QCAD Bugtracker

Case:
Working on a Main Drawing, decide to edit a Block, start the editing process, close the editing process with “Return to Main drawing” and come back to the Main Drawing - but unfortunately to an absolute different View in the Main Drawing ...

It would be nice to come back to the same View (Zoom window) like before I started the editing procedure.

We have already a powerful projection tool in QCAD - the Isometric tool.

It would be nice to have additional a “Dimetric tool” (Ratio 1:0.5:1, Angle 7°/42°) what is often used in the “Engineering world”.
It looks just more professional than the simple Isometric Projections and I’m pretty sure that could open a couple more Customer doors

It would be nice ...

- to be able to use " and / in Block names what is really helpful in the Inch and Fraction world ...

- the ability to overwrite an existing Block what is often much easier/faster than editing a Block

- After selecting a Block you get the info of the Block name in the Property Editor (Geometry / Referenced Block).
If I need to edit this Block I have to go to the Block List - have to search for this name because it is not marked .... and of course it is a long long list.
It would be nice to have a “Edit this Block” Button in the Property Editor / Geometry / Referenced Block dialog ...

Please, dear Feature Fairy, I wish for hierarchical layers. That would make organizing my projects a little bit easier.

Let me show you, what I mean: (see Attachment)

Layers are great for organizing a project. For construction lines alone I sometimes use 3 and more layers. And then there are more layers for each part I design. Each with its own colour.

And when a project gets bigger I start wishing for a quick overview in the layer list to the colours I use on them. So I wish for colour indicators on the layer list to quickly identify the membership of a line to a layer.

I have a small image attached to make you see, what I mean.

Add option to place text to follow along a given curve,arc etc...

See related topic:
http://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2330

I have a straight polyline with several segments and want to remove some nodes. So I choose “Delete Node(s)”. Then I am asked to select the polyline. When done I can start clicking on the nodes I want to remove - IF ONLY I could see them.

Request: Would be nice if you could make the nodes of the selected polyline visible. Or don’t ask again for selecting a polyline if it was already selected before the tool was chosen.

Currently the workaround is to first select the polyline (which shows the nodes), then choose the tool, then AGAIN select the polyline and then start clicking on the nodes.

Reference Point options (Start, middle, end) also for “Relative angle” and “Orthogonal” .... like the other lines

It would be a nice feature to be able to select multiple layers to remove them all at once.

I drew a closed polyline, hatched it (on the same layer) and then moved a node... the hatch didn’t change as one would expect.

It would be great if hatches would follow any changes to its contour.

Recently I ran into the problem, that the font, which I used on Linux was not installed on the Windows-Computer which is connected to the Laser-Cutter. So it was not engraved correctly.

I suggest adding an option to be able to embed a font into the drawing, so that text is rendered with the intended font regardless on which system you open the drawing.

It would be nice to have the option for a “Short” Extension Line.
This is often used in Architectural drawings.
Yes, I know that I can explode a dimension and change it to that what I’m asking for - but that is really a Sisyphus task and destructs the function of a dynamic Dimension in QCAD.

Enable / disable individual snaps for use with auto snap.

It would be useful to have an option to be able to add new folders in the layer list, to group certain layers together in a folder when needed, this would reduce the layer list length and make it easier to navigate to certain layers (would be useful for me anyway!).

This feature might also be useful for the block list too!

Please see topic:
http://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=2445

First of all it would make it easy to move them in one piece.
And if additionally FS#823 is implemented (with the option to easily stretch orthogonal to the selected line) this would improve the handling of Rectangles and Polygons significantly.

The tools could then be moved to Polyline Tools or maybe get their own category called Polygon Tools with a Rectangle as Icon.

Line Tools menu would be way clearer as it would only create single straight lines.

This can be achieved by implementing FS#822 and  FS#824 .

If one or more closed Polylines are selected the (summed up) area should be displayed in the Properties Editor.

CAD Tools could have a small handle that would make it possible to drop them in a different location.
This should not be a header with title, maximize and close buttons like normal dropable windows have.
Instead it should be a (dotted) line similar to the one normal toolbars have.

Add the options from the Option toolbar the Line from Angle tool to the Options toolbar of Line from 2 Points.

As long the user does not set a value for Angle or Length the tool acts just like Line from 2 Points. During this time the values are automatically filled in corresponding to the line preview on canvas.
Once the user enters a value to into the field for Angle or Length this value is fixed and only the other one can be modified on the canvas.
Of course the user can also define both values by typing in the values.

