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I don’t actually have any use for this idea currently, but am just posting it here to document it for consideration.

Basically, it occurred to me at least a few more useful conversions between shapes besides the existing ones could be useful.

For example:

• Converting lines into axially aligned rectangles of a specified “radius” or “diameter” (with an option to delete or keep the original line geometry).
• An option for the above (lines –> rectangles) that causes the intersections between the resulting rectangles to be automatically removed, like a kind of “automatic/magic wall creation tool” based on laying down lines instead of rectangles and then converting via this tool.
• Converting circles/ellipses and rectangles back and forth between each other via their bounding volumes. It seems reasonably likely that people will sometimes want to convert circular design elements into rectangular ones and vice versa (e.g. deciding a rectangular column makes more sense than a cylindrical one and vice versa).
• Converting any arbitrary selection into a corresponding bounding circle (not rectangle, which already exists) of sufficient size to enclose all points in the selection.

Basically, QCAD already has tools for converting shapes with operations that are a natural fit for the existing geometry, but has less tools for converting to entirely different geometry, but such uses could actually still be very useful potentially!

It seems likely to be common enough as a use case to merit inclusion, rather than just using scripting.

I don’t have any pressing need for these and I know that I could script them to create them if I really wanted to.

These are relatively minor ideas. I’m just putting this out here as more ideas for making this already wonderful software even better. :)

I was having some problems getting some shapes to fill with a solid fill and was frustrated by the awkward numeric coordinate it was giving me for where the error (the disconnected shape points) were, until I fortunately noticed that a tiny pale circle appears around the point where the error is for about just 1 second.

This is a very helpful error indicator circle but is far too easy to miss.

Perhaps making it last longer (or letting the user control that) would be beneficial.

I also wonder if showing multiple such circles (when they exist, as they did in the piece I was working on) at the same time or having that as a UI option would be good.

Anyway, goodnight all!

In my current QCAD file I’m working on, I have a circular hub with a hole in it which I am also trying to place an alternating sequence of rectangular spokes of a certain relative size around.

I had 4 spokes that I had copied and rotated 45 degrees to create 8 spokes in total around the circle. I tried scaling the the non-cardinal spokes relative to the center of the circular ring, but that causes them to also move towards the center of the ring as they shrink, thereby putting them out of place as they scale.

I therefore had to activate the scale tool once per each object and set an origin (focus) point around the area where each spoke is “attached” to the ring in order to stop each from shifting inward to the circle as it scales.

It occurred to me though that there could be a simple tool or option to do this without that.

Each of my rectangles are polyline objects and thus are coherent continuous objects.

A new scaling tool could be designed such that it is based on simply clicking on each scaling origin on each object (using snapping tools if needed) and then clicking a check button (or enter) when done and then causing the scaling GUI to appear so the user can specify the desired scaling. Each scaling would then be applied to where the polylines were clicked instead of to all the objects as one.

This would be a much faster way to rescale a bunch of objects around individually varying relative scaling origins!

I've tried several times to try to see what the "surveyor's units" option of the Angular Dimensions format in the UI preferences will display as, but all it ever seems to do is cause the angle measurement to become blank. No angles are displayed whenever this mode is selected.

Indeed, I cannot figure out what the setting actually does besides causing angles to never be displayed.

Is there a way to make this setting do something meaningful or is it just broken?

I found an old forum thread from 2016 about this same issue and it sounds like the same things is still happening since then.

I'm not a surveyor so I have no actual practical use for these units that I can yet see, but I just figured I'd add an report to the bug tracker here in case any developers aren't aware that the bug still seems to exist.

Does the setting do anything besides changing the displayed units in the status bar?

Hey, this is the first of my feature suggestion submissions that isn’t tied to a corresponding suggestion thread on the QCAD forum.

Should I always create corresponding feature suggestion threads or is it ok (or better?) to just post ideas here?

Anyway though, here’s the idea:

I noticed that it is relatively easy to use things like the QCAD Split Entities and/or Paste Along Entity tool(s) to create an even set of divisions along a curve or line.

There’s also the Misc → Draw → Counter available too, for automated counting.

These together are useful for creating a “scale ruler” to be printed on a schematic for ease of reference or for use in cases where someone forgets to bring along a physical measuring device or when someone else is using that measuring device.

For example, one could print a to-scale 1 foot long ruler (or whatever other scale is relevant, e.g. 1 inch for small objects or just as a nice scale reference/legend/key) on the schematic page for convenience.

However, it would be nice if there was a convenient tool added to the Dimensions tool category that automated this entire process and was able to create arbitrary ruler-like numbered reference scales along lines (and even better if it also worked on arcs, though less important).

Even better would be if this “auto tick” or “auto ruler” tool supported multiple levels of tick scaling (e.g. 2 or 3) such as what one sees on actual rulers.

For example, an imperial ruler for a foot (I’m in the US currently) will typically having increasingly smaller tick marks added at halfway points between each of the numbered points along the ruler’s scale, which makes using it quickly much easier. For example, it’ll have a half-length tick for half an inch and then a quarter-length tick for each quarter of an inch within an inch (with the inch’s ticks being full length).

It seems like it could be relatively easy to implement that kind of nested tick marking system, which would make it super convenient and pleasant for the user of QCAD to create usable to-scale ruler-like objects wherever they desire them with hardly any effort!

