Old Autocad user struggling

Hi,

I was taught Autocad by a surveyor in the 90s, and the way i draw is with a combination of ORTHO, OFFSET, FILLET (0), and object tracking. I dont use grid, i dont specify start points, end points or lengths, as i find it quicker to do it this other way (btw thanks for TRIM2,  its like fillet with radius zero)

So im really really struggling with this relative zero thing. When i turn on restrict orthagonal it forces the object to start at relative zero. Is there any way to disable this behavior? I want to by default 99% percent of the time draw vertical and horozontal lines, but starting wherever i want.

Is there any plan for object tracking? (so that you can snap to an implied intersection of two otherwise non connecting objects)

Lastly the latest codebase seems to have a collection of bugs on rc3 for macos. Sometimes ortho and snapping, invert and do the opposite of what is set. Much of the time i cant point select objects at all. On a fresh drawing it works, but on larger drawings or anything imported from dwg, i can click on objects to my hearts content and nothing happens.

When point select does work it doesnt give any indication of if an object can be selected. On autocad the object changes appearance when it would be selected if you clicked it, and the sensitive area around the cursor is adjustable in size. These seem like timely additions for the project.

Thanks for a great initiative guys, theres a glimpse of the possibility of weaning myself of the behemoth that is autocad

Hello zoneblue, I've answered the restrict orthogonal question over on the Librecad-User section.  As to the rest, over to the devs :-D

Welcome zoneblue!

Not sure what you mean with object tracking.
What you can try to snap on imaginary intersections is what we call construction layer in LibreCAD.
You can toggle construction layer in the layer list with the # icon.
This works for lines only and extends them to infinity, so you will have a real intersection to snap on.
Toggle construction layer off again switches lines back to their real length.

Concerning selection issues your description is too vague. I'm not aware, that there are issues related with macOS.
Possibly this is caused by images in the drawing? You may try Draft mode then, which opts out the image, showing its bounding box only.
Some tools, when active, also prohibit to select entities they don't support. E.g. polylines, ellipses or splines do not support all Modify tools and therefore they can't be selected when the tools are active.

Watch the command history box, there you will find messages for failed actions sometimes.

Thanks for the tips guys.

I have tested this some more and i think my non-understanding of how offset in Librecad works is at issue here.

If i type o in the cmd line, the offset distance box shows, which can be populated, and then you can offset  by hovering near the object. In this case the hint shows: specify distance or select entity or through. However if i hit either tools, modify, offset ... or toolbar modify, offset, then the offset distance box does not show, and the hint instead says: select to create offset

Select what? clicking an object does nothing. And why the difference between cmd line and tool?

This hover v click behavior seems to differ between tools

For offset: you have to hover the objects
For fillet: you have to click the first entity, then hover the second.
For trim: you have to click both entitys

My struggle to learn these tools is impeded by not knowing when or if an object will be or has been  selected. After clicking for either trim or fillet there is no visible change in the object.

FTR to offset in autocad, you type o, space, type 300mm, then click the object, then click on which side to offset.

LordOfBikes wrote

Welcome zoneblue!

Concerning selection issues your description is too vague.

AutoCad has a mode called Selection Preview.  When enabled, selectable entities are highlighted when the cursor is moved over them.  It can be handy when there are say, two lines close together and you don't want to zoom right in to be sure of selecting the correct one.  I don't tend to use it because I usually work with a lot of "candy" turned off.

Object tracking example shown here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnqMTNkoyZ0

I use it to align dimensions and many other things that ought to be aligned but dont touch

zoneblue wrote

If i type o in the cmd line, the offset distance box shows, which can be populated, and then you can offset  by hovering near the object. In this case the hint shows: specify distance or select entity or through. However if i hit either tools, modify, offset ... or toolbar modify, offset, then the offset distance box does not show, and the hint instead says: select to create offset

Select what? clicking an object does nothing. And why the difference between cmd line and tool?

We just figured this out ourselves, see https://forum.librecad.org/Offset-distance-tp5721387p5721620.html
The command o triggers the Line -> Parallel tool which behaves different from Modify -> Offset tool.
Because Line->Parallel draws one line after the other the tool uses hovering and clicking immediately.
But with Modify->Offset you can create multiple entities at once. Select them first, then hovering is active immediately. When nothing is selected, select multiple entities to offset and hit ENTER to activate hovering and show the distance box.
For selection use single clicks, drag mouse for selection rectangle or use the Selection menu/tool bar and hit ENTER to finish.

zoneblue wrote

For offset: you have to hover the objects
For fillet: you have to click the first entity, then hover the second.
For trim: you have to click both entitys

It depends on what the tool needs, there are even tools like Circle Tangent to 3, which needs 3 entities selected before a preview can show what happens next.
Usually the selected entities should change color, solid gray, when they are selected with an active tool.
Selection without a tool active, shows them brown and dashed.
Fillet is a bad example, because its implementation lacks this behavior.
Maybe this tool was created or improved by another author who was not firm with that.
This can happen in open source, when contributions from different skilled authors find their way into the project.

Thanks again LordofBikes.

LordOfBikes wrote

We just figured this out ourselves, see https://forum.librecad.org/Offset-distance-tp5721387p5721620.html

Oh. From that link:"Using the tool bar icon, you have to select the entities to offset first (then ENTER),"
I have seen this enter behavior on youtube tutorials.

So, i can now confirm, that here if you use tool modify, offset, then try to click an object nothing happens. No matter how precisely you click on say a line, the hint remains Select to create offset (and hitting enter also does nothing). If i preselect the object, then tools modify, offset, then it works in the manner if you used command o.

LordOfBikes wrote

Usually the selected entities should change color, solid gray, when they are selected with an active tool.
Selection without a tool active, shows them brown and dashed..

Again i can confirm that this behavior does not occur here.

I see the dashed brown. And while the solid grey you mention is visible on the youtube tutorials, it is not the case here. No change occurs either prior to selection or after selection during a modify. I wonder if all of these issues are related to a combination of cads usage of single pixel wide drawing lines, the high dpi (retina) screen used here (with screen scaling set to "more space" (1680x1050 emulation).???

I will do some more tests, for a start do a clean reinstall of rc3 to make sure my config changes are ruled out. And change the screen scaling.

I really think all of this would be helped if the cursor had a little bounding box showing the zone required to select objects, per autocad. And maybe the solid gray needs to be more like 2px wide fluoro!

Ok so more experiments:

- changing to native macos resolution makes no difference to my offset select issue
- move/copy/clone has a similar UI, if you click the tool first, then select objects, you can now pick objects one at a time (where you get dashed brown), then enter. Right click cancels.
- rotate and scale work the same as clone, objects selectable.

- downgrade to rc3, offset issue still exists.
- downgrade to 2.1.3, offset now behaves as per the above, objects are selectable, brown dashed. enter behavior etc.

So theres a clue its in the 2.2 line but not 2.1 line.

In all these tools you cant window select if you click the tool first. If you want to window select, you need to do that first then click the tool. The modal dialogues for clone, scale, move, i recommend you avoid these as it slows down drawing a lot.

Developers, is that enought detail? Let me know if you need something else.