Posted by chameleon on May 16, 2020; 11:18am
URL: https://forum.librecad.org/What-about-basic-lack-of-functionality-tp5718854p5718867.html

LordOfBikes wrote

Can you explain how SNAP on perpendicular should work?
Is it possibly what restrict horizontally/vertically does in LibreCAD?
What means all other modes?

vertical != Perpendicular != horizontal

li 0,0 100,105
li 20,0 ....... I want to snap perpendicular to first line.

ci 0,0 100
li 200,20 ....... I want to snap perpendicular to circle (or arc or spline)

ci 0,0 100
li 200,20 ....... I want to snap tangential to circle (or arc or spline)

all other OSNAP AutoCAD modes (which are not supported in LibreCAD) are not so frequently used.

With SHIFT pressed you can draw lines with a 15° snap, means the line is forced to match the nearest angle which is a multiple of 15°.

AWESOME!!! But useless.
There is no feature 15° direction snap, if you must type angle.
In that case only the length of line must requested.
50 is a lot faster than @50<45.
Specially if you draw tons of lines.

chameleon wrote

- DO NOT FORCE SNAP or DIRECTION, only use snap as magnet for mouse.

As dellus already said, Free snap is the solution here.

Thanks a lot. This is nice.

chameleon wrote

- DRAW LINE so fast as AutoCAD. No need for ...... @50,0 for a horizontal line when you can just type 50

Beside the lack of active coders, this is also a matter of missing clear feature descriptions.
There are statements like 'AutoCAD does it this way' or 'AutoCAD does it better' from time to time.
But they don't contain enough details for a coder to estimate how to implement the feature and the efforts needed for it.
Especially, when the coder never has used AutoCAD, what applies for many if not all contributing to LibreCAD.
About your request, I think I've heard something similar, where the cursor keys are used to define the direction.
Is this the same feature? Can you use mouse or cursor keys for this? What does 'almost' mean, where are the limits?
You see, we need clear instructions to understand how a feature should work. Only than we can check if the underlying implementation allows it at all and how much effort is needed.

I totally understand that there are no human resources.
I am a C++ programmer, and I have no time at all.

Seriously? A CAD programmer who never use AutoCAD before?
Just draw a line is useless. You must draw it INSTANTLY! Because you must draw THOUSANDS of lines. So "50" is million times better than "@50<45" because "@" and "<" need shift key and they are far one from another and you must left mouse to use 2 hands on keyboard. And of course "45" need an amount of one second of thinking which is too much.

Ok. the behavior is:
When mouse is POINT SNAPPED just a click is ok to complete the line segment. LibreCAD is ok with this.
When mouse is DIRECTION SNAPPED only the length of line segment must requested. BUT also, full coordinates can be given too. So if you give "50" means "@50<45" but also you can give "@50<24". LibreCAD is not ok with this.
POINT SNAPPED means: perpendicular, endpoint, midpoint, center, tangent etc.
DIRECTION SNAPPED means: k*15° where k in [0,24], k in N, from origin_point to mouse_pointer. Direction Snapped if mouse pointer is in an area inside k*15° ± a where a lets say it is a=1°. This is "almost".

chameleon wrote

- Minor: display hints for the next part of command

Hints are already displayed, above the command line and in the mouse button widget.

Yes it is. Probably I found a not well hint in some command. Sorry. Ignore that.