QCAD Bugtracker

Save layer state (visibility) with each added view object (optional?).

Hi,
this is a usability feature request:

If you want to move an object relatively to any point (e.g. by entering @x;y in commandline) it does’nt make sense to enter a starting reference point. Of course this is possible by clicking to any location on the screen. But it’s difficult to change between mouse and keyboard so often.

It should be possible to enter a “don’t care” or “any” reference point by pressing a keyboard shortcut (e.g. enter like in AutoCAD).

Thx

My system: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 650 @ 3.20GHz and 8 GB of RAM and NVIDIA GT218 (GeForce 210)

For a normal drawing displaying it in all detail is a good thing and the performance of my quad-core system is more than adequate.

But I discovered (or rather experienced) that when putting a large collection of individual drawings of gears onto one big sheet (960 mm x 600 mm - preparation for laser cutting), the performance was so bad that I had to wait several seconds (>10 sec) for each step in the process of arranging all the parts on the layer.

Request: It would be a big help and performance booster if you could disable the detailed view of each part/layer and only draw a rectangle to visualize the outline of the part.

Please take this in consideration. Attached you find an example of how that could look like. (Actually when pasting a drawing from the clipboard you already do that.)

Would it be possible to add a feature which turns selected text into solid fill hatched polylines?

That would make it possible to migrate the drawing from one computer system to another without having to worry whether the used font is installed on both systems, like when sending a drawing to a manufacturer for laser engraving.

Right now I can do it by hand, letter by letter, and that is a rather labour-intensive task.

Eine oft Hilfreiche Zeit/Klick sparende Erweiterung wäre eine “Total” Option bei dem “Lengthen” Tool.

Aktuell ist es mit dieser Funktion möglich ein Element zu verlängern oder zu verkürzen um den Amount X. Der Referenzpunkt (von welchem Ende) kann bestimmt werden.

Die Erweiterung die ich mir wünschen würde wäre auch ein “Total” um ein Element auf eine bestimmte Länge zu bringen ohne einen Taschenrechner benutzen zu müssen. Referenz (welches Ende oder Mitte) sollte (muss) dafür wählbar sein.

Die Funktion “Property editor” stellt bereits über die Geometry Eigenschaften die Möglichkeit zur Verfügung einen “Total” Wert zu manipulieren. Leider bin ich aber hierbei nicht in der Lage zu bestimmen welcher Element Referenzpunkt dafür benutzt werden soll. Könnte ich die Referenz wählen (welches Ende oder Mitte) wäre auch dies dann durchaus akzeptabel

To re-introduce Tile and Cascade window options like as before in QCAD 2.2.2.

The Omega button to insert special characters is only available in rich text mode.
Make it available in simple text mode as well.

Attached DWG/DXF files are incorrectly read by QCAD.
They contain splines drawn using ZWCAD and saved as DWG/DXF version 2000.
Above splines are polylines created with autolisp routine which converts spline to polyline, so you can see how splines should actually be drawn.

First spline is created with fit points: 2,2 4,4 6,2
Then copied and applied weight of 2 on central control point.
Then copied again and applied weight of 0.5 on central control point.

Second spline is created with fit points: 6,2 8,4 10,2 with vertical start and end tangent.
Then copied and applied fit tolerance of 1 for fit points.

Third spline is created with fit points: 10,2 12,4 14,2 with horizontal start and end tangent.

Fourth and fifth spline are correctly drawn by QCAD.

Link to bitmap (converted to png) export:
External Link

Versions
QCAD version: 3.13.1.0
Date: Mar 17 2016
Qt version: 4.8.4
Compiler version: gcc 4.4.3
Build Date: Mar 17 2016
Revision:
Architecture: x86_64
OS: Linux
OS version: Unknown

See also:
https://www.qcad.org/rsforum/posting.php?mode=reply&f=32&t=6211

QCAD (before version 3.27?) used to show some custom XDATA, e.g. tag 1000, even for application names that are not “QCAD”, which for me was useful, so it’s somewhat of a regression. (I think it was broken when selecting multiple items, maybe that’s why it was removed.)

I suggest to bring that feature back, but maybe show it only when a single element is selected if that’s easier.

(As a workaround/hack I guess it would be possible to rewrite the required information as QCAD compatible XDATA externally I guess.)

I would like to get a shortkey like ‘+’ to rotate text at 90° clockwise.

This would be nice.
It will save a lot mouse - keypad changes for me.

Currently, the model space can display lineweights at scale 1:1
It’s very convenient when drawing small objects that will be printed at scale 1:1 : it makes it easy to anticipate the final aspect of the printed drawing.
But this feature is unusable for architects or users who draw large objects.

