Upon installation of Vectorworks, if you chose to run the Migration Manager, Vectorworks may not have been able to place new menu commands (for example Palette Options & Energos in VW2016) in the correct location in your migrated workspace. You can tell that this occurred if you have a menu called “New” that has commands in it such as the following ones that arrived with Vectorworks 2016, among others command that have arrived with more recent versions:


  • Palettes can dock to document window
  • Palettes can dock to each other
  • Project Settings...
  • Show Results...
  • Export Results...
  • Create label


In the case of Vectorworks 2016's new commands, in order to place these 6 items in their correct location, follow these steps:


  1. Go to Tools > Workspaces > Edit Current Workspace
  2. In the Workspace Editor, makes sure you have the Menu tab selected.
  3. In the left column, under Commands, find “Window" and expand its section by clicking on the > (Mac) or + (Win). You should see “Palette Docking Options”. Keep that visible.
  4. In the right column, under Commands, find “Window” and expand its section.
  5. Drag the New Menu” item from the left Commands column to the right Menus column and place it immediately after “Palettes"
  6. Double-click the new “New Menu“ you just placed and rename it “Palette Options"
  7. Now drag “Palette Docking Options” that you found in step 3 from the left column to the right column, on top of your new "Palette Options" menu, so that the placement indicator is slightly indented from the word “Palette Options”. This should make it so the palette docking options “nest” under the menu item “Palette Options"


That takes care of the Palette options. Now on to the Energos commands...

  1. In the left column, under Commands, find “Energos" and expand its section by clicking on the > (Mac) or + (Win). You should see “Energos Commands”. Keep that visible.
  2. In the right column, under Commands, find “Tools” and expand its section.
  3. Drag the New Menu” item from the left Commands column to the right Menus column and place it immediately after “Records"
  4. Double-click the new “New Menu“ you just placed and rename it “Energos"
  5. Now drag “Energos Commands” that you found in step 8 from the left column to the right column, on top of your new "Energos" menu, so that the placement indicator is slightly indented from the word “Energos”. This should make it so the Energos Commands “nest” under the menu item “Energos"
  6. Now, in the right Menu column, find that original “New” menu that had the 6 “orphaned” items in it. Click on it and delete it.
  7. Click OK in the lower right of the Workspace Editor window and approve any subsequent dialogue boxes to save the modified workspace.
  8. Once your workspace has refreshed, you should have new menu items under Window and Tools that contain your Palette Options and Energos Commands respectively.


Note: The items listed in the "New" menu in Vectorworks 2017 and 2018 will differ from the ones shown in Vectorworks 2016, but the method of editing your workspace will still apply. If the list of items in the "New" menu is longer than you would like to edit in order to correct, we recommend switching to a "stock" workspace (rather than a custom or migrated one) and editing a copy of that stock workspace to make it your won.


To learn more about editing and customizing your workspace, please watch this video: