QCAD Bugtracker

Original request:

https://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=4768

In a medium complex drawing it’s often too much details to have all layers in a drawing visible at once. Also, it is of great importance to be able to have a single model to avoid duplication of work and risk inconsistency.

So i would like to create a number of views where each view has selected layers visible (that makes sense for the purpose of the view) and then assign the views to different layout blocks (using view-ports) in paper-space to be able to setup printing of several views on the same page/PDF

This also means that view-ports would have to be aware of what view they are displaying (if any besides the standard-view).
This will then make it possible for printouts of different views with selected layers visible (different for each view and view-port) and still have only one model. Today this is not possible.

As it is today the only limited workaround is to set the layers you want to display, print/PDF of that viewport on separate page, and then change it for the next page, and so on. The big drawback is that you cannot have two different views/view-ports on the same page with different layers visible. Also, for large drawing it is painful to have to do a lot of manual setup for each rendering of the complete drawing.

It would appear that when QCAD imports a DXF, it reorders the layers into alphabetical order (at least when importing R2011). I have not tested this extensively but on other programs, the order is different from alphabetical. Ideally the operator should be given a choice to order the layers as exported (assuming the DXF format remembers that) or alphabetical. This is because a drawing may have a certain stack up of layers (like a printed circuit board) and then alphabetic ordering is not useful nor desired.

See:
http://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=3755

To improve useability/efficiency I would like to propose the following changes/additions to the layer list:

1) Combining the show and hide button into one button.

Clicking once will hide all layers, clicking again will show them all again.

2) A “lock/unlock” button.

Clicking once will lock all layers, clicking again will unlock them all again.

Regarding the icons I suggest that instead of show both the black and grey version of the eye/lock, you could switch between them depending on the state the switch-button is in. Also the mouse-over-text could/should change with the state.

Add text filter for layer list, block list.

In the same way as the Pen tool has a drop down menu, would it be possible to have an option to configure the layer list in the same way. I am trying to create a bit more drawing space and it would be good if I could dock the layer list in the top of my window and only take up a single row space!

If I move something and it went wrong I can easily undo the last move and start over without the need of a re-selection.
If I copy something and it went wrong I can undo the last copy but I have to re-select everything again.

It would be nice to keep the once chosen selection in both “undo” situation!

Same with similar functions like rotate etc. ....

It would be very useful to have the same possibility for Isometric projection like the Paste tool etc.. An option which ask me to put a new Isometric projection on the current layer is right now missing. If I like to have this new Isometric Projection on a different layer I have to reselect the projection and move it to that layer. That is plain inconvenient.

Hi Andrew,

I’m not sure whether this has been added or suggested already. It would be great to have a built in QCAD table tool for producing cutting lists or bill of materials etc. A dedicated table tool would be a real boost to QCAD Pro ;)

Many thanks

Clive

Insert field into drawing that displays current date, file name, ...

With that new feature the information tool shows the absolute paper units in the print preview mode instead of drawing units.
So you can determine the exact size of an entity in the printout without manual calculating with the drawing units and the scale factor.

See also http://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=3793

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.

... would be nice.

If I use the Info tool “Polygonal area” with the option “Add measurement to the drawing” I always have to edit the Value to make clear that we now looking to an area value like m² or ft².

I was thinking that a pre labeling (prefix/postfix) like the normal Dim tools could save me a couple extra steps ...

It would be nice if the Info Tool / Add Measurement to drawing option would use the same settings like the “Dimension settings” for Font and Text height. It’s a kind of similar function in a drawing and should have the same style. Maybe with an on/off switch?

Task: If I like to make a hatch and the contour isn’t closed I get a Grey circle Info where the contour isn’t closed. Nice!

But ..... I have this Info only for ONE not proper connection and only for the moment when the mouse pointer is over the Hatch Tool Symbol.

If I have to zoom into the Problem - I will lose the Info where the problem is

To get the “Problem Info” back I have to select it again - but for that I have to zoom out ...............

It would be nice to have this “Problem Info” longer in the drawing - maybe until I solved all problems.

