Beta 6...

2D CAD software for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux
Eric Pousse
Posts: 1064
Joined: Sat Dec 03, 2011 12:31 pm
Location: Tours - France

Beta 6...

Post by Eric Pousse »

RealCADD 4.41b6 is available for Mac and Windows to test :

For Mac : http://www.adx-online.com/RealCADD441b6_Mac.zip

For Windows : http://www.adx-online.com/RealCADD441b6_Windows.zip

Thank you very much to help me to improve RealCADD.
Eric Pousse
debenriver
Posts: 696
Joined: Sat Dec 03, 2011 9:19 pm
Location: Maine USA and Suffolk England
Contact:

Re: Beta 6...

Post by debenriver »

Hi Eric

Can you tell us what is new – makes it easier to test :D

I can see RGB numbers on the colour palette – which is nice. I don't use colour much (except on proposal drawings), so it has never fussed me overmuch. But I agree, it is really hard to pick out what colour you have made something if you move away from the first column of colours. Because of that, I tend to use just those and then use transparency. Which is a shame because there is a good palette of colours available.

I can see "New Objects on Active Layer" checkbox on Parallels pane, which is also pretty nice.

What I, personally would really like :!: :!: is for the program to work out the centre of area of complex shapes – but I guess that is really hard to program. We have talked about this previously. Sometimes I have to resort to the old fashioned method – print out the shape – cut it out with scissors and then balance it on a knife edge (aka a triangular scale rule). That is tedious to say the least! And hardly CAD! But it probably isn't a mainstream requirement ...

Another thing that would be useful (for me anyway) is to be able to establish a temporary "centre" on a drawing so that when you zoom, it zooms around that point. Say a double-click before zooming. Otherwise when you zoom it is very easy to lose track of where you are on the drawing.

I have no trouble with 0,0 being top left and -y being upwards (sorry Mike!) – but then I have only ever used Mac CAD programs (and before that Apple II etc). Which tells you that I am not in the first flush of youth!!

George
Caddy
Posts: 40
Joined: Tue May 19, 2015 6:35 pm

Re: Beta 6...

Post by Caddy »

debenriver wrote: Another thing that would be useful (for me anyway) is to be able to establish a temporary "centre" on a drawing so that when you zoom, it zooms around that point. Say a double-click before zooming. Otherwise when you zoom it is very easy to lose track of where you are on the drawing.
Hi George

There is one feature that is near you've asked for. There are 2 ways to use it.
#1 You make a selection of a small item, then keep the ⌥ key pressed while zooming. Works very nice with the Magic Mouse. In the preferences I've set the scroll speed to 1 (one!!).
#2 If you don't have any small item, then draw it. Continue with #1.

debenriver wrote:....and before that Apple II etc). Which tells you that I am not in the first flush of youth!!

George
... close before Mac 64.... :D :D I got my Mac 128 with a very simple Word from MS which works very fine over many years until Apple changed the system :cry:

Hubert
Caddy
Posts: 40
Joined: Tue May 19, 2015 6:35 pm

Re: Beta 6...

Post by Caddy »

Bonjour Eric

Thank you for „double click on the Parallels Tool’s icon“, this speeds up my workflow. Well, now I try to follow generally to draw from left to right or from top to bottom. If this is too tedious then I go to draw at its best and use later ⇧⌘V or ⇧⌘H. If you’ll find a better solution for this direction topic then it would be absolutely perfect. And also thank you for the additional checkbox, this works fine. :D :D :D

Thank you for the RGB numbers on the colour palette. As a first step I could imagine to do a second one. We’ll see.

Bien cordialement

Hubert
debenriver
Posts: 696
Joined: Sat Dec 03, 2011 9:19 pm
Location: Maine USA and Suffolk England
Contact:

Re: Beta 6...

Post by debenriver »

Hi Hubert

I do often draw something small, just a short line usually, specifically to centre a zoom, just as you describe – but it would be nice just to be able to double click on the screen and have the zoom centre on that ...

I design sail boats and often the proposal drawings are quite large (like A0), drawn to say 1:20 scale. Or I am drawing full size components for CNC cutting – so a drawing can be very long – 8m or more. So it is easy to get lost when zooming in and out!

It's not important – just a nice feature!

George
debenriver
Posts: 696
Joined: Sat Dec 03, 2011 9:19 pm
Location: Maine USA and Suffolk England
Contact:

Re: Beta 6...

