.g., changed plant names or added additional data), you could run into a problem when trying to keep those changes after Vectorworks 2018 is launched. This is a legitimate concern! First, it’s necessary to point out that the Vectorworks Plant Database is a separate FileMaker Pro program. Fortunately, FileMaker Pro has an Import option that you could use to integrate your revised 2017 database with the new Vectorworks 2018 Plant Database. We looked at the Import Field Mapping in FileMaker Pro and discussed what effect using the different Import Actions would have. All of today’s discussion, including our import example, showed that it pays to be organized and to know where you store your Vectorworks things.

Landscape July 2017 am
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