I think this idea would also fit extremely well with existing tools in the Dimensions category and would be useful for many/most QCAD users!

It’s yet another good QCAD feature that could attract more people to buy upgraded copies of QCAD in the future I think!

I hope you implement it. Small conveniences still make a big difference.

Anyway, thanks a bunch again for creating this awesome program!

That’s all the suggestions I have for today.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend and upcoming week, etc!

Hello! This is perhaps the most useful and valuable of the suggestion ideas I’ve had for QCAD so far!

I think it would be extremely useful if there was an option within the QCAD preferences for making it so that the hotkeys currently bound to each tool button in the UI (if existent) are always displayed such that they are overlaid on top of each of the buttons. There are two main approaches I can think of for doing that (both intended to avoid disturbing the existing layout of the UI):

1. Display the current hotkey binding associated by drawing it (probably in a distinct color) on one of the edges or corners of each of the buttons (such as the bottom middle side, the lower left corner, or the lower right corner). Even at a small font size I think this would be very effective and useful.
2. Instead of making the overlaid hotkey display in a small font at a side or corner of each button, you could have the hotkey text be in a large font and overlaid on top of the entire button, using things such as transparency and a distinctive (never used in the other parts of the UI) color to ensure that the button icons is still readable. A broader width of the font stroke may also help if transparency is used, so that the underlying icon lines remain more readable.

Both approaches have pros and cons. I personally lean towards the former, but Husky and CVH seemed to take issue with the readability of small fonts and so I later suggested the later option too.

They seemed opposed to both (at least during the forum discussion). However, I think this UI feature could be one of the best workflow speed improvements for the average user (many/most of whom probably don’t have time to memorize the hotkeys or just don’t end up doing so) of QCAD!

The gains in efficiency and pleasantness could be enormous potentially, even despite it QCAD already being among the most pleasant and well-designed programs I’ve ever used!

It is far faster to be able to instantly read a hotkey from the UI than to have to wait for a tooltip or to look the keystrokes up in the documentation.

Memorization is the fastest of course, but as someone who finds themselves constantly spread thin over many different programs (often half a dozen or more) for long spans of time I often find it difficult to remember all of the hotkeys for each program I use. Having such hotkeys always visible is useful for users who are spread thin, as many people increasingly in the world of software.

CVH suggested that I make custom icons myself, but doing so seems far worse than simply having QCAD automatically read and then print out the corresponding hotkeys over every tool in a programmatic and properly automated way.

I seriously think this would be one of the most awesome improvement you could ever add to QCAD!

Indeed, there is no missing feature I want more than this one!

Few programs do this but the few cases I’ve seen it the feature was extremely useful for speed without having to take weeks/months/years to fully memorize hotkeys only then forget them later. This idea eliminates that problem!

It would be glorious from a usability and accessibility standpoint! Please implement it!

Hopefully Qt’s GUI system is flexible enough to draw overlaid text over the buttons like this without to much hassle. That is the main potential impediment as I see it.

Anyway though, here is the associated forum discussion where I mentioned this idea. It was the same thread as the one where I also suggested adding a way to control tooltip delays.

I noticed that every time I move my mouse from the main working canvas (schematic area) to the tool buttons on the left sidebar there is a delay before the first hover tooltip (which displays the tool names and hotkeys corresponding to each tool button) displays.

The tooltips remain fast (near instant) after that initial hover, but it it would be nice if there was an option field for controlling how long the tooltip delay is for that initial display delay.

Currently, on my Windows 10 machine, it takes about 1 full second for the tooltip to show, which may not sound like much but feels like a lot when trying to work faster.

Here is a link to the related forum discussion, which also discussed a different (and I’d say more useful/effective) idea as well.

I’m creating two separate Bugtracker submissions for that one thread though, to keep things clean.

Perhaps I should have created two separate forum thread for that to begin with.

Similarly as for my previous suggestion submission, I also had a related idea for making it easier to work with complex numbers when using QCAD by adding normalized unit circle coordinates as another option in the Angular Dimensions display units options dropdown.

Here’s the corresponding forum thread I started.

Hello, I recently bought QCAD Pro and this is my first Bugtracker report!

First, I want to say a big thank you for creating and maintaining such a wonderful software package!

I’ve never encountered a system for expressing constraints in 2D (or even 3D) that feels as natural, intuitive, and expressive as QCAD feels!

I am very grateful to have randomly found it somehow. I wish all user interfaces were designed this way and especially that vector art programs adopted similar constraint-based tools.

Anyway though, here’s the actual feature suggestion:

I noticed that QCAD is missing one especially convenient and naturally occuring angular unit: cycles (a.k.a. turns or revolutions).

I personally find cycles to be my favorite unit overall and to be the most intuitive to work with (when not needing to use physical protractors). I actually mostly work digitally and most of my uses for QCAD will be digital. QCAD is the only software I’ve found that really expresses 2D constraints the way I want to be able to work and lay things out.

Rather than redundantly belabor the many reasons why I think cycles should added to the available displayed angle units in the Preferences → Dimension Settings → Angular Dimensions dropdown list, I will simply link to the rather large discussion I’ve already had with Husky and CVH arguing my case about why I want it added and why many other users could benefit from it.

Here’s the link to the relevant forum discussion.