HighDesign 1.8 Final Candidate 1 Now Available

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Andrew
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HighDesign 1.8 Final Candidate 1 Now Available

Post by Andrew »

HighDesign 1.8 Final Candidate 1 is now available for download and testing. 'Final Candidate' is the last stage before the official release, and no significant changes are expected. Please report any major bugs you find.

Download HighDesign 1.8fc1

Release Notes
  • [FIX] Fixed an internal error with text objects created in earlier versions.
  • [FIX] Tool-specific styles did not load correctly.
  • [OPT] Faster Zoom to Fit function.
  • [OPT] Faster redrawing on screen.
  • [FIX] Stretch now applies to rectangles.
  • [FIX] Constrain parallel/perpendicular to polygons now works correctly.
  • [FIX] The style buttons in Text Properties did not work.
  • [FIX] The input field of the Text tool now uses the current style settings.
As always, thank you for your help testing the HighDesign betas!

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alexwhite
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Re: HighDesign 1.8 Final Candidate 1 Now Available

Post by alexwhite »

Clicking on the Preset button in Dimension dialog box caused an unexpected error/continue dialogue. On Continue, the preset button gives an error sound and no action to save a preset.

Why can't we save Fonts in the Style routine? This is available in the Preset routine... which still leaves me confused on which Tool should be used first.

I could not generate a Tool using double click on a Style. It seems that the most efficient use of a Tool Style would be to click on the Tool Style button, the cursor immediately turns into that style, and then you create the object.

Why can't we save Fonts and Markers in the Style as Tool routine? I would like to have several "Dimension Tool" styles with differing Fonts and Markers... should this functionality be driven by the Preset function within Dimensions? One would be for Leader dimensions, another for straight aligned dimensions and so on. Only being able to have one Style per tool is a handicap.

Wish that Styles and Presets could be assigned Shortcuts.

Wish that Presets could be left open in a floating dialogue box... as it is now, its 3-4 clicks to open the Text routine to select a Preset.

Still can not understand the marker dimension... this seems to be a 1:1 scale object in an otherwise scaled drawing. I also can not create the Bold hash mark marker style similar to old school chisel point pencil days... (yes I go back that far!).

In reading the Quick Reference guide I found out about Auto extending lines with Command+Click on the destination line and this did not work.

I've lost the ability to Shortcut the Measure tool. I believe I named some other Tool with the default shortcut for Measure, now the measure tool has a "()" in the tool tip window and I can not find this tool in the Preferences/Shortcuts list.

ANOTHER place that would be nice to see Style (and Preset) attributes would be in the Object dialogue box.

Testing Walls and when trying to Explode this came up:
Image


LOVE THE SPEED... seems like you've really tapped intel.
fat guy in a little coat

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Andrew
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Re: HighDesign 1.8 Final Candidate 1 Now Available

Post by Andrew »

Regarding presets and styles, perhaps some further clarifications could be helpful.

A preset is nothing more than a collection of settings stored on disk. Mac OS X uses presets in a number of windows, from System Preferences to the Print dialog. When you save a preset, you are simply saving the current settings in a file; when you load a preset, the application opens that file, reads its content, applies those settings and then forgets about that preset as it is no longer needed. The objects you create know nothing about the preset that was used to load their properties.
In other words, a preset saves you a number of clicks and data entry by acting as a shortcut to a collection of values.

A style is a project item that stores properties and has a behavior that affects drawing objects. Tool-specific styles automatically include the current properties of their tool: for example, a Dimension style includes font, size, arrowheads, gaps, etc. exactly as they are set in the Dimension properties. Additionally, that style can also store general properties like Layer and Stroke Color. Activating that style will automatically set all of its properties and switch to the corresponding tool.
You can create as many styles per tool as you need, so, in the previous example, you could create another Dimension style with different font and arrowheads.

The important feature of Styles is that objects do have a reference to their style, if set. So, if you decide to modify a Dimension style and change its font, all the objects in the project that use that style are modified accordingly. That saves you a lot of time and gives you more freedom to experiment different graphical solutions or adjust a project to new requirements.

The use of styles could be described as creating 'scripts' that perform a number of actions with one click. For instance, one feature that has been requested a lot is to have a distinct Leader tool, so not to have to change font, size, etc. each time you need to insert an annotation. With Styles, you can set the properties of the leader once, create a tool-specific style and name it "Leaders". Now you can just click it on the Styles window and you have the Leader tool any time you need.

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Andrew
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Re: HighDesign 1.8 Final Candidate 1 Now Available

Post by Andrew »

alexwhite wrote:Still can not understand the marker dimension... this seems to be a 1:1 scale object in an otherwise scaled drawing. I also can not create the Bold hash mark marker style similar to old school chisel point pencil days... (yes I go back that far!).
Yes, graphical items like dimension gaps and arrow size, text height, line dashes are at a 1:1 scale. Drafting standards provide such values at 1:1, and it would not make sense to handle those values in the current scale and then require the user to do calculations to get the desired, standard-compliant size on paper.

macitect
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Re: HighDesign 1.8 Final Candidate 1 Now Available

Post by macitect »

Andrew wrote:Yes, graphical items like dimension gaps and arrow size, text height, line dashes are at a 1:1 scale. Drafting standards provide such values at 1:1, and it would not make sense to handle those values in the current scale and then require the user to do calculations to get the desired, standard-compliant size on paper.
Don't mean to highjack the thread, but couldn't agree more on this one! I love the way this has been implemented. When I was working in a large firm with autocad we had a set of standards and every time something was to be printed at a different scale all the dimstyles etc had to be calculated and scaled. In the end we developed a system where we had ALL the drawing elements at ALL possible scales in a file that we had to load into every other drawing file.

And thanks for the clarification on styles and presets, Andrew.

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