Misc. usability suggestions

Hello,

It looks like it has taken a lot of work to get LibreCAD to where it is now (1.0.0rc2).  I do have some suggestions for further improvement:  

 * Would it be possible to add, at the top of the "CAD Toolbar", a text label which shows the name of the current set of tools?  For example, when the user launches LibreCAD, the first value of this field could be "Main".  If the user then clicks the button for the Lines menu, the field would change to "Lines".  

 * Would it be possible to add an indicator to the buttons, on the CAD Toolbar, that open menus ("menus" = different sets of buttons in the CAD Toolbar), to help the user tell whether the button will open a menu or will directly start a command?  This indicator might be a greater-than sign (>) [or a triangle shaped similarly to it] on the right-hand side of the buttons that open menus.  (I realize that this would make the buttons a little wider.)  I think the triangle would complement the existing double left-pointing triangle that means "go back one menu level."  

 * Can each entry in the command-line history include, prepended to it, the same prompt text (such as "Specify first corner") that was shown to the left of the command line when that history entry was entered by the user?  

 * Can the Edit > Undo and Edit > Redo menu entries include the name of the command in question, for example, "Undo Rectangle"?  

 * Can the "move relative zero" command, in addition to what it does now, put an "@" character at the beginning of the command-line input, since if the user specifies where the relative origin is, probably the next thing he or she will do is to enter a relative coordinate at the command line?  

 * Can the Save toolbar button (and File > Save menu item) be "grayed out" when the file is saved, then made selectable again when any change is made to the drawing?  Also, an asterisk (*) character could be added to the window titlebar when there are unsaved changes (= when the Save command is selectable).  

 * In the Modify menu in the CAD Toolbar, there is a button called Edit Text.  It would be great if this command could be added under Modify in the main menu (the text menu at the top of the screen).  

 * Presently, the Edit Text command always starts by requiring the user to select a text entity.  Preferably, if any entities are selected when the Edit Text command is begun, the Edit Text command would step through the selected text entities (ignoring any non-text entities) instead of requiring the user to select again.  

 * It looks like the arc icons in the Option Toolbar for the "Arc with Center, Radius and Angles" command show the correct zero points, but the wrong directions of rotation.  For example, the left-hand icon seems correct in showing the zero point as being to the right, but the direction of rotation is shown as being clockwise, whereas if this icon is selected, angles entered at the command line seem to be measured counterclockwise.  

 * If the only entity in a block is a circle centered on 0,0, then attempting to put text at 0,0 in the block (entering 0,0 into the command line at the "Specify insertion point" prompt) does not seem to do anything.  If I then add a rectangle (anywhere) to the block, the exact same procedure for putting text into the block works correctly.  

 * Please think about adding a snap mode which divides a given line (or entity) into a given number of equal parts.  For example, if the user entered 3 into the Option Toolbar and then moused over an existing line in the drawing, then the points 1/3 and 2/3 of the way along the line would be snapped to.  

 * It would be excellent if each rectangle were preserved as one entity (I am sure this applies to other kinds of entity also), rather than being stored in the drawing file as 4 separate lines.  For example, this would make "Center" snap more useful with rectangles than it is now.  

 * In the Block List, the "Add a block" button should also start the "Edit the active block in a separate window" command (after the user enters a name for the new block).  

 * It would be nice if any block could be dragged-and-dropped from its entry in the Block List onto the main drawing.  

 * Double-clicking an entry in the Block List should invoke "Edit the active block in a separate window".  

 * Maybe a middle-mouse-button click in the drawing, without moving the mouse, could do something (presently it doesn't seem to have any action assigned to it).  Maybe this could be View > Auto Zoom.  

 * Can a "feet and inches" unit be considered?  An example display format, for 1 foot 3 inches, would be:  

1'-3"

This number would, in the drawing file, be equal to 1.25 feet.  
The number "1 foot, 3 and 5/16 inches" would be displayed as 1'-3.3125" and would be internally represented as 1.2760417 feet.  
When a "feet and inches" number is being entered at the keyboard, various separators could be accepted as alternatives for the "-" character.  At a minimum, the space character should be OK.  Using no separator (example:  1'3.3125") should also be OK.  

 * Can there be an option to make the icons bigger?  I expect this would require redrawing the icons at the higher resolution, so I am sure it would take a while to add this option.  In the future, you might try a vector icon format (SVG or other) to keep graphic designers from having to draw the icons at 2 different resolutions.  

 * Outline font support (OpenType) would be wonderful.  

Thanks in advance for reviewing these suggestions.  Also please let me know if the program already has options for turning on some of the requested features.  I am using Windows.  

Hello dg1727,

On 26/08/2011 18:57, dg1727 [via LibreCAD] wrote:

 >
 > It looks like it has taken a lot of work to get LibreCAD to where it
 > is now
 > (1.0.0rc2). I do have some suggestions for further improvement:
 >
 > * Would it be possible to add, at the top of the "CAD Toolbar",
 > a text label
 > which shows the name of the current set of tools? For example, when
 > the user
 > launches LibreCAD, the first value of this field could be "Main". If
 > the user
 > then clicks the button for the Lines menu, the field would change to
 > "Lines".
 >
 > ...
 > ...
 > ...
 >

- Please, could you fill feature requests in LibreCAD Sourceforge
   Feature Requests tracker.  The link is below:

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=342582&atid=1433847



Regards,

Claude

The requests have been put into the tracker.