Entering values
Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2012 7:43 pm
After reading the QCAD book and after using QCAD 3.0 for several hours I feel quite comfortable and productive with it. Many of the two-letter shortcuts for commands and snap modes are now muscle memory to me and things move along quickly to get things done.
One sticking point, though, is the need to enter values. Not the <space> then coordinate values, those are as easy to use as I can imagine... instead, the slow down is the need to enter values such as the distance for a parallel line or the radius of an arc. One must steer the cursor and click the text entry to give it focus before moving back to the drawing to identify the graphical aspects of the command. This breaks the rhythm of drawing. Everything else about the interface is so practical and smooth to operate that I think that perhaps I missed some shortcut in the documentation.
What is intuitive to me is that I think I should be able to type the following at the command line to get what I want (to create segments at an offset of 3.5 units):
I can almost get what I want with:
But then I need to mouse to the text area and click to focus to enter the 3.5
Am I missing something?
One sticking point, though, is the need to enter values. Not the <space> then coordinate values, those are as easy to use as I can imagine... instead, the slow down is the need to enter values such as the distance for a parallel line or the radius of an arc. One must steer the cursor and click the text entry to give it focus before moving back to the drawing to identify the graphical aspects of the command. This breaks the rhythm of drawing. Everything else about the interface is so practical and smooth to operate that I think that perhaps I missed some shortcut in the documentation.
What is intuitive to me is that I think I should be able to type the following at the command line to get what I want (to create segments at an offset of 3.5 units):
Code: Select all
<SPACE>o 3.5<ENTER>
Code: Select all
<SPACE>o<ENTER>
Am I missing something?