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New Custom properties tool - suggestions

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 2:04 pm
by Clive
The New custom properties is an excellent new additional option for the property editor to add or take away 'user defined' custom properties for entities. The main use of this tool I understand is for CAM processing.

I can see the potential for this unique tool to be used also for standard 2D drafting in QCAD! Would it be possible to further develop this tool ...here's my example.

1. I draw a line in QCAD. I select this line and define 'Custom' properties to it - lets say, Line color is Yellow, Line weight is 0.13 and the Line type is defined as 'Dashed', I call this custom property 'My Style 1' or MS1.
2. Okay, Elsewhere in my drawing I have some other entities (e.g. A Hexagon).
3. I now wish to select only 3 sides of my Hexagon and...I want to change these 3 selected sides to my previous custom property style MS1 without changing layers or anything - I want to continue to work on my current layer!
4. So what would be great is if I could now choose an extra option in this new tool and click on it and hey presto my 3 selected sides now also change and hold the custom property of MS1.

@andrew - would this be possible to do.

Does anyone have feedback about this?

Clive

Re: New Custom properties tool - suggestions

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 3:41 pm
by andrew
Clive: custom properties are meant to define properties that are not already available in QCAD.
For example, in a city map in which each house is represented by a polyline, each such polyline could be assigned a custom property 'house number' which indicates the house number of that house. This way, additional information can be added to a CAD drawing in a way that is suitable for further processing in databases, etc.
If I understand you correctly, you are more looking for a tool to copy attributes or properties from one entity to another one. I think such a tool to copy custom properties from one entity to another would absolutely make sense.

Perhaps like this:
- Select some entities
- 'Edit' - 'Copy custom properties from...'
- Click source entity to copy custom properties from

A similar tool could exist for attributes such as color, line type and line weight ('Edit' - 'Copy attributes from...') - is that what you had in mind?

Re: New Custom properties tool - suggestions

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 4:09 pm
by Clive
andrew wrote:If I understand you correctly, you are more looking for a tool to copy attributes or properties from one entity to another one. I think such a tool to copy custom properties from one entity to another would absolutely make sense.

Perhaps like this:
- Select some entities
- 'Edit' - 'Copy custom properties from...'
- Click source entity to copy custom properties from

A similar tool could exist for attributes such as color, line type and line weight ('Edit' - 'Copy attributes from...') - is that what you had in mind?
Thanks Andrew for the explanation. Yes that's exactly what I meant, some tools like this would be great 8).

Look forward to seeing this in tomorrows next release... :lol: :lol: :lol: of course only joking :wink:

Re: New Custom properties tool - suggestions

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 4:18 pm
by andrew
:) I do try to release 'early and often' these days, as advocated by open source evangelists.
I've noticed that the chance of breaking something big is much lower that way. And a minor release every 1-2 weeks is actually much less stressful than a major release every 6 months.

Anyway, for now I've created a feature request at:
http://www.qcad.org/bugtracker/index.ph ... ask_id=950

Re: New Custom properties tool - suggestions

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 4:25 pm
by Clive
Sure, I understand and thanks for adding a feature request.

Maybe as a seasonal 'special' for this Christmas you could offer to us a choice of maybe 3 feature requests for us users to vote for and the winning one gets implemented before/after Christmas :wink:

Re: New Custom properties tool - suggestions

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 4:37 pm
by andrew
Well, there is actually a voting option for all tasks and bugs, but it's not being used very actively. Currently the most wanted features are:

FS#335 - Drawing preferences: Change font of dimensions, 3 vote(s)
FS#760 - Hierarchical Layers, 3 vote(s)
FS#761 - Colour Indicators for Layer List, 3 vote(s)
FS#889 - Filter the current selection to only include entities of a certain type, 3 vote(s)

All of these are actually realistic candidates to be implemented this year. But I'm also planning to extend the QCAD/CAM module which has more and more users and do some more screencasts.

Re: New Custom properties tool - suggestions

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 4:45 pm
by Clive
Great 8)
Can we vote on these as to which one gets implemented for Christmas? - if yes, I'll set up a topic for them with instructions for how to poll.

Good news regarding the development of QCAD/CAM and looking forward to more screen-casts!

Re: New Custom properties tool - suggestions

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 4:57 pm
by andrew
Sure, feel free to set up a poll for that. It would be an interesting experiment to see if users engage in such polls. I can also add a link to the poll on the main web site to boost it a bit.

Re: New Custom properties tool - suggestions

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 8:56 pm
by J-J
andrew wrote:
Perhaps like this:
- Select some entities
- 'Edit' - 'Copy custom properties from...'
- Click source entity to copy custom properties from

A similar tool could exist for attributes such as color, line type and line weight ('Edit' - 'Copy attributes from...') - is that what you had in mind?
Some tool similar to what is found in office software:

Re: New Custom properties tool - suggestions

Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 9:29 am
by Husky
J-J wrote:Some tool similar to what is found in office software:
Yep, agree - that would be really helpful!