QCAD Bugtracker

Similarly as for my previous suggestion submission, I also had a related idea for making it easier to work with complex numbers when using QCAD by adding normalized unit circle coordinates as another option in the Angular Dimensions display units options dropdown.

Here’s the corresponding forum thread I started.

I noticed that every time I move my mouse from the main working canvas (schematic area) to the tool buttons on the left sidebar there is a delay before the first hover tooltip (which displays the tool names and hotkeys corresponding to each tool button) displays.

The tooltips remain fast (near instant) after that initial hover, but it it would be nice if there was an option field for controlling how long the tooltip delay is for that initial display delay.

Currently, on my Windows 10 machine, it takes about 1 full second for the tooltip to show, which may not sound like much but feels like a lot when trying to work faster.

Here is a link to the related forum discussion, which also discussed a different (and I’d say more useful/effective) idea as well.

I’m creating two separate Bugtracker submissions for that one thread though, to keep things clean.

Perhaps I should have created two separate forum thread for that to begin with.

Hello! This is perhaps the most useful and valuable of the suggestion ideas I’ve had for QCAD so far!

I think it would be extremely useful if there was an option within the QCAD preferences for making it so that the hotkeys currently bound to each tool button in the UI (if existent) are always displayed such that they are overlaid on top of each of the buttons. There are two main approaches I can think of for doing that (both intended to avoid disturbing the existing layout of the UI):

1. Display the current hotkey binding associated by drawing it (probably in a distinct color) on one of the edges or corners of each of the buttons (such as the bottom middle side, the lower left corner, or the lower right corner). Even at a small font size I think this would be very effective and useful.
2. Instead of making the overlaid hotkey display in a small font at a side or corner of each button, you could have the hotkey text be in a large font and overlaid on top of the entire button, using things such as transparency and a distinctive (never used in the other parts of the UI) color to ensure that the button icons is still readable. A broader width of the font stroke may also help if transparency is used, so that the underlying icon lines remain more readable.

Both approaches have pros and cons. I personally lean towards the former, but Husky and CVH seemed to take issue with the readability of small fonts and so I later suggested the later option too.

They seemed opposed to both (at least during the forum discussion). However, I think this UI feature could be one of the best workflow speed improvements for the average user (many/most of whom probably don’t have time to memorize the hotkeys or just don’t end up doing so) of QCAD!

The gains in efficiency and pleasantness could be enormous potentially, even despite it QCAD already being among the most pleasant and well-designed programs I’ve ever used!

It is far faster to be able to instantly read a hotkey from the UI than to have to wait for a tooltip or to look the keystrokes up in the documentation.

Memorization is the fastest of course, but as someone who finds themselves constantly spread thin over many different programs (often half a dozen or more) for long spans of time I often find it difficult to remember all of the hotkeys for each program I use. Having such hotkeys always visible is useful for users who are spread thin, as many people increasingly in the world of software.

CVH suggested that I make custom icons myself, but doing so seems far worse than simply having QCAD automatically read and then print out the corresponding hotkeys over every tool in a programmatic and properly automated way.

I seriously think this would be one of the most awesome improvement you could ever add to QCAD!

Indeed, there is no missing feature I want more than this one!

Few programs do this but the few cases I’ve seen it the feature was extremely useful for speed without having to take weeks/months/years to fully memorize hotkeys only then forget them later. This idea eliminates that problem!

It would be glorious from a usability and accessibility standpoint! Please implement it!

Hopefully Qt’s GUI system is flexible enough to draw overlaid text over the buttons like this without to much hassle. That is the main potential impediment as I see it.

Anyway though, here is the associated forum discussion where I mentioned this idea. It was the same thread as the one where I also suggested adding a way to control tooltip delays.

Hey, this is the first of my feature suggestion submissions that isn’t tied to a corresponding suggestion thread on the QCAD forum.

Should I always create corresponding feature suggestion threads or is it ok (or better?) to just post ideas here?

Anyway though, here’s the idea:

I noticed that it is relatively easy to use things like the QCAD Split Entities and/or Paste Along Entity tool(s) to create an even set of divisions along a curve or line.

There’s also the Misc → Draw → Counter available too, for automated counting.

These together are useful for creating a “scale ruler” to be printed on a schematic for ease of reference or for use in cases where someone forgets to bring along a physical measuring device or when someone else is using that measuring device.

For example, one could print a to-scale 1 foot long ruler (or whatever other scale is relevant, e.g. 1 inch for small objects or just as a nice scale reference/legend/key) on the schematic page for convenience.