And it would be nice to have ALL Infos for not connected lines at the same time. It is not really helpful to repeat this function 20times if I have 20 connection problems ... ;)

Provide keyboard shortcuts for options tool bar.

Under Linux, Windows Alt+Key shortcuts can be used.
Mac OS X does not seem to support this.

See also suggestions at:
http://www.ribbonsoft.com/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=2053&view=unread#unread

Import tables in CSV format and display them in the drawing as lines and text.

Hi Andrew

QCAD/CAM misses a hpgl.plt import. If gerber and G-code can, so should plt.

My task: To hatch an area.

Right now, if I want to fill an area with a hatch pattern, I have to select all the enclosing objects (lines, arcs) and then I can select the hatch tool. That can be under some circumstances a tedious task.
To illustrate this, I created a simple example (see Attachment 1: Hatching.png).

Step 1: Create a rectangle.
Step 2: Draw four vertical lines.
Step 3: Select the four lines surrounding the first area. –> Problem! The horizontal lines are too long.
Step 4: Divide the long horizontal lines of the rectangle where the vertical lines touch. Now the lines surrounding the three areas can be selected.
Step 5: Hatch the selection. Done.

Just for fun try recreating my second example (see Attachment 2: Hatching2.png)

Therefore I would like to suggest a far more simple approach.

Step 1: Select the Hatch Tool.
Step 2: Click inside the area you would like to be hatched. Done.

Of course that would mean that the hatch style is already pre-defined and can be changed later, if needed.

In this way productivity can be increased by ... [fill in you own estimate] ... times.

Example 2 would need only 13 clicks to hatch all the areas (including the hatch tool button).

Would it be possible to make a Plug in tool for a Hatch generator, so custom made hatches can be saved as .pat files?

I have a lot of up and coming future projects that I would like to make my own ‘custom’ hatches for.

When using the SHIFT key while dragging the end point a perpendicular guide line is displayed (see attached screenshot).
It would be very helpful if other guide lines with x=const. and y= const. are displayed when pressing SHIFT + ALT key together while dragging.

At our QCAD Drawing window, below right corner, we have the Info displayed what are the Grid / Meta Grid settings.
It would be nice to have additional the Info for the drawing unit ...

I would very much like to ask for the option to Hatch/Fill with a gradient of one or two colours.

Many Thanks

Clive

Right-click on the tools on the left-hand side of the screen brings you back in the hierarchy.

However, that does not work if you right-click while hovering above a button that that is shaded (inactive).

Absolutely love the new options for adding the measurements in the current drawing.

I would like to see an additional option for only adding the text and not the lines also, maybe a simple check box would suffice here.

Of course at the moment I am able to use the property editor to select only the lines and move to a new layer and hide!

Es wäre schön wenn ich Werte wie zum Beispiel Längen von Linien direkt abgreifen könnte um diese weiter in Berechnungen verwenden zu können.

Beispiel:
Ich habe eine Linie konstruiert wobei sich eine Länge y ergeben hat.

Nun möchte ich eine Linie zeichnen die 5 mal y sein soll.

Linientool → Wert 5* eingeben und y durch Auswahl mit der Maus von dem vorhandenen Elements übernehmen.

Natürlich könnte ich die Geometrie Info benutzen um den Wert abzulesen oder auch über die Zwischenablage zu benutzen. Ein abgreifen mit der Maus wäre aber schneller, direkter und wahrscheinlich auch mit weniger Fehlern (Human error) verbunden. Wahrscheinlich auch genauer da QCad, denke ich, mit mehr Nachkommastellen rechnet, oder?

Being able to fill an area with a bitmap would be a nice addition to the already impressive feature list of QCAD.

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

Add handle attribute to exported SVG tags to identify exported DXF entities.

Dear Andrew, just in case you should ever run out of ideas for enhancements; As an advisor I sometimes get PDF files and recently, some CAD drawings contained layers, which is kind of nifty to reduce the clutter.

Sadly though, qprinter/qpainter seem to be unaware of OCG (Optional Content Groups, the PDF jargon for layers) at the moment, so my plea is for the back burner now. Probably in SVG though it can be done? Yet that is of a little less use, maybe…

When working with several files is normal also to work in several folders, this can be confusing, expecially in the case where there are different folders with equal file names.
I propose the creation of a “Open file location”. This, probably under the main menu, “File”, when clicked would open the standard
“file explorer” with the folder that contains the current file already selected.
It would be quite similar to the windows 8/10 “Open file location”.

