autocad is much more difficult to use than vectorworks, but there are enough similarities that you should be able to learn vectorworks in an hour or two. dead easy.

first, use the tabs to change length of lines at the top of the screen, or alternatively change attributes with the object info pallette (my preferecnce).

use the polyline tool to make the polylines you desribe above. Oh, and read the manual ;-)

lines are easier in autocad, but the organisation of vectorworks is better. i use the info pallette for sizing almost everything.

when using the tabs do you use just the length tab, or the x/y tab also
- the manual i bought is driving me nuts.
i guess the sequence of information to input is giving me trouble.
thanks for your help.

i tend to make it the length i need, move it and rotate it if needed. i am trying to think if there is a command similar to autocads line, @12'<45 but i have been working on photoshop and rhino stuff for the last two weeks, 15 hours a day and can't recall much of anything except that the zoom ration of autocad is about a trillion to one, which is adequate for most uses. (thanks, rem) sorry i can't be of more assistance

Try using the object info palette. I'm sorry but it's a pretty basic necessity to do anything, and I do mean anything. Its not hard.

You can either set the line's length as you draw it - by tabbing through the fields as mentioned above - or you can draw a line of any length, then re-set it's length parameter in the Object Info Palette. Another possibility that some people like it to use the "offset" tool to create something to which to snap, then just drag the line you're drawing until it getst to that guideline. In other words: there are lots of ways.
There's a pretty good "Help" document accessible from within VectorWorks. There's also a decent book by Tom Baehr that goes through each tool step by step.

Oh and also: yes you can do something like "12'@45" - just draw the line first, then set length and angle in the Object Info Palette