However, it would be nice if there was a convenient tool added to the Dimensions tool category that automated this entire process and was able to create arbitrary ruler-like numbered reference scales along lines (and even better if it also worked on arcs, though less important).

Even better would be if this “auto tick” or “auto ruler” tool supported multiple levels of tick scaling (e.g. 2 or 3) such as what one sees on actual rulers.

For example, an imperial ruler for a foot (I’m in the US currently) will typically having increasingly smaller tick marks added at halfway points between each of the numbered points along the ruler’s scale, which makes using it quickly much easier. For example, it’ll have a half-length tick for half an inch and then a quarter-length tick for each quarter of an inch within an inch (with the inch’s ticks being full length).

It seems like it could be relatively easy to implement that kind of nested tick marking system, which would make it super convenient and pleasant for the user of QCAD to create usable to-scale ruler-like objects wherever they desire them with hardly any effort!

I think this idea would also fit extremely well with existing tools in the Dimensions category and would be useful for many/most QCAD users!

It’s yet another good QCAD feature that could attract more people to buy upgraded copies of QCAD in the future I think!

I hope you implement it. Small conveniences still make a big difference.

Anyway, thanks a bunch again for creating this awesome program!

That’s all the suggestions I have for today.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend and upcoming week, etc!

I've tried several times to try to see what the "surveyor's units" option of the Angular Dimensions format in the UI preferences will display as, but all it ever seems to do is cause the angle measurement to become blank. No angles are displayed whenever this mode is selected.

Indeed, I cannot figure out what the setting actually does besides causing angles to never be displayed.

Is there a way to make this setting do something meaningful or is it just broken?

I found an old forum thread from 2016 about this same issue and it sounds like the same things is still happening since then.

I'm not a surveyor so I have no actual practical use for these units that I can yet see, but I just figured I'd add an report to the bug tracker here in case any developers aren't aware that the bug still seems to exist.

Does the setting do anything besides changing the displayed units in the status bar?

In my current QCAD file I’m working on, I have a circular hub with a hole in it which I am also trying to place an alternating sequence of rectangular spokes of a certain relative size around.

I had 4 spokes that I had copied and rotated 45 degrees to create 8 spokes in total around the circle. I tried scaling the the non-cardinal spokes relative to the center of the circular ring, but that causes them to also move towards the center of the ring as they shrink, thereby putting them out of place as they scale.

I therefore had to activate the scale tool once per each object and set an origin (focus) point around the area where each spoke is “attached” to the ring in order to stop each from shifting inward to the circle as it scales.

It occurred to me though that there could be a simple tool or option to do this without that.

Each of my rectangles are polyline objects and thus are coherent continuous objects.

A new scaling tool could be designed such that it is based on simply clicking on each scaling origin on each object (using snapping tools if needed) and then clicking a check button (or enter) when done and then causing the scaling GUI to appear so the user can specify the desired scaling. Each scaling would then be applied to where the polylines were clicked instead of to all the objects as one.

This would be a much faster way to rescale a bunch of objects around individually varying relative scaling origins!

I was having some problems getting some shapes to fill with a solid fill and was frustrated by the awkward numeric coordinate it was giving me for where the error (the disconnected shape points) were, until I fortunately noticed that a tiny pale circle appears around the point where the error is for about just 1 second.

This is a very helpful error indicator circle but is far too easy to miss.

Perhaps making it last longer (or letting the user control that) would be beneficial.

I also wonder if showing multiple such circles (when they exist, as they did in the piece I was working on) at the same time or having that as a UI option would be good.

Anyway, goodnight all!

I don’t actually have any use for this idea currently, but am just posting it here to document it for consideration.

Basically, it occurred to me at least a few more useful conversions between shapes besides the existing ones could be useful.

For example:

• Converting lines into axially aligned rectangles of a specified “radius” or “diameter” (with an option to delete or keep the original line geometry).
• An option for the above (lines –> rectangles) that causes the intersections between the resulting rectangles to be automatically removed, like a kind of “automatic/magic wall creation tool” based on laying down lines instead of rectangles and then converting via this tool.
• Converting circles/ellipses and rectangles back and forth between each other via their bounding volumes. It seems reasonably likely that people will sometimes want to convert circular design elements into rectangular ones and vice versa (e.g. deciding a rectangular column makes more sense than a cylindrical one and vice versa).
• Converting any arbitrary selection into a corresponding bounding circle (not rectangle, which already exists) of sufficient size to enclose all points in the selection.

Basically, QCAD already has tools for converting shapes with operations that are a natural fit for the existing geometry, but has less tools for converting to entirely different geometry, but such uses could actually still be very useful potentially!

