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 08:32:04 GMT
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Viewed:
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9387 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, 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), 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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Bricksmith is certainly unlike MLCad, which is indeed a fine program.
However, I’d like to humbly correct a few inaccuracies I perceive in your
list of drawbacks.
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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
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True. That is a definite difference.
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Yes, this is very annoying as using the arrow keys to move a part/assembly all
the way across the model can be slow and painful, especially since Bricksmith
doesn’t seem to display cursor coordinates.
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- No keyboard shortcuts for changing colors, adding parts, changing grid
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False.
Keyboard controls for changing colors: Command-option-c to display color
panel, tab and arrows to select color.
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Ok, I see. I’d like functionality to type in the color number
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Keyboard controls for part insertion: Command-i to show part panel, tab and
arrows to select part, Command-i again to insert part.
(Tab navigation may require “All Controls” of System Preferences/Keyboard &
Mouse/Keyboard Shortcuts/Full keyboard access to be set, but if you favor
keyboard controls you owe it to yourself to enable this feature anyway.)
Keyboard shortcuts to change grid granularity: Command-1, Command-2 and
Command-3 for fine, medium, and coarse.
Keyboard shortcuts to rotate parts: x, y, and z for rotation about the
respective axis. Hold down shift as well to rotate in the opposite direction.
Also, note that holding down option while moving parts with the arrow keys
permits movement along the third axis. (Normally the arrows move parts in two
dimensions relatively perpendicular to the view.)
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These last 2 seem to be undocumented. Thanks for the tip
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Sigh...Nobody ever reads the Read Me. Though those tidbits are indeed
documented, I admit documentation is not my strong suit. I generally hope that
users will explore menu items and find them to be fairly self-explanatory.
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- No way to select and move/rotate more than one part at a time.
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False.
Shift-click to select multiple parts in any view or in the file contents
list. You can also command-click in the file contents list to select multiple
parts without selecting the intervening parts as well. (Shift- and
command-clicking to select multiple items is just a Mac convention, I guess;
try it anywhere you see a list of selectable items.)
You can move and rotate a multi-part selection as a group using the keyboard
(arrows + x/y/z) or the toolbar icons, just as with individual parts. The
Move and Rotate panels available under the Edit menu provide greater control
of these manipulations. In particular, the Rotate panel allows you to choose
the type and origin of rotation.
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As above this is also appears to be undocumented and the Move/Rotate panels
don’t have keyboard shortcuts (unless they too are undocumented). Multiple
selection and movement/rotation is a must given the high symmetry of most Lego
models. Also it helps things go quicker if I can duplicate and reuse parts
without re-adding them via the Parts Browser.
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I’m curious what kind of documentation you were hoping to receive with this
software. Some things that tripped you up I had always assumed to be
conventional. For instance, you seem to be surprised that applying a command
when multiple objects are selected would apply it to all of them. I take that
behavior for granted. The same goes for shift-click to do multiple selection.
That’s been around since at least MacDraw in the early eighties. Doesn’t MLCad
even behave the same way?
It also seems like you might have been expecting documentation that provided a
canonical listing of each menu item. Again, I guess I assumed a lot of that
should be easy to find or self-explantory. Do I need a manual explaining that
“Edit->Duplicate” creates a new copy of the selected part?
Allen
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Which CAD program recommended for Mac??
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| (...) I'd suggest moving the Readme into the app wrapper and adding an item to the help menu that uses [[NSWorkspace sharedWorkspace] openFile:] to show it. I installed Bricksmith a long time ago, and had completely forgotten that it came with a (...) (17 years ago, 13-Feb-08, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.cad.dev.mac, FTX)
| | | Re: Which CAD program recommended for Mac??
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| (...) As Travis remarked, many people install a program and then forget about the Read Me, myself included. (...) None what so ever. I often install open source (and even some commercial) programs that have less documentation than yours. (...) No, (...) (17 years ago, 15-Feb-08, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.cad.dev.mac)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Which CAD program recommended for Mac??
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| (...) Yes, this is very annoying as using the arrow keys to move a part/assembly all the way across the model can be slow and painful, especially since Bricksmith doesn't seem to display cursor coordinates. (...) Ok, I see. I'd like functionality to (...) (17 years ago, 4-Feb-08, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.cad.dev.mac)
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