Subject:
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Re: Mac Brick CAD 2.1b1 New Release
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.cad.dev.mac
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Date:
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Thu, 26 Feb 2004 22:26:17 GMT
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Viewed:
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2494 times
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I played with MBC for the first time last weekend and I had to stop and do a
dance of joy! Thank you, thank, thank you! The thought of having to buy
Virtual PC again just to work with OS X, loading it and Windoze, and then
working with MCAD in slow motion was making me terribly depressed.
You’re my hero. :-)
Between my giddy glee here are some things I noticed or thought about while
trying MBC out...
Modifiers
- The shift-select works inconsistently for me. Sometimes, while holding the shift down, selecting an additional element deselects the others. It works more consistently (but not always) if I release the shift between each selection for some reason.
- The command-drag part rotation works for me. It would be great if there was an info bar that gave me feedback about the angle and, also, I’d love to have the ability to constrain the angles to 45-degree increments.
Parts Palette
- I would like to see the part palette traded with the code drawer. The drawer is far more convenient (no clicking back and forth between windows), the part names are shorter (to fit), and I rarely need to see the code.
- I often close the part palette window by mistake (goes along with convenience comment above) and upon reopening, the preview window is blacked out (another poster mention similar behavior). I also noticed that sometimes the part isn’t centered in the preview and I only know it’s there by catching a corner when I zoom-in and rotate it.
- Sometimes the delay to generate the preview is quite long, especially with complex parts. I don’t always need to see a preview... a way of closing that window would be good (a la “album art” in iTunes, maybe?).
- The “Get Parts” button needs to be moved... being under the scroll buttons I keep hitting it instead of “Insert”. I also would like to double-click a part in the list and it be inserted.
- Parts without the “CATEGORY” meta tag in the DAT file do not show up in the palette, such as the Space elements (radar dishes). I think this is more of a problem with the DAT than with MBC.
Main Window
- When inserting parts, they adopt the position as the last part inserted (selected?). Sometimes that places it in the middle of model and I can only find it after a couple of dozen arrow presses. Maybe a “safety zone” can be set where inserted bricks go so they can be gotten-to easily?
- Also, upon inserting, the element will have adopted whatever odd angle I may have been playing with beforehand. As there is no easy way to tell what that angle is, it’s almost impossible to bring it back to the base angle of the model. Maybe a default angle for inserted parts would be good.
- Following this, if a part needs to match angle and position of another, maybe an “inherit properties” function could be added... and include color as well.
- I use a two-button mouse, so contextual menus are my friends. It would be great if, when control-clicking the empty space brought up a contextual menu of the default point-of views and magnifications. An info bar on the main window would be useful to show what view and mag you were at, too.
- How big is the field? Is it possible to have scroll bars or otherwise relocate the sight-point origin? I don’t know how this would affect the click-drag rotation interface, but I can only build models so big before having to zoom out... then it’s too small to see to work on.
Misc.
- Please, please, please add a “group” and “ungroup” function (and the ability to duplicate a group and rotate as a group). It’s a real drag getting a section of a model just right and then having to move it elsewhere a single piece at a time.
- I miss the inventory list feature in MCAD (also adding a hook to Bricklink would be interesting). An instruction building function would be nice, too.
- This might bloat the app, but can a ray-tracing renderer (like POV-Ray) be absorbed into the mix?
There’s probably more I could mention but this is getting long as it is... and
they’re not bugs but suggestions.
Andrew, I don’t know what your commitment is to the application (especially
after seeing my bullet list, Hah!) but a final release MBC will make a lot of
people like me really, really happy---especially since The Lego Company will
probably never recognize the Mac platform... even most certainly with their
pending LDraw knock-off. I hope you continue development in earnest. Please set
something up on Kagi or the like so we can do our part to contribute to your
efforts. Not having to run VPC and Windoze is worth gold, you know. :-)
Jim
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Mac Brick CAD 2.1b1 New Release
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| Jim, Some great feedback, keep it comming. Rather than tackle uour suggestions, one by one, I've kept them and you will find many incorporated in future releases. There is a new release on the blocks - give me a few more days, this version has a (...) (21 years ago, 28-Feb-04, to lugnet.cad.dev.mac, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Mac Brick CAD 2.1b1 New Release
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| Very curious??? A question, can you select multiple parts in the text editor using the shift key? This routine is handled by the NSDrawer manager not MBC, so it may at least see if it's my keyboard mapping. Additionally, do these other keys work? 1. (...) (21 years ago, 20-Feb-04, to lugnet.cad.dev.mac)
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