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A few suggestions

Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2018 3:20 pm
by debenriver
Hi Eric

A few suggestions if I may for possible future version!

Layers: It would be very nice indeed if one could switch between Layer's layouts using a keystroke. So when you created a layout it was given a keystroke shortcut – just like Views are given keystrokes automatically as you create them. Perhaps we could use ⌥⌘1, ⌥⌘2 etc?? Then the layers pallet wouldn't have to be open on the screen - it is big and takes up a lot of space – but switching between layer layouts is really very useful, specially with larger drawings.

Command line It would be great if one were able to specify the length of a line drawn perpendicular to an object. It's such a common thing to want to do! I appreciate that it is difficult because the start point of the perpendicular can move along the object it is drawn from, and doesn't have an exact start point. It only needs to be the Length specified however - no other parameter.

Snap Is it possible to be able to combine Snap parameters – most commonly perhaps to be able to draw a Perpendicular from an End Point, but also from a Centre Point. It's quite a construct to do either of those at the moment – you have to draw a perpendicular, then another perpendicular to that and then finally a perpendicular back to the point that you originally wanted to draw from – and then if you want to specify the length of the final perpendicular, do a horizontal and vertical flip, so the line can be adjusted to the length you want. Perhaps just add two more options to the snap pallet – PE and PC – shortcuts J and K perhaps??

Happy New Year!!

George

Re: A few suggestions

Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2018 6:02 pm
by Eric Pousse
Bonjour et merci George,

Happy New Year for you too and for all users of RealCADD and iPocket Draw !

For your suggestion 1): I think that it is possible.
For your suggestion 2): The Command Line does not allow to draw perpendicular lines. I can't imagine in which case fix the length of the perpendicular line after creating it will not be enough? (but I don't draw boats...;-))
For your suggestion 3): Is this suggestion in the continuation of the 2) or for other cases?

Cordialement.

Re: A few suggestions

Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2018 8:46 pm
by debenriver
Hi Eric

Thanks for your quick reply.

1) would be really nice :mrgreen: On my 11" MacBook Air (I really like small screens!) the Layers pallet takes up a lot of room. And it would be nice just to be able to use a keystroke rather than a mouse move. It works great with Views.

2) if it isn't possible then so be it :cry: For example I use it a lot for outside dimensioning arrows - I like to make all my dimension lines the same length (35mm at 1:10 for example) and it's a bore to have to keep typing in the length afterwards instead of as you draw the line. Perhaps I'll see if I can make a script to do the job ....

3) is independent of (2) – I regularly want to draw a perpendicular from the end (and sometimes the centre) of another line – it's not an unusual construct – and it's a lot of moves at the moment - either as I described - or duplicate the line, move it way from the first line and then draw a perpendicular to the end point (or centre) of the first line. And then the line is still the wrong way round to adjust the length. Or you can do a parallel and then at least you can draw the perpendicular the right way round to adjust the length – and if you set the parallel distance first, then even the length is right – but all of those manoeuvres are a lot of moves for a simple thing.

So it would be nice ... :D

Many thanks Eric

Cheers -- George

Re: A few suggestions

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:59 am
by Eric Pousse
George,

I did not remember that but you can already navigate through the layer's layouts with the key "Alt" or "Option" and the arrows Up and Down.
I think to add a menu "Layer's layout" after the menu "Views" because I can't add shortkey in popmenu of the layer's dialog.
Yes/No?

Cordialement.

Re: A few suggestions

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 2:40 pm
by debenriver
Hi Eric

Gosh - I didn't even know you could do that!! I've only been using RealCADD about 9 years or so .... :mrgreen:

I immediately went and tried it out of course and it works excellently – but I think being able to select a specific layer rather than having to cycle through them would also be good. With Views, provided you are disciplined about creating them it gets very easy to remember which is which, and I think Layer Layouts would be the same.

And Yes - a top menu item like Views would be great I think. As an aside, I reckon it would be better and simpler to just read "Layer Layout" (pedantically "Layer's layout" should probably be "Layers' layout" - what a ridiculous language English is!)

As well as using Layers in the classical way, with one layer superimposed over another (like for electrical or plumbing plans), I often use Layers for different parts of a drawing – typically on a General Arrangement drawing I will have Plan : Profile : Deck : Sections : Sail Plan : Border & Title – which will eventually be presented as a single drawing. In conjunction with Views it speeds up moving around a big drawing a lot – scrolling can get very slow.

Cheers -- George

Re: A few suggestions

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 8:37 pm
by Eric Pousse
George,

Suggestion 1) is done : I have added a menu "Layer layouts" in the menu bar and in the contextual menu when no object is selected.
Suggestion 2) I think about it but I don't see where is the benefit to enter the length before to draw the line than after...
Suggestion 3) I think that add two new attractions is not a good solution because you have to check them before beginning to draw the parallel line that you want. What about this :
- Attractions Point, Center and Perpendicular are on,
- We begin to draw a new line with an attraction Perpendicular found on an object, RealCADD will know that we want a perpendicular from this object,
- Now we go to a specific attraction point of the same object (beginning, end or center, intersection?) to fix the beginning of the perpendicular line,
- The end of the new perpendicular line will be different of the mouse point (because the start is fixed) but the mouse point will fix the length of the new line.

Cordialement.