Therefore, it would be very useful to have a factor to multiply lineweight display in model space.
For example : if i know my drawing will probably be printed at scale 1:50, i set the value of the lineweight factor to 50.
Then every line would be displayed 50x thicker in model space.

In a medium complex drawing it may be too much details to have all layers in a drawing visible at once.

Instead a number of views would be created that saves not only zoom level and position but also what layers are visible and not (as appropriate for the purpose of that particular view). This is very cumbersome (to the extent it is not really realistic) to achieve today and requires a lot of duplication of both model and layers.

The advantage of adding this is the ability to have only one model (with multiple views) and avoid duplication of work and the risk of inconsistency inherent with many copies of the model.

As a further (and natural extension to this) would be the ability to used this functionality with view-ports to be able to create (possibly many) paper-spaces from a single model. This would however require view-ports to be aware of what view they are a window into. A single change in the model would then propagate to all defined view-ports and paper-spaces.

When saving a view, it would be great if the view also saved which block (model space, layout block, or any other block) that was active at the time the view was saved and when the view is later re-activated, the corresponding block would re-activate.

Hi,

I believe prior QCAD version 3.22.0.0 there was no rotating preview. The rotating preview shows the outcome regarding to the chosen center point. I know that it is also common for move/copy. However, for me it is very confusing and difficult to chose the correct center point for a rotation if I’m constantly been distracted by the most of the time overlapping preview of my selection. This said if the drawing is very detailed I have to zoom in extremely to be able to snap to the right entity. That wouldn’t be necessary without the preview. Additional rotate a large drawing selections will compromise the performance - CPU is going like crazy.

It would be nice to have an option to turn this preview on/off.

Andrew,

When we alter about any property of a Hatch entity it seems to be recreated with a newer/higher handle.
This doesn’t influence the drawing order in direct.
But already changing the drawing order of a Hatch it is recreated as a new entity.

It starts to matters in drawing order when there are multiple entities with the same drawing order and that after save/reload. Entities with the same drawing order then receive a new drawing order based on the original but sequentially increasing based on handle.

Because a Hatch is recreated with a newer/higher handle each time a property changes it will thus always end up above the others with the same order even when the original was created earlier.

This is more pronounced when copying/pasting entities from a source to a target drawing.
The original Hatch drawing order is retained but it will always be above existent entities with the same drawing order in the target drawing after save/reload.

Most other entities are probably just updated in situ.
It is unsure to me at this point if merely updating a Hatch is even possible.
And perhaps this is related to the addObject ForceNew flag what is false by default.

Regards,
CVH

Andrew,

Changing orientation of a polyline with RV or by changing it in the Property Editor clears the global width value.

Single line pieces as polyline default to CCW.
Still the global width is cleared when trying to set them CW.

I didn’t update since 3.27.0 but reading this topic I suppose it still is valid.
Related: https://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=9362

Regards,
CVH

Many times I’m faced with the situation that I have to use a rectangle related to other entities. Dimensions/Angle = unknown.

We have in QCAD a rectangle tool with a two point diagonal determination but this is limited to two points and it will only work in a horizontal and vertical direction.

My feature request is based on the idea to draw a rectangle with 3 points - regardless the angle.

1. First point: start

2. second point: determination of the first side (width?) and it will also provide the angle for the rectangle

3. third point: determination second side (height?)

I’m asking for an additional new tool? No - just as an option to the existing rectangle tool ...

Add a button to edit the block beside the block combo box that is shown when showing the properties of a block reference.

When printing from the preview mode a standard Windows popup shows, letting me select the printer, number of copies and a page range. Unfortunately QCAD (or Windows) ignores the page range - it always prints all pages. So right now I always have to copy the parts I want to print, page them into a separate document and print that instead - even though I got all my stuff nicely lined up for printing on multiple pages.

Would be nice, if in print preview QCAD rulers would switch to paper dimensions. Chat here http://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=3793

After all, print preview is not just the drawing on white, isn’t it? Everything else should stay in drawing units. Just the rulers, maybe a preference?

Often in print preview I need to move the paper around and position it with the ‘Move Paper Position’ tool, which is useful, but what would be an additional extra useful option would be a ‘Place Paper Here’ tool.

Then I could simply use this tool first and then use the ‘Move Paper Position’ tool afterwards to fine tune things!

If you look at the attached image you will see that in this students file they have got their drawing spread out all over the place:(

See:
http://www.ribbonsoft.com/rsforum/viewtopic.php?t=1867

Apparently this was possible in QCAD 2 due to the default behavior of Qt.

Hi,

unfortunately I need to use from time to time different Units in a drawing. It works nice with the Scale possibility but to keep my drawing readable I need to label then the DIM accordingly. Sadly I don’t have a Postfix option so I work with a workaround what means I use <>”, or <>’ and <>mm in the Prefix field. If I then terminate the DIM tool and start it again I will loose my settings except the Scale Factor.

