Some features to consider
Posted: Sun Jan 17, 2016 2:58 pm
Hi Eric
These are a few features and minor changes that you might like to consider in the next version of RealCADD:
Parallels dynamic mode: It would be better I think if this defaulted to "Single Offset" at boot, rather than Interactive offset. What happens now is that you set an offset, but forget to change it to single offset – and then have to go back and set it to single. Of course this only happens after starting or restarting RC, so it's pretty minor.
As an alternative, even better, if Parallels in interactive mode were to feature in the command line so you could simply type in a parallel distance and hit Enter. That would be a near-perfect situation.
Command line: It would be nice if this could include rounded rectangle – setting dx, dy radius (same radii both or possibility of different radii as now??).
Command line again: When drawing a line perpendicular to something it would be nice if you could just enter the length (L) in the command line and nothing else. Not terribly important, but it is something one does all the time and at the moment it's two operations minimum – draw the line and then edit the length. Would it need a new command line item – Perpendicular line?
Cutting tool: This is used so much (at least by me anyway) and is so convenient that it would be good to have a keyboard shortcut – perhaps Y or C?
Tangents: Tangents would be much improved if they could be tangential to a second circle or arc – so you could draw a typical 'bicycle chain'.
It would also be very helpful if the Shift key were operative with tangents, so you can draw a tangent at any of the constrained angles.
At the moment 0º - 90º etc seem to select accurately with a circle, but the other constrained angles don't.
With an arc neither 0º - 90º etc. nor the other constrained angles, seem to select and it gets very difficult – well impossible with any accuracy unless you do a lot of preparation lines first, like draw a line somewhere, align it to the arc (left or right; or top or bottom). Then draw the tangent from the arc to the end point (or centre point) of the aligned line. Even then it's not always quite accurate and only works for 0º - 90º.
And a new feature: A "View" feature. So you can set several views which saves a huge amount of scrolling, zooming etc. on a big drawing. So you would have the ability to set several views, numbered say, 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... and so on. Each view would take you to a bit of the drawing at a specified zoom. You set the view by going to the appropriate part of the drawing and setting the zoom you want and then clicking, say, Set View. Then to return there you enter the view number on the keyboard – so entering "2" would get you to View 2 and so on. Sometimes I am working on a large (say A1 or A0) drawing solidly for a week – being able to flick around like this would save a lot of time (and fatigue). Would it be independent of Layers? I think so. Currently I mostly use layers to break a large drawing up into sections, so the drawn material on each layer is in different places on the drawing, rather than the more conventional use, which is the drawn material largely on top of other layers. This is purely to speed things up, as once the drawing gets very large, it gets quite slow to scroll to different places because there is so much screen refresh going on. View might do it better and faster, leaving Layers for its more conventional use.
Cheers -- George
These are a few features and minor changes that you might like to consider in the next version of RealCADD:
Parallels dynamic mode: It would be better I think if this defaulted to "Single Offset" at boot, rather than Interactive offset. What happens now is that you set an offset, but forget to change it to single offset – and then have to go back and set it to single. Of course this only happens after starting or restarting RC, so it's pretty minor.
As an alternative, even better, if Parallels in interactive mode were to feature in the command line so you could simply type in a parallel distance and hit Enter. That would be a near-perfect situation.
Command line: It would be nice if this could include rounded rectangle – setting dx, dy radius (same radii both or possibility of different radii as now??).
Command line again: When drawing a line perpendicular to something it would be nice if you could just enter the length (L) in the command line and nothing else. Not terribly important, but it is something one does all the time and at the moment it's two operations minimum – draw the line and then edit the length. Would it need a new command line item – Perpendicular line?
Cutting tool: This is used so much (at least by me anyway) and is so convenient that it would be good to have a keyboard shortcut – perhaps Y or C?
Tangents: Tangents would be much improved if they could be tangential to a second circle or arc – so you could draw a typical 'bicycle chain'.
It would also be very helpful if the Shift key were operative with tangents, so you can draw a tangent at any of the constrained angles.
At the moment 0º - 90º etc seem to select accurately with a circle, but the other constrained angles don't.
With an arc neither 0º - 90º etc. nor the other constrained angles, seem to select and it gets very difficult – well impossible with any accuracy unless you do a lot of preparation lines first, like draw a line somewhere, align it to the arc (left or right; or top or bottom). Then draw the tangent from the arc to the end point (or centre point) of the aligned line. Even then it's not always quite accurate and only works for 0º - 90º.
And a new feature: A "View" feature. So you can set several views which saves a huge amount of scrolling, zooming etc. on a big drawing. So you would have the ability to set several views, numbered say, 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... and so on. Each view would take you to a bit of the drawing at a specified zoom. You set the view by going to the appropriate part of the drawing and setting the zoom you want and then clicking, say, Set View. Then to return there you enter the view number on the keyboard – so entering "2" would get you to View 2 and so on. Sometimes I am working on a large (say A1 or A0) drawing solidly for a week – being able to flick around like this would save a lot of time (and fatigue). Would it be independent of Layers? I think so. Currently I mostly use layers to break a large drawing up into sections, so the drawn material on each layer is in different places on the drawing, rather than the more conventional use, which is the drawn material largely on top of other layers. This is purely to speed things up, as once the drawing gets very large, it gets quite slow to scroll to different places because there is so much screen refresh going on. View might do it better and faster, leaving Layers for its more conventional use.
Cheers -- George