LDCad 1.6 Alpha 4 (win+linux)

[Milan Vančura]

Thanks for a detailed answer back, Roland. I add some details:

I've been avoiding the alt key because it acts very different in Linux. It seems to be a system level key in some versions (focus to the program menu bar) I haven't found a way to suppress that behavior yet. Currently menus can not be assigned a hotkey but it shouldn't be too much of an hassle to add that, I'll put it on the beta 2 'nice to have' list.

I may describe this for you. There are two different issues. The first one is that, in past, the Alt key was handled differently than Shift and Control on Linux. Even you might still find some articles about that on Internet, I believe all modern desktop libraries already solved that. For example, with wxWidgets it's a matter of a choice of events. The second issue may be that somebody might configure his/her window manager to use same hotkeys for some actions. That's same as with, for example, alt-tab on Windows. But Alt-[A-Z] are usually not used for that - because even other applications use the same hotkeys (Alt-F, Alt-E, Alt-V, Alt-H for menus: File, Edit, View, Help...). In the end, it's up to the user to configure hotkeys of both LDCad and his window manager to not have conflicts... I do not know about Windows but it's extremely easy on Linux.

Layered groups are a bit experimental. I was planning to iron it out in Beta 2 by allowing users to name layers which will then replace the current layer 1 2 3 placeholders.

I though about a way how the user can have a better overview of defined groups and not needing think about group layers at all, to hide this logic in GUI. However, I must say I do not have a solution for this, it's just an idea. Or, better, a wish The reason is that it's very hard to remember which group is defined on which layer now. Or maybe we can keep this layer switching but add a submenu with a list of (optionally named) groups together with a layer number/name? Something like:

Code:

1. front left wheel    layer 1
2. front right wheel    layer 1
3. front axle with wheels    layer 2
...

Unhide in the Source window: great feature, I like it. Unfortunately it's dangerous because the same hotkey is there for hiding and unhiding ("h")...

Currently the 'h' in source window is more a visibility toggle which is indeed very confusing now you point that out. I'll make it a separate action with its own hotkey (maybe shift+h?)

Yes, much better. There would be still a conflict with original hide/unhide feature but I believe this would not be a problem if an indicator of non-empty selection will be on the screen.

I could display the 'Selection contains invisible items' label as is done when e.g. a step meta is in the selection.

Yes, good idea. And I believe it would be even better if it is an icon, different for each of these two situations (set independently): "selection contains hidden parts" and "selection contains metadata lines". An icon takes much less space so they can be shown both if needed and still be on the right of "Step" indicator. And you can set up a "hover text" for them.

Mirroring feature...

X, Y, Z is shown as Red, Green, Blue lines in the compass and grid. This is somewhat of a standard I thought everybody knew that I'll see if I can render the same colors in the combo box.

And wouldn't be possible to show that plane directly in the Edit window, similarly to the grid or the far plane of the rectangle select? It would be much easier to understand, especially with local coordinates set ("o" key).

Region select

The 3D part is the far clipping plane which can be moved by the scroll wheel. It should be visible by the background color overflowing part of the model. I did indeed plan to drop the left mouse button controls in faver of the region select but for some reason dropped it again, I think it had mainly to do with left mouse already being used to drag the selection.

Ah, you are right. Still, it is not always easy to see what everything is selected. But I do not have any bright idea how to make GUI better in this, unfortunately. What about that "rectangle unselect" feature? That would help if one takes too much or wants to combine that like "select this rectangle without that corner".

I do want to add your snap point rotation idea at some point, I'll see if it can be done without too much of an impact to existing code (beta stage and all).

Great! I may try to create that script for triangles then. (And give it to everybody - if it works )