It seems likely to be common enough as a use case to merit inclusion, rather than just using scripting.

I don’t have any pressing need for these and I know that I could script them to create them if I really wanted to.

These are relatively minor ideas. I’m just putting this out here as more ideas for making this already wonderful software even better. :)

Reason: Same underlined keys are used for different menus

Select and Snap = S,
Dimension and Info = I,
Modify and Misc = M,

Andrew,

At present QCAD/CAM the tool drop-down box displays tool number and diameter between brackets.

It would be more appropriate to display if it is a mill or a drill and/or the description of such.
In a further stage of development ball-nose ... Conical ... And so on.

I have several specialized mills with the same diameter.
End-mills, roughing mills, routing mills, face mills ....

Tools 1(ø6mm) or 2(ø6mm) don’t say much if tool 1 is a side-mill and tool 2 is a high speed drill for metal.

Related forum topic:
https://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=10722

Regards,
CVH

Andrew,

Related topic: https://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=10649

Already two different users report that Landscape is printed cropped in portrait format, both Win11. The behavior change occurred recently.
Although the second user (rdtsc) reports the same behavior for latest Mabox Linux (Manjaro, Arch.)

Can not replicate that on Win7 32 bit nor on Win10 64 bit, both are no longer or not updated OS. For one, I have no orientation setting displayed in my printer dialog.

It seems not to be related to the QCAD version:
Reported for:
- Win11 QCAD Pro 3.29
- Win11 QCAD-CAM 3.27.8.0

Regards,
CVH

Andrew,

Please refer to related forum topic:
https://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=74&t=10724#p44206

An eighth circle with radius 8 Lead In/Out relates to nothing in the actual exported cutter trajectory.
Nor does it with the edge being cut.

Proper examples and a comparison with ‘Extension’ type Lead In/Out included.
Conclusion: IMHO connecting the cutter trajectory and edge being cut is wrong.

It looks a lot like turning on Cutter Compensation (G41/42) while the motion is circular.
But that is uncommon because most controllers can not cope with this motion.
One can increase the offset gradually along a straight pre-entry segment for turning on G41/42 but not along a circular path.
Also see snippet:
- Pre-entry C→B turning on G41
- Circular Lead In B→A

Regards,
CVH

Add configuarable format options in application preferences for saving blocks to library to either dxf or dwg.

QCad 3.19.2 Professional, 64bit, Liux Mint

Case:
1. Open some saved drawing with viewport entities on layout block (paper space). Print Preview mode is “On” automatically.
2. After “File-Revert” drawing is reopened on layout block (paper space), but now Print Previw mode is “Off” .

For example can try on “flange.dxf”

Drawing converted from inch to mm - undo leads to wrong dim label position. I can fix that with “Reset Label position” but it would be nice if QCAD could to that in first place.

I know this was reported and fixed before ...

https://www.qcad.org/bugtracker/index.php?do=details&task_id=843

... but it looks like we have the issue now back with some kind of variation.

If I use the test drawing which I posted in 2013 ( FS#843 ) it works still as expected after it was fixed.

If I create a new block it won’t work in a new drawing nor in the old test drawing - no chance to snap to the Block Reference.

Edit: New Test drawing:

My data files are stored on network shares (synology) with a GB link. QCAD Pro is run in Admin mode.

While in my Windows browser all remote shares are accessible (Green), in the QCAD file open menu they are initially shown as not accessible (Red). By accessing a specific drawing file in a remote share, the share will open and turn green.

Same behavior using ‘Open recent’. Always the message is given that the requested file does not exist, and the file is wiped from the ‘Recent Open’ list. Only if the share is first accessed through ‘Open’ with a random file, it will turn and a ‘recent open’ file for that share will open.

Drag and Drop from a remote share will never work.

See also:
https://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=6367#p23947

See also:
https://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=6447

It would be nice if QCAD spit some kind of warning message when trying to render a layer with a name that doesn’t exist (and perhaps render nothing), rather than silently rendering an empty image. :D

See https://qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=6453

Yesterday I set up a Windows 64 bit install of QCAD Pro which shows the same bug I have been seeing for a while in the Community linux git repo.

Create a new drawing and then go to “Print preview”. Enable “Move paper postion”, the cursor changes to the hand icon, but the paper position is unable to be moved. Only by saving the drawing, exiting the program, restarting and reopening the drawing, will the “Move paper postion” function correctly.

Affected versions tested:

Windows 64bit installer download, as of yesterday.
Linux 64bit build from git, about 20minutes ago.

