How do I make Blocks available in more than one drawing

[RayArdia]

I have created quite a few blocks in various drawings. How can I make a block created for drawing 'A' available for use in drawing 'B'?

[andrew]

Have a look at the part library:
http://www.ribbonsoft.com/qcad/manual_r ... ter30.html

[RayArdia]

Thanks Andrew.
Using community version - 'View - Toolbars - Library Browser' doesn't show the Library Browser. Is this correct? Is there a solution?
Ray

[andrew]

If you are using a community edition that was included in your Linux distribution, it is possible that your Linux distributor chose to not include that feature.

The part library browser should look like this:
http://www.ribbonsoft.com/qcad/manual_r ... ter30.html

[RayArdia]

Andrew,
'View' now shows the entry for Library Browser, after I re-installed QCAD.
Have downloaded Parts Library 2.1.2.8-1 and it exists as a file in my Home directory, however no details appear under Library Browser. How can I get it to appear?
A further question is:- Is it possible to add the Blocks I have created to this browser (assuming I will eventually be able to see it, with your help)?
Ray

[andrew]

Put the part library into the "library" sub-directory of your QCAD installation.

To add new parts, simply store them as normal drawings (without blocks) into the tree under the "library" directory.

[RayArdia]

Put the part library into the "library" sub-directory of your QCAD installation.

To add new parts, simply store them as normal drawings (without blocks) into the tree under the "library" directory.

Thankyou Andrew, now I can't find the QCAD installation directory. Have looked in my Home dir, no joy. Root ls looks like this:-
ray@ray-laptop:/$ ls
bin dev initrd.img lost+found opt sbin sys var
boot etc initrd.img.old media proc selinux tmp vmlinuz
cdrom home lib mnt root srv usr vmlinuz.old

Any suggestions?

[andrew]

The QCAD installation directory is where you have installed QCAD (only you can know this).

If you have installed QCAD through some kind of package manager of your distribution, there is no easy way to find out where you have to put the part library for it to be found (your distributor would probably know).

The command 'which qcad' will show you where the QCAD binary is. However, most Linux distributions have the habit of spreading files and directories in various different places (/usr/bin, /usr/local, /usr/shared, /usr/local/shared, ...).

You can also try to put the part library anywhere on disk and then configure that path in the QCAD Application Preferences - Paths.

[RayArdia]

Andrew, thanks again. The result of 'which qcad' was /usr/bin/qcad, the ls of root shows bin but I don't know where to go from there.

[RayArdia]

Result of 'bin ls':-
ray@ray-laptop:/bin$ ls
bash dnsdomainname mountpoint sleep
bunzip2 dumpkeys mt stty
bzcat echo mt-gnu su
bzcmp ed mv sync
bzdiff egrep nano tailf
bzegrep false nc tar
bzexe fgconsole nc.traditional tempfile
bzfgrep fgrep netcat touch
bzgrep fuser netstat true
bzip2 fusermount ntfs-3g ulockmgr_server
bzip2recover grep ntfs-3g.probe umount
bzless gunzip open uname
bzmore gzexe openvt uncompress
cat gzip pidof unicode_start
chgrp hostname ping vdir
chmod ip ping6 which
chown kbd_mode ps zcat
chvt kill pwd zcmp
cp ld_static rbash zdiff
cpio ln readlink zegrep
dash loadkeys rm zfgrep
date login rmdir zforce
dbus-cleanup-sockets ls rnano zgrep
dbus-daemon lsmod run-parts zless
dbus-uuidgen mkdir sed zmore
dd mknod setfont znew
df mktemp setupcon
dir more sh
dmesg mount sh.distrib
ray@ray-laptop:/bin$ cd cmp
bash: cd: cmp: No such file or directory
ray@ray-laptop:/bin$ cd ..
ray@ray-laptop:/$ which qcad
/usr/bin/qcad
ray@ray-laptop:/$ cd bin
ray@ray-laptop:/bin$ ls
bash dnsdomainname mountpoint sleep
bunzip2 dumpkeys mt stty
bzcat echo mt-gnu su
bzcmp ed mv sync
bzdiff egrep nano tailf
bzegrep false nc tar
bzexe fgconsole nc.traditional tempfile
bzfgrep fgrep netcat touch
bzgrep fuser netstat true
bzip2 fusermount ntfs-3g ulockmgr_server
bzip2recover grep ntfs-3g.probe umount
bzless gunzip open uname
bzmore gzexe openvt uncompress
cat gzip pidof unicode_start
chgrp hostname ping vdir
chmod ip ping6 which
chown kbd_mode ps zcat
chvt kill pwd zcmp
cp ld_static rbash zdiff
cpio ln readlink zegrep
dash loadkeys rm zfgrep
date login rmdir zforce
dbus-cleanup-sockets ls rnano zgrep
dbus-daemon lsmod run-parts zless
dbus-uuidgen mkdir sed zmore
dd mknod setfont znew
df mktemp setupcon
dir more sh
dmesg mount sh.distrib

