QCAD.org Forum

I just started Qcad last night, so probably I'm missing something obvious...

Some of the folks in this post:
https://qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php? ... gle#p21873
seem to be struggling with the same thing, but I read the whole way through that forum post, and the person answering didn't answer my question and possibly theirs. Also, I read many pages in the manual last night trying to figure this out...

---> If I draw a rectangle, how do I operate on (i.e. select) the whole rectangle at once instead of just the edge segments individually? If the drawing has many objects on it that touch and overlap, it can be really hard to get all the segments of a particular rectangle. Same with a polyline, etc?

This is a vector tool, as opposed to raster, so presumably it stores the whole object (rectangle) internally, even though when we select and operate, we always seem to select and operate on one segment at a time. If it doesn't store the whole object, I can live with that, what I ended up doing last night was creating a whole bunch of layers so I could easily select particular objects I wanted to operate on by viewing only the layer that object was on and selecting it, and making sure there were no nearby objects in the same layer. But if there is a way to just select an entire particular object, that would be cool!

Thanks,
This is a really great tool

Tim

timscoding wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 13, 2019 11:35 pm

---> If I draw a rectangle, how do I operate on (i.e. select) the whole rectangle at once instead of just the edge segments individually? If the drawing has many objects on it that touch and overlap, it can be really hard to get all the segments of a particular rectangle.

QCAD has a bunch of selection options. Please check below Menu/Select those selection tools to get a bit more familiar with it.

In the case a rectangle is built with 4 single lines you could use:
A mouse left click piece by piece selection combined with the shift key on your keyboard,
or
Menu/Select/Select Rectangular area,
or
Menu/Select/Select Polygon
etc., etc.

timscoding wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 13, 2019 11:35 pm

Same with a polyline, etc?

No, that is not the same. A polyline rectangle can be selected with a single click at the polyline. Of course - you still could use other selecting tools.

timscoding wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 13, 2019 11:35 pm

This is a vector tool, as opposed to raster, so presumably it stores the whole object (rectangle) internally, even though when we select and operate, we always seem to select and operate on one segment at a time. If it doesn't store the whole object, I can live with that, what I ended up doing last night was creating a whole bunch of layers so I could easily select particular objects I wanted to operate on by viewing only the layer that object was on and selecting it, and making sure there were no nearby objects in the same layer. But if there is a way to just select an entire particular object, that would be cool!

It depends on how your drawing is designed. Single entities, polygons or splines behave differently for different operation.
I assume your question goes more in the direction of the Block concept for CAD systems. You can built a Block (a kind of group of entities) and use it as desired in your drawing as often as you need it. If you click on a block all entities within that block are selected in once.

Here you will find a brief description of basic CAD concepts:

https://www.ribbonsoft.com/doc/qcad/2.2 ... r04.html#1

Sounds good. Thank you for your quick and thorough response to my question.

If I understand what you are saying, the rectangular creation tools create line segment entities for the edges of the rectangle, which can later be selected individually to perform operations if desired. To select whole objects at once, they would need to be created using polylines.

It sure is easy to move objects created with polylines- just hold the mouse down on any edge and drag. Is there a flag in qcad so that the shape creation commands, such as rectangle, use polylines instead of line segments? I guess that would answer my question regarding operating on an entire object, such as a rectangle, at once, i.e. without taking multiple select steps to get all the edges or eliminate other unwanted objects.

timscoding wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 14, 2019 7:58 am

Is there a flag in qcad so that the shape creation commands, such as rectangle, use polylines instead of line segments?

Yes.
If you launch a Shape tool an Option bar will pop up on the top of your drawing area.


If the option bar doesn't pops up please make sure it is activated below: Menu / View / Toolbars and Widgets / Toolbars

Tim,
your title says it all.

And this is allready said while I was typing it...
In Qcad there is no concept of a shape like a triangle, sqaure, rectangle or polygon.
With Draw / Shape / ... you can draw these in different ways.
These are then inserted as individual lines or as a polyline.
Further these shapes can be filled, what auto creates a hatch, and the corners may be rounded.

Internally it can distinguish basic shapes as a triangle or a rectangle in some methods.
For a poly-rectangle you will find the chapter 'Size' in the Property Editor.

Besides that, object types like a face or a solid exists for non native drawings.
(Found a way to draw a solid triangle by exploding a dimension arrowtip)

Regards,
CVH

Perfect. Clicking 'Create Polyline' on the Option Bar when creating a shape such as a rectangle does exactly what I want. Then I can later operate on the entire object at once with one click to select it.

Thank you!