forum.datacad.com

I've looked through old posts from 3-4 years back on this subject. Wondering if anyone has anything new to add to that. I have just ordered an IMac and am leaning toward getting the Parallels platform instead of Boot Camp. Does anyone have any advice on this?

Thanks,

David Peabody

David,

Did you see my answer on the other thread?

Hi Neill. Bought the IMac. Installed Parallels and moved my Dell over to the Mac. Just installed 32G of RAM so it is fired up and ready to go. Am able to open up Datacad files with no problem. The one glitch so far is that the new keyboard does not have the quick keys I am used to. Cannot remember far back enough to recall how I set those up. If you or someone could point me in the right direction, I would certainly appreciate it.
Thanks,
David

probably have to copy the dcadwin.mcr file over to the new setup, under Support Files I believe.

If you mean the Alt-L and Alt-Z etc, then Roger is correct. If you mean the F1-F12 keys then go to the Apple Menu/System Preferences/Keyboard and on the Keyboard tab toggle on the option 'Use all F1, F2 etc. keys as standard function keys'. When you want to use the volume up and the other special features you need to hold down the 'fn' (Function) key which is next to the Delete key.

Another option is fusion by vmware. I've read extensive reviews and the products are both good.
I had a problem with the mouse control -esp. scroll wheel for snapping.
I'm using parallels and waiting for tech support to et back with me.

The iMac screen is so sharp that it is a real joy.

Larry

Larry,

What mouse are you using? It has to have the middle button enabled in OSX before it will work in Windows. If you are using the Magic Mouse, you need to get a third party control panel in OSX called Magic Prefs - enable the middle button in Magic Prefs and you will then get middle button snapping in Windows.

Where in OSX do you enable the mouse buttons? The only place I know of is system preferences and the mouse icon. No options there.

If you are using the Apple Magic Mouse then you need to download the MagicPrefs program.

Neil et al,

Thanks for your helpful comments. I got pretty well sorted out and have been using the Parallels platform pretty successfully. One big problem however: Occasionally I completely lose a file I am working on, and when I go back to find the saved version, either the file is totally gone with no backup file, or it is unopenable. In the latter case, it appears it has not been properly purged and shows up as a 15 mb file rather than a 1.5 mb file. I have then been able to rename the dbk. file and recover the last saved version in that case. THe last time this happened I went back and figured out that a shutdown was caused whenever I touched this one piece of hatching. So I carefully moved it to another layer, then deleted that layer, and haven't had it happen again. So Imake lots of back-ups these days.

This may or may not be due to the Parallels, but I am moving to Bootcamp to see if that makes a difference. In my case, I bought the Mac strictly for the photography work I do and I am rarely doing that when doing office work. So I think working out of Windows just as I did before I had the Mac makes sense for all my office work, only now I will be in Bootcamp, and I can reboot when I am doing the other work outside of office hours.

The switch is rather complicated because I am trying to stay with Windows XP and my Mac OS makes that difficult. Our IT person has succeeded in loading it except for the video drivers, and is trying now to find a way to get the appropriate driver off the internet and load it in.

Dealing with all this is tough when all you really know how to do is draw!

David

David,

It sounds like you are crashing out of a drawing, and the version you are seeing that is larger is just the decompressed version of the file. You may need to Purge that file(s)? And you need to Save it manually as often as you can, and after every significant step.

Thanks Neil.
Believe me I am saving religiously. Doesn't the file self-Purge everytime you save it as a new file? Is there something I need to be doing beyond that?

Thanks,

David

I run DataCAD in XP a VM on a MacBookPro with OSX 10.6.8. I have been using a Magic Mouse with MagicPref.
Last week I accidentally allowed an update to version 2 of Magic Prefs and critical functions disappeared!!!

The middle button click and one finger swipe zoom in and out are no longer functional and as far as I can tell, are impossible to restore with the version 2 Magic Prefs now. Who is using some other mouse that works. for running DataCAD in an Apple VM setup? The Mgic Mouse is a real slug without those funcionalities.

I have MagicPrefs 2.4.2 (81) and the middle snap works fine. I'm using VMware Fusion 5.0.3 (1040386) and WinXP SP3.

The difference may be the version of OSX and VM Fusion. Your VM Fusion is much newer and I suspect your OSX may be too. I am running the same XP service pak, in OSX 10.6.8 and VMware Fusion 3.1.3. I did not upgrade the Mac or VM beause there was nothing I needed in the upgrades. Until now it seems.