Pressing TAB should directly activate the corresponding text-field if a tool is activated where a numerical value can be set in the Option toolbar.
Pressing TAB again should select the next text-field in the Option toolbar.

If the last text-field in the toolbar is activated pressing TAB should deactivate the text-field. Pressing TAB one more time after this should again activate the first text-field.

Task:
Drawing - New from Template ...

My Default Template Folder in “Application Preferences” is on F: (USB Port).
QCAD depicts to C:/Programme/QCAD pro 3.1.2/libraries/templates
(Yes - I started QCAD new after adjusting the default Folder)

It would be nice to have the possibility to design and use your own line styles, in addition to the built-in ones.
Also nice to have are user defined line weights, in addition to the built-in ones.

Introduce scale factor for linear dimension entities.

Original request was:

It would be nice to have the possibility to enter dimensions in the form of a formula and still show up as a ‘normal’ dimension.
This would greatly help in creating details in a different scale (say, 5:1) than the rest of the drawing.
Creating details is quite often necessisary for small objects (when lines are too close together to distinguish at 1:1) if the drawing must be legible to mere humans...

Now one must calculate and manually enter all dimensions for the detail after scaling (and re-calculate every time something gets modified), this is quite error prone.
Exploding the dimensions before scaling is not a real option: the arrowheads and texts then get scaled, too, wich is undesirable.
Scaling back, modifying and then repeating the process is also not quite on the mark: small errors creep in due to finite precision in the calculations made during the scaling.

QCAD 3.1.5 - has a new “Dimensioning Scale adjustment option” (Property editor/Linear Factor). NICE!!!

What means - we are now able to change the dimension scale for existing dims!

My Feature request refers to new dimensions and I think it would be perfect to have a “Scale Factor - On/Off Option” for all Dim Tools.

That would bring us in the position to copy / scale a part of our drawing for a detail view and we could just use us usual the dimensioning tools (with a scale factor) for the dimensioning task ....

It would be useful to have an additional option in the polyline tool set to be able to create a polyline from selected entities only, without the need first for preparatory drafting measures.
Basic example attached.
You see here I want to create a polyline from only the selected lines, thus leaving the rest as separate line segments.

I’m not sure but if this is a duplicate please delete!

Feature Request:
It would be nice to have a tool what will help to draw tangential circles and arcs between other entities.

I imagine this tools with a three entities (circles, lines) selection or two entities plus a radius.

I would like to use QCAD at work.
Since the drawing using block attributes (ATTRIB) is not displayed correctly, I am troubled.
Please give me correspondence by all means.

It would be good to have additional ellipse tools that could produce an ellipse:
Tangential to four given sides (closed like a Quadrilateral) or sperate sides and to 4 given coordinate points.
see snapshot for the idea.

It would be useful to have an additional line tool that could be drawn tangent to an existing circle and perpendicular to a line.
see screenshot for the idea:

A ‘Repeat last tool’ button would be useful.
When one has fully cancelled all operations, sometimes it would be convenient to have the option to have a repeat of the last tool again...I’m thinking that a simple button could do this a bit like the reset/idle button.

It would be extreamly useful to have an additional info tool to be able to find the centre of gravity (centroid) for an irregualr polygon.
For info please see:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centroid

Actually a tool whicn gives an option for finding the centre and centroid of polygons would be good.

Not sure how complicated this one might be to develop/implement ?

But a tool for copying/pasting entities along a given path would be great. In the attached snapshot you can see what I am trying to acheive - to copy/paste the brick along a wall contour. A dedicated tool for doing something like this would be great...sure I can do it with the tools provided in QCAD already but it sure would make life so much easier if there was a tool specific for this kind of thing.
I am actually working on some ‘real’work projects with these requirements and it does take a bit of time to get correct!

Or maybe an additional Points tool option to plant points along a curve would be good!

The property editor should do,
if I change
Selection: All(xx)
by Filtering by Entity Type
Selection: Circle(xx)
only the selected enteties(in this case the circles) should be selected, so we will be able to copy, delete ... directly

Der Eigenschaften Editor sollte wenn die
Auswahl: Alle(xxx) auf z.B.
Auswahl: Kreise (xx) geändert wird
auch nur diese Selektierung in der Zeichnung auswählen um direct kopieren, löschen ... zu können

While constructing around the lack of “Line tangent to a circle, perpendicular to a line” ( FS#881 ) which I hereby second :)), it struck me that it might be useful to have a tool that finds the center point of an existing circle/ellipse, or possibly more generally, the center point of an existing circular/elliptical arc.

