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In lugnet.cad, Orion Pobursky wrote:
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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?
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No. In Windows this is Control-Click (or Command-Click in the Mac world).
Shift-Click also has a multiple selection behavior but in a different way.
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You got me so curious I found a Windows machine and investigated PowerPoint
2003. At the least it is widely known; tragically, it’s even probably the #1
drawing program on Windows. Both shift and control are used to select multiple
discontiguous graphic elements. But Control also doubles as the “make a copy
when I drag” key (equivalent to Option on the Mac), so using it for multiple
selection runs the risk of messing up your document if you accidentally move the
mouse while clicking. In any event, shift for multiple-select is found on
Windows.
However, according to the Apple Human Interface Guidelines, I should also
support command for multiple-selection. I hadn’t noticed that was a requirement
until today.
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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?
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No, I don’t expect any written documentation at all. Especially since this is
a program written by one person, on their spare time, and offered for free.
Heck, you program is better documented than my own (LDDP). What I do expected
is that if there are program features (and I consider keyboard shortcuts to be
a feature) that they can be easily found via menu items, tooltips, or other
such methods.
For example, nowhere in the BrickSmith interface can be found the shortcuts
for rotating parts. The rotate buttons don’t have tooltips, nor are there any
menu items for rotating (except for the rotate dialog). How was I supposed to
figure out (besides the Read Me which I admittedly forgot about) that the
x/y/z keys rotate parts?
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Travis’ suggestion here is brilliant. There needs to be a Keyboard Shortcut
cheat-sheet in the Help menu.
By the way, I can’t document the rotation shortcuts directly in the menus
because they aren’t associated with a modifier key. Using tooltips to identify
key shortcuts also strikes me as highly unusual behavior--I don’t recall having
seen it done before--so the only option is to stash such info someplace else.
Prior to Travis’ excellent suggestion, that meant the Read-Me. Not that that was
a good thing, mind you, but that’s why it wound up there.
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Maybe I’m reading too much into your words but you seem to be misconstruing my
criticisms as gripes. Nothing can be farther from the truth and I’m grateful
for a viable Mac platform LDraw editor.
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I hope I didn’t come across as being cantankerous. Perhaps you are sensing my
surprise at seeing very good reasons for disliking my program (i.e., no mouse
dragging) mixed together with criticism for “missing” features that are actually
present. I can understand not finding weird stuff like key shortcuts for
rotation; you’ve highlighted a major flaw in the discoverability of my design.
I’m more puzzled at how you were unable to find Edit -> Duplicate (Command-D).
In order for a Keyboard Shortcuts item in the Help menu to be useful, you needed
to have found other menu items as well.
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With some training and adjusting on my
part and some program improvements (which I’m willing to help out with once I
learn how to better use XCode) I think that BrickSmith will become my primary
LDraw editor.
-Orion
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Thank you for your compliments. I would like to see my software appeal to a
wider audience, and discussions like these help that to happen. Alas, things
need time to seep through my horribly impenetrable noggin.
Allen
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Which CAD program recommended for Mac??
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| (...) LOL you're basing your Windoze "standards" off a Micro$oft program???? And here I thought you were bright. Interesting that PP2003 doesn't behave like PP2000 LOL. Anyway, the "standard" behaviour for mutiple selection is - shift-click usually (...) (17 years ago, 23-Feb-08, to lugnet.cad.dev.mac, FTX)
| | | Re: Which CAD program recommended for Mac??
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| (...) Actually, I just checked, and you can in Cocoa. Just uncheck all the modifiers in IB, and the menu will just show the letter (capitalized). Check the Shift modifier, and the menu will show that along with the letter. Furthermore, the keys (...) (17 years ago, 26-Feb-08, to lugnet.cad.dev.mac, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | 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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