May I ask for an additional Postfix option or/and a remember functionality of those fields?

It would be nice and helpful if we had the possibility to control the order of Attributes - shown in the property editor.
I found a solution for myself with using numbers in the Attribute definition tag - but that isn’t really a nice solution.
If I could hide my numbering ... everything would be fine for me ....

Input:

1. X axis min/max or choose line (?) or center (for polar functions)
2. function: y = f(x) / polar function: r = f(a)

Output:

1. function plot

Yes I’m aware that the U.S. survey foot has to be discontinuing December, 31, 22. However - as we’ve learned in the past it takes decades until a unit will disappears for good.

See also:

https://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=9493&p=38245#p38245

It would be useful to have a persistent selection button added to the ‘selection’ tool set.

This would allow the user to set persistent selection as and when needed for the current drawing one is working on, rather than going the long route through the ‘Application’ preferences dialog.

Scenario:

Drawing 1: Blockname X is part of a selection, I copy this selection into the clipboard to use it in an other drawing.

Switch to Drawing 2, this drawing has also a Blockname X but with a different content.

Use the clipboard paste function - the clipboard content will be modified (only the Block) by the drawing 2 block content.

No warning pops up - it just happens!

Some functions / methods can generate some sort off entity or part with NaN / Null / Null-lenght ... props.
Some explicitly don’t and test their actions with isNull().

As these serve a purpose in some processes, trails of them can be part of the results.
For some users Null / Null-lenght are meaningfull, for other users these produce errors down the line.
In a few cases its a desirable feature eg. controlpoint spline.
(Allthough there are no Null props involved with equal successively controlpoints)

Many problem post on the forum are related to Null - Zero and so on.

In some cases it can’t be undone by re-editing the drawing.
https://qcad.org/bugtracker/index.php?do=details&task_id=1925

If it can’t be undone by Undo/Redo it is a bug.
https://qcad.org/bugtracker/index.php?do=details&task_id=1757

In some cases there is a difference noticed after file save-close-open.

Hi,

I use eagle cad for pcb designs and I like its ability to snap to finer snap to grid when pressing option button (ALT in windows).
I am fine with auto grid setting, however, it would be good to also have a way to access finer grid when pressing down option button.

For example, when zoomed out, grid is 100mm apart.
When pressing down on the option button (ALT in windows), grid switches to finer 10mm.
This will save me time, zooming in to access finer grid to snap to.

It would be really cool to have a Note book tool for QCAD!

For example I am often working on a draft and at the same time scribbling notes down on a separate piece of paper relating to the drawing I am working on, could be anything e.g. add a block,add a dimension etc. etc... all sorts of things to remind myself about - all related to a particular drawing.

Of course I could use any number of other programs for this but a simple dedicated tool inside QCAD (could be called the ‘QCAD scribbler ;)) would be much better, especially one that can save the notes to a particular file, then when I open up my drawing again - my notes are there too!

Just starting with QCAD, for some hours now - really excellent user interface (compared to other low budget CADs, like DCAD, or BeckerCAD...) !

Surprisingly, point coordinates - entered via the command line, and shown with correct positions on the drawing- are not displayed correctly with the ‘dimordinate’ (DO) command.
There are no negative values, even when the center point (0;0) is right in the middle of the drawing, so points left and below should have !

GW.G

Hi,

I use a lot of “temp” layer to keep my drawing organized during a design session. Ad the end of the day (or week or month ...) I need to get rid of this “garbage” but unfortunately there is no easy way to delete all this layer in one go.
Most of the time those layer are invisible. The “important layer” are visible. If I could toggle all layer from visible in invisible in one go with a switch like “Toggle visible layer all” and then use “Select all” / delete / Purge unused layer I’m able do get rid of this stuff with just a few clicks.

The same tool would help to improve the workflow in the case that I just have to switch between all visible / invisible layer for testing / double checking / cleaning or what ever. Currently I have to toggle every single layer to get this done and if I work with many layer I need to have a perfect working memory (or a piece of paper with many notes!) to be able to restore the same desired working order.

And I’m confident - there are many more useful scenarios for a tool like this one ...

pics: “Toggle visibility all” with one click:

Could it be possible to add a simple function to add a new empty drawing (like File > New) to Simple.js ? Thank you. (PS, this simple.js API is awesome, btw :D)

( I already have my own to simplify my scripts, but it does not seem to work correctly if I set action.setRequiresDocument(false); in the init functions
See more at http://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=4203#p15203 )

“Paste” has already the options: To current layer, Overwrite layers, Overwrite blocks.

