(NOTE: New stuff is at the end. I realized I made a lot of suggestions scattered around different replies, so this is mainly just to consolidate them in one post.)
Bugs/issues:
Copy/paste settings
Feature suggestions:
Paths
I just realized that if LDCad 2.0 does come to pass, and if it does support all LPub metas as had been considered, then that means it will support BUILD_MOD, which is essentially identical to the FLOAT meta idea I've been wishing for for so long.
If this is the case, I wonder if it would be possible (either as a user-configurable setting, or perhaps as an option in file cleanup) to comment out the type 1 lines between the BUILD_MOD BEGIN and BUILD_MOD END_MOD tags—in other words, the parts that exist in their temporary state? That way, the file that LDCad saves would contain no duplicate parts nor any helper parts, and thus be immediately viewable in LDView, Stud.io, etc. At the same time, LDCad would still display these commented lines during its own editing sessions.
In fact, at the risk of wishful thinking, this sounds simple enough, and fixes such a long-standing problem, that maybe BUILD_MOD might be able to appear in the nearer future than other LPub metas…? (And it might even be possible to do with the existing BUFEXCHG commands, too…)
Bugs/issues:
Copy/paste settings
- There are 10 options in the copy/paste dialog but I only found 9 in the config file. The missing one appears to be "copyStripNonVis" (although this does appear to work in the GUI…?).
- In edit placement control group: "Negative 54 degree rotation around Z-axis" (all the others correctly say "45 degree").
- In all the editing pin groups, "Negative movement on the current dead plane axis" seems to always be in the wrong subgroup (Center instead of Movement).
- I'd like to be able to assign a hotkey to the apostrophe ' but it doesn't recognize it (cmd+' is standard for bringing up a prefs menu).
Feature suggestions:
Paths
- When dragging a bezier handle, could we maybe shift+drag to simultaneously change the following/preceding handle also? This would allow symmetrical reshaping. (Idea stolen from Inkscape.)
- It would be very handy to have a 1-click rotation to that special value of 53.1301/36.8699 degrees (the 0.6 0.8 matrix), which is so central to Technic building. A grid stepping in this amount would be interesting, but I know these should really add up to 360, so maybe this is macro territory? Or maybe the manual rotation dialog could have radio buttons with these and certain other special angles (or even user-defined "favorite" angles)? <- I think the "favorites" idea is my favorite so far.
- This is very, very tiny…but maybe also trivial to fix. When opening the header dialog and switching to the "tags" tab, there is consistently a delay of 2-3 seconds while, I assume, the category and keywords lists are loaded. Maybe these lists should be loaded only when/if they are opened? because 99 times out of 100, I only go to that tab to set the file type (model, part, unofficial etc.) and don't need those drop-down lists at all.
On the other hand, for the same reason, maybe the file type meta should be moved to the main page of the header dialog, because its official placement is in the main part of the header? Better still, could it be possible to set a default for the file type?
- If a ROTSTEP meta appears at the end of a file, could there be an option for LDCad not to add an extra step number? That way, if the last step of a model has a rotation (or cancels a previous rotation), we can use the ROTSTEP function to display it correctly without having an extra blank step at the end of the model.
I just realized that if LDCad 2.0 does come to pass, and if it does support all LPub metas as had been considered, then that means it will support BUILD_MOD, which is essentially identical to the FLOAT meta idea I've been wishing for for so long.
If this is the case, I wonder if it would be possible (either as a user-configurable setting, or perhaps as an option in file cleanup) to comment out the type 1 lines between the BUILD_MOD BEGIN and BUILD_MOD END_MOD tags—in other words, the parts that exist in their temporary state? That way, the file that LDCad saves would contain no duplicate parts nor any helper parts, and thus be immediately viewable in LDView, Stud.io, etc. At the same time, LDCad would still display these commented lines during its own editing sessions.
In fact, at the risk of wishful thinking, this sounds simple enough, and fixes such a long-standing problem, that maybe BUILD_MOD might be able to appear in the nearer future than other LPub metas…? (And it might even be possible to do with the existing BUFEXCHG commands, too…)