QCAD.org Forum

Hello,

I just installed version 3.21.3.16 to try and fix the issue in 3.21.3 with the property editor not accepting the size entry for polyline rectangles. I'm totally confused. When I change the dimensions of the rectangle, the base angle changes on me and the rectangle changes width and height orientations. The Base Angle is a display and not an entry field. So I don't have control over it. What is going on?! If I enter a value tor "Width", I expect that to apply to the horizontal size of the rectangle. it appears that the orientation of the rectangle on screen depends on what order I enter the height and width and what the aspect ratio is....

Forgot ...Windows system(both XP and Windows 7 do t he same thing...)

Hi,

After an initial test I cannot replicate your problem.

1/ Is this a polyline rectangle you have drafted directly in QCAD?

2/ Please submit an example 'problematic' drawing for testing.

QCAD (and CAD / DXF / DWG in general) has no notion of a "rectangle". Polylines can have any shape consisting of lines and arcs.

QCAD uses an algorithm to determine if a polyline can be interpreted as a rectangular or shape. If so, it calculates the base angle, width and height based on where it finds parallels and based on the longest side. The base angle is the angle along the longest side with a parallel. This does indeed mean that width and height swap as soon as width becomes smaller than height.

OS Windows (XP and 7). (QCAD version 3.21.3.16)

Use the polyline tool to draw a 2-point rectangle 40 wide and 20 tall.... Now in the property editor, change the height to 50. You will see that in the property editor, the _Height_ is now listed as 40 and the _Width_ is now listed as 50 even thought the rectangle is now taller than it is wide. (...and yes the Base Angle is now 90.)

I understand what Andrew is saying, and it is fine if, within QCAD, you want/need to define a "Base Angle" as being the angle from the horizontal to the longest line of the poly-line, but it doesn't make sense to call the longest side the "Width" just because it is the longest. The term "Width" is universally interpreted as being the lateral extent of the object, and Height the vertical extent. If the algorithm wants to play with the base angle as being referenced to the longest edge, that makes some sense to me, so I guess I'm OK with having QCAD change the base angle as it sees fit, but don't change the Base Angle AND interchange the Height and Width fields just because the aspect ratio of the rectangle changed. That just doesn't make sense to me. To the user, "Width" means width, and "Height" means height.

DP-SanDiego,

Yes I totally agree with you, from a QCAD users perspective this should be the case otherwise to the many this would seem completely wrong.