For what it’s worth, this bug is not present in this previous git checkout:

Version:
3.21.1.0 (3.21.1)
Internet:
QCAD.org
Build Date:
Jul 2 2018
Revision:

Qt Version:
5.7.0
Architecture:
x86_64
Compiler:
gcc 6.3.1

Thanks for a great product.

Building with the bundled version, 1.8.5, works fine.

When I try to build using the system version, which for Mageia Cauldron is 1.9.3, the build fails.

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kekePower/mmbl/master/qcad/2019/12/11/20%3A13%3A48/log.qcad

Here is the current spec file for version 3.23.0.4.
https://svnweb.mageia.org/packages/cauldron/qcad/current/SPECS/qcad.spec?revision=1465894&view=markup

It looks like qcad is incompatible with versions above 1.8.5.

Are there plans to port to the new version?

Thanks in advance.

Openning a big file or doing any action in it, takes minutes to load.
Even dragging the scrollbar slightly left or right, takes mintues to redraw the canvas again, which makes QCAD un-usable for professional use.
Is there a way to make QCAD usable, after loading completed:
- Like suppressing edit until user says so,
- or taking snapshots of rendered canvases to another file and use it, as windows uses thumb.db ( for negative latency :P )

PS: I wish I could help a bit, but my hand are tied. I am just a java freak, I am opt to any idea of porting it to java, if she is still alive.

Tuğalsan Karabacak
EEE, MSc Mobile Comp & App, IWE

QCAD 3.24.2 / macOS x86_64 10.14.6

Starting with empty doc:
1. Draw any object (e.g. a rectangle) on layer 0.
2. Create new layer (”1”) with color, say yellow.
3. Select new layer
4. Select new object
5. Modify → Move / Copy
6. Click reference point
7. Click target point same as reference point
8. In “Move / Copy Options” dialog, select “Delete Original” and check “Use current layer and attributes.” Click OK.

The moved object stays on the layer it was previously on. Using “Move / Copy” as a quick way to move a selection between layers is not useful even though it appears to be the recommended way in a Google search.

Note: if “Keep Original” is selected instead, the copied object is placed on the current layer and the original object remains on its layer, as expected.

Note: if the target point is different from the reference point, the moved object is placed on the current layer as expected.

There are other workarounds too, cut / paste with “To current layer” checked seems to work, as does chaging the layer in the Properties Editor.

How to reproduce.

1. Create a text field with some non-english words in the upper index. (see attached pic1.png)
2. Save the project and close QCAD.
3. Run QCAD and open same project.
4. Now upper/lower indexed text becomes not human readable UTF codes. (see attached pic2.png)

Tried different fonts - doesn’t help.

Linux ntb-kirill 3.10.0-1062.12.1.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Feb 4 23:02:59 UTC 2020 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
CentOS Linux release 7.7.1908 (Core)

Open QCAD and the application preferences. In the section “General: tool settings " you can resize the columns: Menu, Shortcuts etc.
The problem is that it is not intuitive. The first divider is not selectable and the second moves the first, only backwards.

With default autosnap settings reference points included I find it very hard to snap to the baseline reference points of a dimension.
I manage to do it by setting snap to reference point only and zoom out till I see the entire dimension element.

Support proxy icon in title bar. This can be used to move the file to another folder using drag and drop.

no task description

The Application Preference setting “Graphics View - Appearance - Prevent white-on-white/black-on-black display” seems to be a global setting that doesn’t take the draw order into account. For example: With the setting enabled, it prevents creating a white hatch of a higher draw order on top of a larger, colored hatch with lower draw order (background). The preference does not seem to evaluate if the object is truly drawn as “white-on-white”.

With the preference enabled, setting the object color as “white” will set the “white” color label, but the object color actually stays black. Its hard to determine why it happens in that case.

Is it possible to let the global preference setting be applied to objects after evaluation of the draw order, and determine if the object actually is a true case of white-on-white?

My workaround: Disable the preference setting (I think it is default = on), and only enable it for ad-hoc checks of hidden and overlooked objects.

I use CTRL + I to pull up drawing preferences. Upon changing the dimension settings quickly and closing it normally by pressing enter it closes. But if i go to the next tab (drawing tab) then press enter to load it up quickly instead of pressing CTRL + I. Upon changing the dimensions settings and pressing enter to close it, it won’t close but instead flash and i have to keep pressing enter and eventually it closes.

I think this is a bug.