Using 'which qcad' here:-
ray@ray-laptop:/bin$ which qcad
/usr/bin/qcad
gives same result as before so I still don't know where QCAD is!
Ray

[RayArdia]

Andrew,
By trial and error have found the ( dir?) called ray@ray-laptop:/usr$ qcad,
and,using 'find -iname':-
ray@ray-laptop:/$ sudo find -iname qcad
./usr/bin/qcad
./usr/lib/mime/packages/qcad
./usr/share/qcad
./usr/share/doc/qcad
./usr/share/menu/qcad
ray@ray-laptop:/$
When I looked at 'Application Preferences' in QCAD I found that the Part Libraries are located in /usr/share/qcad/libraries, which is presumably a file in the directory qcad(?)
The downloaded Part Library 2.1.2.8.-1 is in my Home folder.
As I need it in /usr/bin/qcad I know I have to copy it to that directory but am not sure I know how to, and don't want to b..... up the system!
Sorry to be a pain but your help is really appreciated.
Ray

[RayArdia]

Further to last post, I tried:-
ray@ray-laptop:~$ cp partlibrary-2.1.2.8-1 /usr/bin/qcad and got response:-
cp: omitting directory `partlibrary-2.1.2.8-1'

How do I check whether it has been copied?
Ray

[wijit]

I installed QCAD on Ubuntu 9.10 from the main repository. I'm interested in utilizing Parts Libraries and it seems the problem discussed here also happens to me too. QCAD version is 2.0.5.0 community. After I read this topic I checked my system and found that it was similar to what Ray said. Immediately at that time, two things I could not do were:
1. making change to the contents of Parts Libraries in the Application Preferences dialog: the old contents, /usr/share/qcad/libraries, always come back for every reopening of the program
2. saving a drawing in the directory: there is no such directory
What I did further was making up a subdirectory named libraries and trying to save a drawing again. QCAD popped up a warning to check file permission
I knew that the directiory was owned by root and that was the cause of the warning. I then installed partlibrary via Synaptic and reopened QCAD again. The Library Browser was populated by installed contents. However, I cannot extend the library nor make change to the configuration due to the problems I said above. However (again), I saw the file index.html among subdirectories under /usr/share/qcad/libraries and its contents look correlative to what I saw in the Library Browser. There must be somethings to explain why it was there. Andrew may be able to explain this, I'm sure. I'll be back here again if I can solve the problem.

[wijit]

OK mate! I think I can partially solve the problem. We first save the drawing that we want to reuse across our new drawings in a directory that we have a right to write to it. Then we make a subdirectory under /usr/share/qcad/libraries and copy the saved drawing in there. Reopen QCAD and the Library Browser. You should see your directory sitting among others. Selecting the directory will show the icon of the drawing in the window down below. Selecting the icon and click Insert button will enable you to place the drawing onto your drawing area.
Cheers.

[hpp3]

Followed all instructions.
No dice.
No matter what I throw in the /usr/share/qcad/libraries
folder, nothing ever shows up.

Any ideas?