Re: A few suggestions

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 11:26 pm
by debenriver
Hi Eric

1) Great. Thank you

3) Sounds fine to me. Assuming say that snaps E P I C are already selected. You start to draw a line and the Perpendicular cursor shows. As you drag the line you hit E and the perpendicular draws from the end point of the object. Have I basically got that right? It doesn't deselect E in the snap pallet in this special case?

If you didn't hit E you would still be able to draw the perpendicular to an end point of another object as usual?

I hadn't thought about an intersection because normally that's a difficult place to start a perpendicular - but of course with what you are suggesting, you would start the perpendicular from somewhere else on the line and then hitting "I" would make it go from an intersection. Sounds good to me!

2) Well it's a lot quicker because you enter the length as you draw, rather than drawing the line and then having to go to the Edit pallet to adjust the length, which is both another mouse move, click and a keyboard entry.

With the old ClarisCad, when you drew a perpendicular line, the command line (equivalent) defaulted to the length box and you just typed in the length and clicked the mouse and you got a perpendicular line the length you wanted. I got so used to it I suppose!

Could it be that after you drew the line the length box on the Edit pallet was on focus so you simply had to type in the length number?? Would that work?

If it's hard to do or will end up cumbersome, it's truly not a big problem in any way at all.

A couple of other little tiny things: :mrgreen:

4) Circle Is it possible to alter the way the Edit pallet sees a circle. It would be nice if it saw the centre (cx and cy) and the radius – at the moment you see the x,y of the bounding rectangle. It is currently very hard to alter the size of an existing circle and still keep the centre in the same place.

5) With the new "In" - "In/Cut" select mode (which is great) you also get this with a Zoom marquee – doesn't do any harm of course because it doesn't do anything – at least I don't think it does??

Cheers -- George

Re: A few suggestions

Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2018 9:33 pm
by Eric Pousse
Bonjour George,

RealCADD471b3 is available

If you want to test it...

Thanks

Re: A few suggestions

Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 10:00 pm
by debenriver
Hi Eric

I'm having a few problems with 4.71b3.

Layer layouts:

On a new drawing if I make layer layouts, I have to save the drawing, close it and then open it again, before the layers appear in the Layer layout menu. Once they are there, provided the layers window is open, then I can swap between layers very nicely.

On an old drawing, with existing layer layouts, they appear as soon as you open the drawing and work fine, again only if the Layers window is open.

On an old drawing with layers but no layer layouts – if you create layer layouts from the existing layers, you have to save, close and reopen to get the Layer layout menu to show the layouts. And have the Layers window open for them to work.

If you close a drawing with Layer layouts and then create a brand new drawing, with no layers, the Layer layouts of the earlier drawing persist and still show on the Layer layout menu, but not of course in the Layers window. Even if you go on to create new layers and layouts - the old Layer layouts seem to persist, even though the do not apply. You have not only close the new drawing, but also quit RealCADD to make them go away. Or open another drawing with existing layer layouts – and then everything seems to get alright again.

I also seem to be having a selection problem. If I open an existing drawing (with or without layers and with or without layer layouts) some objects just won't select. As you pass the selection cursor over them it does not change (from black to white). Lines seem much more difficult that shapes (rectangles, circles, polygons etc).

Sometimes a non-selectable line can be selected at it's end point (whether snap E is selected or not) and sometimes (but not always) by its centre point (but only if snap C is selected).

New lines seem to be OK. But objects copied and pasted from an old drawing do seem to be problematical as well.

if you draw a marquee around a non-selectable line, object or group, it gets selected – but mostly you can't drag it unless you can get it by an end point.

I'm somewhat confused as to exactly what is happening I have to say :?

Snap The new P works great on a new drawing from E, C and I.

On an old drawing (with or without layers) it only works on lines you can select as above. On those you can't it doesn't work - you can't draw a perpendicular at all – or only very occasionally perhaps. Hard to be sure because sometimes lines that were non-selectable seem to change and become selectable.

I guess that makes sense - if you can't select a line, then you can't draw a perpendicular from it. You can draw a line (but not a perpendicular) from the end point, whether snap E is selected or not.

Hope this helps

Edit this morning Working on a brand new drawing of a new 50' design I imported via DXF the plan, profile and section views of the boat and created new Layers and new Layer layouts. I saved and closed the drawing. When I re-opened it the Layer layout menu had not registered the layer layouts. I could switch layouts via the layers window but only very slowly and only by selecting the layout and then clicking or dragging on the drawing. I quit RealCADD and then started it up again - no change. After quitting and re-starting a couple more times, when I opened the drawing, the Layer layout menu was suddenly active and I can switch layers just fine (but only with the Layers window open).

Then I made some new Layer layouts and saved the drawing but they didn't register in the Layer layout menu. I closed the drawing and then re-opened it – and the Layer layout menu showed "No layouts". I quit RealCADD and re-started it, opened my drawing and the new layouts were there just fine.

And I can't directly select most of the lines on the drawing except by using the select marquee. And when I have selected a line it is difficult to extend it etc. I can only draw a perpendicular from a new line, not from any of the pasted lines or objects.

Cheers -- George

Re: A few suggestions

Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2018 8:00 am
by Eric Pousse
Bonjour George,

Thank you for your detailed feedback and sorry for the problems!

I think that I have fixed the problem with the layer layout menu which causes the other on selection of objects.
RealCADD 4.71b4

What about the circles (or ovals) in the edit pallet?

Cordialement.