I have the Pro Version

1) Line with command prompt in Command Line widget is missing padding/margin - letter C is glued to frame.
2) In the “Selection Filter” widget there is an “whitespace” character before colon “:” symbol on multiple places, it doesn’t seem repeat anywhere else

Minor issue!
When using keyboard to initiate the dropdown menus.
I noticed the ALT “D” does not cycle through the headings Draw & Dimension in the same way.
ALT “M” cycles though Modify & Misc or ALT “S” cycles though Select & Snap.
User Name: StanTibbs
E-mail: [email protected]

I see the following problem:
When I open a particular DXF file in the Professional Trial version 3.27.9.0 on macOS, “^I” in text fields is expanded to whitespace.
When I open the same DXF file in the Community Edition 3.27.9.0 on NetBSD/x86_64 (installed from pkgsrc), “^I” in text fields is visible as “^I”.

Please view the attachment.

Regards

Graeme

Andrew,

I know that GCodeMM.js and GCodeIN.js are generic postprocessors.
Mostly used as base for other or custom postprocessor.

The distinct nature is pretty clear from the filename and the suffix in the display name.
Another distinct nature is that they include this.unit = RS.Millimeter / RS.Inch intended for the CAM side.

Why don’t they include at least a G20/21 in a generic header?

There are several more specific postprocessors where I miss these G-codes for the measurement system.

True, if they are not supported, no error messages would occur when omitted.
The danger is that users rely on build in postprocessors hoping that it matches with the default measurement system of their setup.

IMHO it is safer to trigger an instruction fault before attempting to execute a wrong motion.
As fail-save as possible should always be the goal.

Regards,
CVH

implement

it would be ideal to be able to have the option to autohide the side panel to increase the visible drawing space when working on a small screen.

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

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

Hi,

in QCAD3 RC2 points were printed as crosses, in QCAD3 RC4 they are printed as (very little) points. I think this isn’t a bug but a feature.

It would be nice if one could change this behaviour / select the symbol of points.

Best regards - Stefan

This is a double post of http://www.ribbonsoft.com/rsforum/viewtopic.php?p=5870#5870 as suggested there.

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

Nach einigen Überraschungen ....

Es ist möglich Layer in nicht eingefügten oder unsichtbar geschalteten Library Items unbemerkt zu löschen ....

Fallbeispiel 1:
Ich arbeite an einer Zeichnung die u.a. den Layer “Gelbe Linie” benutzt.
Ich füge ein Library Item ein was auch einen Layer “Gelbe Linie” hat.
Ich lösche - aus welchen Gründen auch immer - in der Zeichnung das Library Item weil ich es erst später wieder verwenden will.
In der Blocklist ist es natürlich immer noch verfügbar.
In der Zeichnung lösche ich den Layer “Gelbe Linie” da ich diesen nicht brauche brauche - habe aber natürlich nicht im Kopf welche Layer in meinen Blocks verwendet wurden.
Nach einiger Zeit will ich den Block (den aus der Library) wieder einfügen - dieser ist nun aber unbrauchbar da der Inhalt welcher auf dem Layer “gelbe Linie” war fehlt.
Das Library Item neu aus Library laden um das bereits existierende zu reparieren scheitert da das erste nicht überschrieben werden kann. Ich muss den ersten Block löschen um den neuen benutzen zu können.

Fallbeispiel 2:
Da das selbe (löschen der Layer) auch passieren kann bei unsichtbar geschalteten Blöcken kann es dazu führen das ich zig bereits positionierte Blöcke zerstöre und neu platzieren muss um meine Zeichnung zu reparieren.

Fallbeispiel 3:
Ich sehe in meiner Zeichnung einen Layer “Gelbe Linie”. Weiß nicht was das ist - schalte alle Layer unsichtbar außer “Gelbe Linie”. Klicke auf “Auto Zoom” um zu sehen was den auf “Gelbe Linie” ist. Finde nichts = also leer! Lösche Layer “Gelbe Linie”. Der Layer wurde aber von einem im Moment nicht verwendeten Library Block verwendet. Es gibt keinen Hinweis das ich damit ein Library Item zerstören könnte ....

Lange Rede kurzer Sinn: Wäre es machbar/sinnvoll Layer in Blöcken nur löschen zu können wenn ich mich im Edit Modus der Blöcke befinde?

Since this is not supported by Qt anymore, this would likely have to be implemented from scratch.

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 have a ‘clean up ' tool to:

- eradicate duplicate lines
- eradicate stray points
- remove empty layers
- remove unused blocks

Perhaps with an initial dialog which allows the user to choose what they want to clean up.

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

See:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27bCgg3zLVA

Customer wishes that stacked text used as subscript is rendered differently (i.e. increased text size, lower position for subscript).
This may also apply to superscripts.

See also:
http://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=2180