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I don't quite understand the concept of Properties and Attributes as they are implemented in LibreCAD. Let me explain.
In Properties we have:
Layer
Color
Width
Line type
Coordinates of points defining geometry
In Attributes we have:
Layer
Color
Width
Line type
When you have multiple items selected and change something in Properties window, only 1 item is changed (I believe that the last selected) (And actually I see at as a bug because if you allow user to do something with many items selected, user thinks that the operation would be applied to all of them. So either allow the operation to be applied to all selected or don't allow the operation when there are more then 1 item selected.)
When you have multiple items selected and change something in Attributes window, all selected items are changed.
So, basically we have duplicated tools with slightly different functions. And Attributes is much more powerful, because you can select half of the drawing and change its properties/attributes in one click.
And where do we have this powerful tool? Right, only in Tools -> Modify -> Attributes. No right click, no docked window. By the way, we don't have a docked window for Properties either, and this is another problem.
And also we have Pen toolbar, where we have:
Color
Width
Line type
That Pen, by the way, doesn't change anything in selected items until you press "Apply Pen to Entity" button and then click on selected items, which is also very strange and unusual. And I would make it to apply the changes to selected items immediately, without any unnecessary buttons and clicks.
Well, additional button to "paint" items with selected properties is useful, but if you have already selected everything you want to be changed, then it doesn't make sense to make some more clicks.
So we basically have those functions not doubled, but tripled.
And all that mess doesn't help you in a workflow, because you want to be able to see and change properties/attributes of different objects easily, and not by right-clicking on every single line (from several hundreds).
So, how should it be organized in my opinion?
It is really convenient to have information about properties/attributes in 1 line as it is made in Pen toolbar, but you can't place all the information there.
So there should be 2 places.
1) 1-line toolbar like Pen, but containing more information then now:
Layer. And some tools to manage that shown layer (turn on and off at least)
Color
Line width
Line type
And this tool should immediately change the properties and move objects to the selected layer.
Or, probably, if you don't want to combine properties with layers, you should add separate 1-line drop-down tool for layers.
2) Dockable window, containing all the information about an item:
Geometry type (line, circle, spline etc.)
Layer. And some tools to manage that shown layer (turn on and off at least)
Color
Line width
Line type
Coordinates of points defining geometry
Some selection filters. (To select the items with some properties (geometry type, colors, layers
etc.))
And both those tools 1) and 2) should be able to affect all selected items (not like current Properties) and to move items between layers.
And if there are different attributes in the selection set (for example you have red and green lines selected), just show "varies", and then if user chooses "blue" from drop-down, the lines become blue.
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