Re: Dimension question

[jroshima@aol.com]

Rowland:

I'm the one who recently joined the Cadintosh User's Group. I'll admit that I haven't yet fully explored the files section of the site. I do have one specific and another more general question. I sent the first question to the user's group, so you will probably get it that way also. It is this:

When the program makes dimensions, it draws a line with arrow points at each end. At times, the points are "inside" the two lines being dimensioned, pointing outwards. At other times (more often) the points are "outside" the two lines, and are pointing in towards the center of the line. How do you control this difference? I've tried "Option > Dimensions" and the Line Ending menu at the bottom of the drawing.

My more general question arises out of a considerable amount of frustration with Cadintosh that I've experienced as I've used it pretty intensively over the last two weeks. I am new to CAD, but I'm not new to computers, and Cadintosh strikes me as a pretty buggy program. At the very least, the "User's Guide" is a problem: seemingly out of date, very short on explanation, and just plain wrong in a number of places that I found. Unfortunately, I accidentally lost the list I was compiling of the problems. The program too is problematic. Tools suddenly don't work, until one quits the program and restarts. The "chamfer" tool started drawing UN-erasable circles around corners at one point. My real question is should I continue using Cadintosh, or make an investment that I wasn't planning on in a more expensive, better program. I know you can't answer that question for me; my question for you is: how does the program work for you, and is there anything (such as your own personal set of workarounds and bug fixes) that you can share that might help me? 

Once again, thanks for your help and time.

Jon Oshima

[Richard Ellam]

Hi Jon and all in the group
I'm fairly new to the group, but have been using Cadintosh quite extensively for about three years. I'm now using the latest version of the software on a G4 mac mini running System 10.4 'Tiger', and I don't find that I have any real problems with it at all. I use both for 'hobby' drawings -I'm into model engineering and miniature railways in a big way - and for 'work' (I'm a freelance designer and maker of hands-on exhibts and science demonstration equipment). 
As to the question of dimension arrows Cadintosh follows good drawing office practise by placing the arrows inside the dimension lines facing outwards if there's enough room to fit the arrows and the dimension between the lines. If there isn't room for everything between the lines the arrows go outside pointing inwards, with the number centered between them. Changing the size of the text dimension text, using either the properties tool in the dimensions section of the tool palette, or 'text/note/item number' from the options menu will influence the programme's decision about how to arrange the dimension and arrows.
Hope this helps, and that you can eradicate the bugs
Good drawing!

Cheers



Richard EllamL M InteractiveScience Shows and Hands-On Stuff

On 20 Jan 2006, at 20:44, jroshima@aol.com wrote:

Rowland:

I'm the one who recently joined the Cadintosh User's Group. I'll admit that I haven't yet fully explored the files section of the site. I do have one specific and another more general question. I sent the first question to the user's group, so you will probably get it that way also. It is this:

When the program makes dimensions, it draws a line with arrow points at each end. At times, the points are "inside" the two lines being dimensioned, pointing outwards. At other times (more often) the points are "outside" the two lines, and are pointing in towards the center of the line. How do you control this difference? I've tried "Option > Dimensions" and the Line Ending menu at the bottom of the drawing.

My more general question arises out of a considerable amount of frustration with Cadintosh that I've experienced as I've used it pretty intensively over the last two weeks. I am new to CAD, but I'm not new to computers, and Cadintosh strikes me as a pretty buggy program. At the very least, the "User's Guide" is a problem: seemingly out of date, very short on explanation, and just plain wrong in a number of places that I found. Unfortunately, I accidentally lost the list I was compiling of the problems. The program too is problematic. Tools suddenly don't work, until one quits the program and restarts. The "chamfer" tool started drawing UN-erasable circles around corners at one point. My real question is should I continue using Cadintosh, or make an investment that I wasn't planning on in a more expensive, better program. I know you can't answer that question for me; my question for you is: how does the program work for you, and is there anything (such as your own personal set of workarounds and bug fixes) that you can share that might help me? 

Once again, thanks for your help and time.

Jon Oshima
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[jroshima@aol.com]

Richard & User?s group:

Thank you for your thoughtful reply, quickly done. I believe that it is
working for you, and that it could for me as well, if I persist. Still,
the question remains of where to invest my time: Cadintosh or another
program. In the mean time I found out why I was having a problem. I was
drawing an infinite line and using it to establish the two points to be
dimensioned and as a guide for the location of the number. After
finishing the dimension I would then delete the infintie line. It turns
out that if a dimension is made it that way it always has points on the
outside, regardless of the amount of space between the lines. Who knew?

Jon

[RowlandCarson]

At 2006-01-20 15:44 -0500 jroshima@aol.com wrote:

>When the program makes dimensions, it draws a line with arrow points
>at each end. At times, the points are "inside" the two lines being
>dimensioned, pointing outwards. At other times (more often) the
>points are "outside" the two lines, and are pointing in towards the
>center of the line. How do you control this difference?

Jon - sorry for my slow response - I'm on dialup & tend to check &
upload mail only once or twice a day. I think Richard has answered
this question already.

>Cadintosh strikes me as a pretty buggy program

What's your environment? Hardware, memory, OS version, CADintosh
version? There could be unfortunate combinations of these causing
problems.

I've found the current version to be pretty stable and largely
bug-free in the areas I've explored. It does have limitations in the
implementation of the ellipse tool that I've been posting complaints
about for ages ....

>Tools suddenly don't work, until one quits the program and restarts.
>The "chamfer" tool started drawing UN-erasable circles around
>corners at one point

I've not come across these behaviours.

>should I continue using Cadintosh, or make an investment that I
>wasn't planning on in a more expensive, better program

For drawings that require elements constructed from elliptical arcs,
I have started using TurboCAD Mac. It's at V1, so has a few bugs and
raw edges. I have found it to be not so stable as CADintosh, and its
symbol library, although more extensive online, seems poorly
implemented by comparison with CADintosh. Also, I haven't figured out
how to make layers work. The manual is misleading in some places and
unhelpfully terse in others. There are a few things (such as ability
to move objects by dragging, and the way lines appear as you drag)
that actually seem more "Mac-like" than the way CADintosh does them.
There are online forums for TurboCAD, but they are split into the
different windoze versions, and there doesn't appear to be one
dedicated to the Mac version yet.

>how does the program work for you

Apart from drawing partial ellipses, it seems very competent for the
price and I am pleased with the way it works.

>is there anything (such as your own personal set of workarounds and
>bug fixes) that you can share that might help me?

In v5.3.2 (OS X 10.3.9, 1GHz 15" Ti PowerBook, 1GB RAM) I haven't
found any bugs that I need to work around. I do know that way back
when I started using CADintosh (under System 7!) it seemed quite
alien to my usual way of drawing things. I'd been looking for a
replacement for ClarisDraw (which replaced MacDraw Pro, the
short-lived expansion of MacDraw II). I'm still using ClarisDraw
(which now seems much more stable under Classic in OS X than it had
been in OS 8 before I switched from the 7100) to recover old files
and think it's quite hard to beat in terms of good Mac interface and
drafting capabilities. Anyway, the initial learning stage with
CADintosh was quite hard for me, and it took quite some period of
practice before I felt at all at ease with it, and had discovered how
to do things "drafting" style rather than "MacDraw" style. Even now,
I can find myself doing something "the hard way" without realising
that CADintosh provides a "better way". I read the manual from time
to time, but my memory lets me down!

Sorry if this is a bit of a ramble - hope some of it is useful in
your own decision-making.

regards

Rowland
--
| Wilma & Rowland Carson
| ... that's Rowland with a 'w' ...