Posted by georgesbasement on Aug 10, 2017; 10:02pm
URL: https://forum.librecad.org/Rotating-tabs-inconsistencies-tp5715190p5715201.html

Continuing to a successful conclusion, I became more familiar with the "Snap" functions, "Rotate", "Rotate & Move", etc. and the importance of "Save." Even "Copy" and "Paste." The latter became necessary when LC quietly (off my expanded view of the drawing !) deleted major portions of the end curves on a couple of my objects. "Undo" was past "do" so I found I could draw an arc with three points on top of another example of the same curve and then select it (right on top of the original curve !) and move it with copy and past to repair the damage without affecting the original curve.

Rotating, moving, and patching in the tabs was fraught with inconsistencies because the transitions could never be perfect, and so I had to connect the fillets at each side of the tab with straight lines between points placed on the fillets and on the curve or straight side of the object.  All eight of the different orientations behaved OK, but I found one object which flat out refused to let me delete the unwanted curve between the two fillet curves & their extra patch-in lines, so I just deleted it from the object and put another tab at a different position.

Sometimes, "Divide" worked great: I'd select the command, click on the unwanted portion between the two fillets, etc., and then select the two intersections at the ends of the unwanted portions, whereupon the unwanted portion would disappear ... or at least turn blue, waiting for me to use "Select Entity" and "Delete" to get rid of it.

Sometimes, this procedure would cause part of the main object to become unselected, and in those instances I found that I could sometimes use "Trim" on the not-unselected portion of the object with one of those added-in straight lines as the cutting entity. Then, clicking on the not-unselected portion of the object would cause the unwanted section between the fillets to become deletable. Sometimes this attempt would crash LC, and I not-quickly-enough learned to save after each successful step, or I'd be faced with the tabular guessing game again.

"Trim 2" was most likely of all to cause crashes, and I don't remember getting any positive result with it. Plenty of other tools did work, however.

I now have a completed .DXF drawing with 32 objects and their quite shapely tabs sticking out in all directions; there are a half-dozen tiny gaps remaining in some of the transitions between arcs and straight lines, but those are easily fixable in the morning after a good night's sleep.

Thanks for all your very useful help & advice.
Best regards,
gergesbasement