Can't select horizontal and vertical dimension tabs

I just installed Librecad and am having issues with dimensioning. I can't select either horizontal or vertical dimensions. I am a long time user of VisualCadd which is similar in many ways. But after watching a couple of Youtube tutorials I find that there seems to be some kind of glitch in the dimension aspect.

did you have a look at:

http://wiki.librecad.org/index.php/LibreCAD_users_Manual#Dimensions

jamiji wrote

I just installed Librecad and am having issues with dimensioning. I can't select either horizontal or vertical dimensions. I am a long time user of VisualCadd which is similar in many ways. But after watching a couple of Youtube tutorials I find that there seems to be some kind of glitch in the dimension aspect.

Thank you, I got as far as this...
"Select horizontal from the dimension menu."
but I could not select neither horizontal nor vertical and even though I clicked on it, it would not choose it.
I am wondering if the program is corrupt and I need to re-install.

not enough information. I don't get the meaning of "I could not select neither horizontal nor vertical and even though I clicked on it, it would not choose it"

Please use Main menu -> Dimension -> horizontal, and make sure you enabled "Snap Free", i.e. command line sf

jamiji wrote

Thank you, I got as far as this...
"Select horizontal from the dimension menu."
but I could not select neither horizontal nor vertical and even though I clicked on it, it would not choose it.
I am wondering if the program is corrupt and I need to re-install.

I mean I would click on either the horizontal button or the vertical button but neither function would be selected.

I have the same problem as the OP. I was trying to follow the instructions in the user manual. When it came to the section on dimensioning it mentions selecting horizontal. I can try to do this from the buttons, from the drop down menu or by using the command line and typing dimhorizontal. None of these actions results in any change, the dimension button dimension:linear remains highlighted, the horizontal option does not highlight. Furthermore, if I try to continue to follow the manual instructions anyway and just use linear dimensions, I don't actually get a dimension mark, I get an additional rectangle with no numbers, drawn on the outside of the rectangle I was trying to mark with dimensions. I set my preferences to make dimensions yellow, and the lines are still white. In other words it doesn't look like it is doing what it should be doing (drawing dimensions with a line between two marker points and a number in yellow), it's just drawing an additional rectangle.

I have made further changes to the dimensions tab in current drawing preferences and determined it is drawing some form of dimension line but the numbers at default settings were so small as to be invisible. It is just the problem of not being able to specify horizontal or vertical in from the dimensions menu (or by command line).

What operating system are you using? It works for me on Windows 7.

A possible clue is that all three of these use RS_ActionDimLinear:

    case RS2::ActionDimLinear:
        a = new RS_ActionDimLinear(*document, *view);
        break;
    case RS2::ActionDimLinearHor:
        a = new RS_ActionDimLinear(*document, *view, 0.0, true, RS2::ActionDimLinearHor);
        break;
    case RS2::ActionDimLinearVer:
        a = new RS_ActionDimLinear(*document, *view, M_PI_2, true, RS2::ActionDimLinearVer);
        break;

https://github.com/LibreCAD/LibreCAD/blob/master/librecad/src/ui/qg_actionhandler.cpp
https://github.com/LibreCAD/LibreCAD/blob/master/librecad/src/actions/rs_actiondimlinear.cpp

I am using Windows Vista.