Hi!

in many tasks in qcad I ended up exporting one or several layers into individual files for some cnc jobs or further processing. So the steps I usually do are:

• select all elements on the layer
• paste into new drawing
• sometimes rename layer names or attributes
• adjust dimension settings
• save and give name for drawing

Sometimes I have up to 100 layers I need to export like this, so an automatic export for all would be time saving too. But very often a “single click” export method would also help a lot. (e.g. inside the layer list an entry in the right click menue like “save as new file”). Also a multiple selection would be handy if more that one layer should end up in the new file. (e.g. select the three layers that need to be in the new document, then right click and save as new file). Maybe this is too much of changes needed inside the layer list - so something like a separate layer export dialogue would make sense.

When exporting many layers some variables for automatic naming of layers and filename would make sense e.g. user can specify basename_%L.dxf to get the basename_layername.dxf or just an increasing number.

For layers and attributes it is often needed to give a layer a certain name or color for different cnc processes (e.g. engraving and cutting for lasers) or to put everything on layer “0” because of some old CAM software that only supports content on layer 0.

probably many more details would make sense that I didn’t think of yet...

kind regards
Martin

Feature request- text string find/replace

Scope: entire drawing/selected objects set/chosenlayer only

Functionality:

‘find’ with ‘zoom to’, first, next, previous, last

‘replace’ with ‘next’, ‘undo’, ‘all’

This functionality is very useful when using QCad for system diagrams and the like.

For and behalf of mandrena

To add another Arc tool option in Arc tools set:

1.Specify Start point for Arc.
2.Specify End point for Arc.
3.Specify “Tangent” direction (without being restricted in input field) so you can visually select a point on your desired Tangent line!

It would be very useful to have an extra option to only detect duplicates within a user defined area.

It would be nice to have the possibility to control the automatic Text orientation in Block attributes.
Something what would work like the DIM restriction: I can read the text horizontal and/or from the right side of the drawing sheet.

Right now I have the feeling that the Text orientation is dependent on the tool what I even use.
Different tools = different outcomes.

When working with the isometric grid (in any projection - Top, Right, Left) and drawing from ‘scratch’ as it were, without using the projection tools - I find myself using ‘Line from Angle’ the most.

It would be extreamly useful to be presented with two extra buttons when using this tool, a 30 degree button and a -30 degree button, this way I wouldn’t need to keep typing in the angle difference here.

Regards

Clive

When exporting to SVG it would be helpful if there was a selection of layers to export.
E.g. when selecting only layer A in the SVG export dialog, only the objects located/displayed on layer A would be exported to SVG.

As an alternative or additional export feature, there could be an option to export each (non-empty) layer to a separate SVG in one step.
The layer names could be used as (part of the) default file names during the export.
E.g. Layer A of file XYZ would be exported to “XYZ_A.SVG” while layer B would be exported to “XYZ_B.SVG” etc.

Hello
It would be great when you can add a function to export a selected object as a list of points.
Is it possible to add?

Autodes DWG TrueView 2017 has this function and it is very useful.
Here you can see a screenshot of this function.

implement

See:
https://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?t=6650

Modify the “purge layer” tool to preserve empty layers with a locked status.
see: http://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=2386

When double clicking on an entry in the layer list just nothing happens.
I would prefer if this would directly open the layer attributes dialog to change color/name etc.

see:
http://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=3466

See also:
http://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=3846

It would be extreamly useful to have an option to either use - or not use leader lines in the standard horizontal/vertical dimension line tools, some of the drawings I’m working on need the ‘standard’ looking dimensions with leader lines and some don’t. its a real pain to have to select - explode and delete all the leaders I don’t need.

Hoping for an option

Regards

Clive

Add preference to use a single, configurable color for all locked layers.

See also:
https://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=4879#p17953

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

Add support for custom dimension labels created in 3rd party applications. Such labels may contain text that is stripped by QCAD.