Somewhere in the 3.1 series the SVG exporter (both precise and PG) started to make lines that are zero (0) width in CAD 0.01 (@scale 1:1) points wide in exported files (0.1 @scale 1:10). I use such lines to constrain exported files to a common size and rather not have them show. In my view, this is a regression, as there is no reason for changing line weight, isnt it? If I wanted the lines to have weight, I’d draw them with a weight.

Add an option to measuring tools to add results permanently to the drawing (on current layer, with current layer attributes).

Add matrix transformations to projection tools.

See also:
http://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=2569

Break up spline at given point, break out segment, etc.

Apply a font name replacement table to a drawing. E.g. change font ‘romanc’ to ‘Arial’, etc.

A window with a drawing that has unsafed changes gets an asterisk appended to its name in the tab title. When there too many tabs the title gets shortened and the star cannot be seen then.

It was nice, when the star remained visible, after or in front of the ellipses.

Also it was nice, when the “windows” menu would mark files with changes in the same way.

It would be nice if we could use the Stretch tool also on blocks.

There are so many possibility’s to build a really good (time-saving) block-list /library with preassembled parts but if I have always to explode / ruin the block to use the stretch tool doesn’t helps the productivity.

See discussion at:
http://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=2614

Would it be possible to change the Divide tool, so that one can divide by e.g. 4.5 or 7.75 etc...? Instead of just whole numbers, like it is at present.

It would be nice to get a status information after the use of the “Search/Replace” tool.

Something like: “5 matches found and replaced”,
or
no “matches found”.

It helps allot to get an Idea what happens in your drawing. Right now the tool window will just disappear and you have no idea about any success.

Just floating an idea, recently I’ve had to use the diameter symbol many times in texts. At this moment it’s a chore, as that usually means browser, look for a page with symbol in it, copy, paste.

I wonder if the text entry could have some sort of a box for “frequently used” characters (or even phrases, or whatnot, but I presume a handful special characters that everyone can tailor to their needs would already be a huge plus)? Like, a 3×3 to 5×5 matrix below the Alignment panel or something along these lines.

Bug or Feature request?

Tool “Parallel” is not working on an intact ellipse. If I explode the ellipse it will work but then it turns out to a Sisyphus task ...

See also:
http://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=2689

Create a new block from a selection
Enter the name of an existing block
Overwrite warning
Overwrite block

Community version (still on FBSD only), so dxflib. I suspect the culprit is dxflib.

I have created layers and blocks and whatnot with (hungarian) accented characters in their names.
Apparently (according to the Internet, as evidenced probably most glaringly by usa.autodesk.com /adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=7586582&linkID=9240617) the R15 DXF version assumes single-byte character sets being used. Quick grepping the DXF2000 mentions “String (255-character maximum; less for Unicode strings)” (Group Code Value types), so it may be a false track...

Anyway, the DXF file written does have strings converted to single-byte encoding, but it seems it’s always ANSI-1252. When the output encoder encounters a character that is not representable in this one, it will use a literal question mark.

Actual case, I have a block with the name

106 egypólusú váltókapcsoló jelzőfénnyel

Of this, “ő” (U+0151) is not representable in ANSI-1252, so what gets written to the dxf is (non-ASCII shown in hex)

106 egyp<f3>lus<fa> v<e1>lt<f3>kapcsol<f3> jelz?f<e9>nnyel

Note the literal question mark.

Now the problem is this is an irreversible operation but the result is perfectly valid ANSI-1252, so upon opening the file again, I will get a block named

106 egypólusú váltókapcsoló jelz?fénnyel

IMHO the ideal resolution is to

1. Have a preference for the export code page (and use it, too, circumstances permitting)
2. Iff this is not set (or set to a default “Use system locale to determine” or something), use a look-up table to take a good guess (like old QCAD2 qcadlib/src/engine/rs_system.cpp:QCString RS_System::localeToISO())
3. If the output encoder encounters a character that is not representable in the target code page, throw an error with an option to ignore the error (and keep using question marks, but then this must have been acknowledged by the user so not silent problem anymore), pick a new output code page, whatever else

This all assuming the R15 doesn’t actually depends hardly on ANSI-1252 and ANSI-1252 only. In that case, option #3 would still be nice.

Most Western European languages (and English) are not affected by this as ANSI-1252 has most of them covered, but a little to the east, a little to the south, a little to the north, and it does make a bit of a difference :)