Post by debenriver »

Thank you for „double click on the Parallels Tool’s icon“
I think we have a double-click alternative on all the tools with options now – which is very nice :D
Caddy
Posts: 40
Joined: Tue May 19, 2015 6:35 pm

Re: Beta 6...

Post by Caddy »

debenriver wrote:Hi Hubert

I do often draw something small, just a short line usually, specifically to centre a zoom, just as you describe – but it would be nice just to be able to double click on the screen and have the zoom centre on that ...

I design sail boats and often the proposal drawings are quite large (like A0), drawn to say 1:20 scale. Or I am drawing full size components for CNC cutting – so a drawing can be very long – 8m or more. So it is easy to get lost when zooming in and out!

It's not important – just a nice feature!

George
Hi George

In Photoshop there isn't any need to click somewhere. You just move the mouse pointer to the position where you want to zoom... But you can't get it all ... I'm glad to have this one. Therefore I put all my hopes at the parallels to get the last improvement to make it perfect.... :)

Hubert
debenriver
Posts: 696
Joined: Sat Dec 03, 2011 9:19 pm
Location: Maine USA and Suffolk England
Contact:

Re: Beta 6...

Post by debenriver »

Good evening Hubert!
In Photoshop there isn't any need to click somewhere
I know, but photoshop is a raster image manipulation program (I do use it a lot for website design) – not a vector CAD program. So images trend to be much smaller in real physical size and everything much fuzzier generally. Not that that really affects zooming I suppose ...

But all the CAD programs that I have used have needed some click system to generate a centre around which zoom occurs – don't quite know why!

I have to say that RealCADD is the best CAD program that I have ever used, taken all round. Like all programs it has its quirks and you need some workarounds from time to time. I think it's difficult to be all things to all people. But the central core of the program is really excellent. We all want some different things on the periphery ...

Like I want centres of areas of irregular shapes ... Because that is what I design and what I need to know! But you probably have no interest in knowing that!

Have a good weekend :D

George
Eric Pousse
Posts: 1064
Joined: Sat Dec 03, 2011 12:31 pm
Location: Tours - France

Re: Beta 6...

Post by Eric Pousse »

George, Hubert,

Thanks for your appreciations !

When you zoom with ⌘+ or ⌘-, the zoom is centered on selected object(s).
When the rulers are displayed, you can drag the cross at the upper left corner and put the origin where you want.

George, I have modified the back color of texts as you ask.
Eric Pousse
Caddy
Posts: 40
Joined: Tue May 19, 2015 6:35 pm

Re: Beta 6...

Post by Caddy »

Good Morning George
debenriver wrote: Like I want centres of areas of irregular shapes ... Because that is what I design and what I need to know! ….
The matter is quite complex but not complicate. Better you go to use Excel to calculate. Then it’s your decision what you need to put into the calculation. The most common method uses to split up the shape by triangles and then… The mathematical formulas are not so heavy as you would like to think. But it takes time doing that for a very complex shape.
debenriver wrote: I know, but photoshop is a raster image manipulation program (I do use it a lot for website design) – not a vector CAD program….
I think you don’t want to compare Photoshop with a CAD app. These are completely different matters. But anyway it’s better to think about a screen window as a real window you are looking through, at the far side of the window is a board with a picture (Photoshop) or a drawing (CAD app), your distance to the real window will be kept constant. For zooming in you call a boy to move the board a little bit near to real window, for zooming out the distance becomes greater. In that case the math rules take into account (1) the distance between the viewer and the board and (2) the area of the window.

At least Photoshop or a CAD app will follow nearly the same math rules.
debenriver wrote: But all the CAD programs that I have used have needed some click system to generate a centre around which zoom occurs – don't quite know why!
A long long time ago I got being trained with Autocad. But now I’m retired and I don’t want to spend round about 5000 € for my private pleasure. When I was coming to RealCADD, I found out it’s pretty well for those I wan’t to do. I know also ClarisCad, MacDraft, MacDraw and some more apps before Apple was switching to OS X. On my way to RealCADD there were some more candidates. And every CAD app differs from each other. I think, Eric feels not sad, when we are talking about ideas and improvement. I think this feedback is needed like salt in the soup. BTW: Very long time ago there was 2 stairways down from my living home the first office of Brüning&Evert who create the famous RagTime.

Hubert

P.S. Now I got my first drawing in 1:20, starting at the very early beginning with RealCADD. It's an assembling study of a high efficiency radial fan following the newest development of fluid mechanics.
Post Reply