Would be a nice time saver to have the same options for “Paste along Entity” too.

The modify stretch tool wants first and second corner, start and end point, then starts afresh. When I turn on restrict horizontally eg to align two points between start and end, the restriction sticks and I have to call restrict none, to be able to perform the next iteration, set the first corner then.

So, in the quest for a comfortable user interface, it was nice, if the modify stretch first/second corners parameter setting was not affected by current restrict/ortho etc. settings. Actually, that does not make any sense at all anyways, does it, a rectangle is defined by two degrees of freedom, isnt it?

See also:
http://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=4256

Headline should already explain the issue ...

If I have to do some kind of intense tasks like converting a previous Polyline, which is now exploded to lines (maybe a couple hundred thousand short lines) back to a polyline (Polyline/Create from Segments) QCAD needs time to do that. In this “working time” I can’t see any indicator that QCAD is working. Not a Hourglass on the mouse or some other indicator. I have just the feeling: Nothing is going on right now ...

It would be nice to have some kind of visual info that QCAD is working.

QCAD. ver. 3.27.1.0 (3.27.1)
Qt version: 5.13.2
Architecture: x86_64
OS Windows 11

It might be useful to have the possibility to manage the references of the images contained within the drawing. A design could use recurring images, stored in a folder outside the one in which the design is located. Moving the drawing or folders (or changing the PC) will lose the folder references and the images are not displayed when the drawing is opened again.
I imagine the possibility to view the references of the images (and if necessary modify manually or with a pointer) with the option of: attach, detach, reload, etc., as in the example below (referred to ActCad - based on Intellicad technology)

Andrew,

When we use Lengthen/Shorten (LE) with a positive amount the result is clearly visible when indicating a side of an entity.
With a negative amount there is seemingly no preview.
It is generated and shown but one can not distinguish it especially with solid lines.

Adding an orthogonal auxiliary preview shape some N pixels long would do the trick.

Regards,
CVH

Andrew,

Related topic: https://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=10094

When entering 1’ 1’‘ in an input field.
- As the size of the rectangle in the topic
- As the length property of a line selected in the drawing
- ....

Returns 13 in a drawing in mm.
And also in a drawing in inch what turns out to be correct.
But also in a drawing in foot.

Similar, entering 1’ with a drawing in kilometers it returns 12 units = 12 kilometers.

Regards,
CVH

QCAD Professional
Win installer 32bit
Version: 3.25.2.7 (3.25.2.7)
Internet: QCAD.org
Build Date: Dec 16 2020
Revision: e06f230
Qt Version: 5.13.2
Architecture: i386
Compiler: Unknown

Not related to OS, nor version.

The method Polyline from Segments (OC) can be configured for tolerance and simplification in the Options Toolbar.
The method Polyline from Selection (OG) has no UI or none showing.

OG retrieves a tolerance from QCAD.ini, what is initially not set:

    var tolerance = RSettings.getDoubleValue("PolylineFromSelection/Tolerance", 0.001);

The tolerance will be default = 0.001 similar as the default in AppPrefs.
The tolerance setting is included in QCAD.ini after changing the AppPrefs entry.

OG calls PolylineFromSelection.autoJoinSegments with this tolerance:

    var counter = PolylineFromSelection.autoJoinSegments(di, tolerance, this);

PolylineFromSelection.autoJoinSegments calls PolylineFromSegments.createPolylineShape
with simplification hard coded to true. (last parameter)

    // create polyline from line, arc, spline or open polyline entity:
    var polyline = PolylineFromSegments.createPolylineShape(
                    entity, doc, vTolerance, op, undefined,
                    traversed, callBacks, undefined, true);

I would like to see the simplification optional and default = true.

Regards,
CVH

Provide configuration option to raise / lower maximum reference points that are shown for selected entities (currently fixed to 1000).

Original report:

Imported a spline-dxf from adobe illustrator. Converted the spline to polyline with explode command. Then no anchor points / vertex points / vertices were showing anymore. Simplified the polyline so that it had less than 1000 points. Vertices became visible.

I think some freeform objects need actually more than 1000 vertices. Also them need to be edited. Please increase the amount of vertices showing to biginteger

regards

Benjamin

Make dimension label decimal separator configurable (DIMDSEP).

Most of our drawings have a Data sheet, parts List, cutting list, description etc etc on a pdf, world or excel file.

It would be nice to have a link possibility directly in QCAD to those files what will be saved with the drawing.
Like the bitmap function without displaying the files in the drawing ...

Hi,

we have already this nice tool “Angle bisector”.

I would really appreciate if we could get the same function for parallel lines to place a line exactly in the center of both lines.

Thanks.

See:
http://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=3709