Subject:
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Re: Which CAD program recommended for Mac??
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.cad, lugnet.cad.dev.mac
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Date:
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Tue, 5 Feb 2008 08:27:37 GMT
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Viewed:
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9113 times
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In lugnet.cad, Orion Pobursky wrote:
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In lugnet.cad, Jim DeVona wrote:
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In lugnet.cad, John Neal wrote:
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In lugnet.cad, Tommy Armstrong wrote:
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On another list--one about that best of all 20th Century novellist, Patrick
O’Brian--I am kind of known as the LEGO guy. Had a question about which
would be best CAD program for an Apple. Told her I would post to the
experts. Any recocommendations would be apprecitate. As I have never used
any of them--being an engraver on bricks instead of being a builder with
bricks--I defer to the AKL on all subjects LEGO.
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That would depend-- if he has a new Mac with the Intel chip, I’d say to go
with MLCAD running Bootcamp. Otherwise, the choice would have to be
Bricksmith.
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I would recommend Bricksmith in either
case.
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I’m going to have to disagree. As a long time MLCad user and a recent Mac
convert (Nov 2007),
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Congratulations, Orion. That’s nice to hear.
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I feel that while Bricksmith is a very good program, it has
some very definite drawbacks that makes it difficult to use.
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Thanks for at least trying it out. It is unfortunate you were unsatisfied, and
you raise several valid points below. But you also lament about the “absence” of
several features which are clearly spelled out in the Read-Me or are
self-explanatory from investigating the menu items in the application.
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Here’s a list from off the top of my head (keep in mind that it’s not all
inclusive):
- No click and drag support in the view windows. Clicking and dragging simply
changes the view settings to “3D” and rotate the model.
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This is a critical shortcoming in Bricksmith. It is also the utmost priority on
my development list right now, and has been before this thread started.
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- No keyboard shortcuts for changing colors, adding parts
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This is true. Frankly, I have memorized exactly one part number (3001.dat), and
exactly zero color codes. I find things with words (“Brick 2 x 4” or “red”). If
you wish to add additional methodologies, this is an open-source project.
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changing grid granularity,
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Command-1, 2, 3. All you have to do is look next to the menu items to find that.
At the risk of being overly general, sometimes I wonder if the common UI design
of Windows applications conditions its users to be unable to find anything not
squashed into a toolbar on the main window.
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rotating parts, etc... It’s almost as if the program wants to
force you to use the mouse.
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Ah, but I thought at the beginning you wanted to use the mouse! Kidding aside,
those key shortcuts are in the Read-Me too. I don’t really know where else to
put them; it seems you didn’t find the ones listed in the menus.
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- No way to select and move/rotate more than one part at a time.
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Is shift-click for multiple selection really that rare outside of the Mac
ecosphere?
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- While this a personal preference, I not a big fan of the 3 views on the left
The first 3 are deal breakers for me to the point where I’ve switched back to
using MLCad with VMWare Fusion. I gave it a good faith effort and only
switched when my frustration exceeded my productivity.
The good is that Bricksmith is open source and I can have a look at the code
and tinker if I feel like it. Maybe, if I have time, I can add some of my
requests and send the code to Allen.
-Orion
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I welcome contributions. Real life prevents me from working on this project all
the time. It would be good to have more hands.
Allen
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Which CAD program recommended for Mac??
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| (...) I'm going to have to disagree. As a long time MLCad user and a recent Mac convert (Nov 2007), I feel that while Bricksmith is a very good program, it has some very definite drawbacks that makes it difficult to use. Here's a list from off the (...) (17 years ago, 3-Feb-08, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.cad.dev.mac)
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