Greetings from Northern VA

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doobs
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Location: NOVA

Greetings from Northern VA

Post by doobs » Sat Jan 14, 2023 3:54 pm

Hello out there,

Recent adopter of QCAD Pro, coming from a long line of CAD products, starting way back when with AutoCAD v2.15 in New Orleans. I've got a seat of SolidWorks and use that for my 3D stuff, but use 2D CAD for a lot of things, like wiring schematics, and such. I'm an Electro-Mechanical engineer.

I used DraftSight free at the house while it was available, and recently needed a bit more functionality than the other freebie CAD app's thus the investment in QCD Pro. I've got it installed on both a Windows and a Linux box and like the ability to use my Linux box. I'm running Elementary OS at present, although I'm definitely not married to that particular distro.

As you might expect I've got a lot of muscle memory for old school typed commands (we use DraftSight at work, so I'm still using those), and was kinda wondering out loud if the shortcuts in QCAD could be made a bit more AutoCAD like.

Old dogs can indeed learn new tricks, but in this instant, at this point in time, I'd rather not try to flip-flop back and forth between an AutoCAD type system and QCAD shortcuts.

Thanks and look forward to talking with y'all!
Chris

CVH
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Re: Greetings from Northern VA

Post by CVH » Sat Jan 14, 2023 4:41 pm

Hello and welcome to the QCAD forum.
doobs wrote:
Sat Jan 14, 2023 3:54 pm
... and was kinda wondering out loud if the shortcuts in QCAD could be made a bit more AutoCAD like.
Not sure what you want to change to, but yes, shortcuts and commands can be customized.
Although it is not recommended and we expect that you may encounter unsolvable conflicts.

See: menu Edit > Applications Preferences > General > Tool Settings

Regards,
CVH

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Husky
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Re: Greetings from Northern VA

Post by Husky » Sat Jan 14, 2023 11:45 pm

Hi Chris - thanks for introducing yourself to the QCAD community and welcome to the forum.
doobs wrote:
Sat Jan 14, 2023 3:54 pm
... and was kinda wondering out loud if the shortcuts in QCAD could be made a bit more AutoCAD like.
Yes, as you have already read that is possible. Well, at least partly ...

Stay away from one letter shortcuts. They will interfere with two letter shortcuts starting with the same letter. A bit more info can be found in this topic:
https://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic. ... ool#p31354
Work smart, not hard: QCad Pro
Win10/64, QcadPro, QcadCam version: Current.
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doobs
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Re: Greetings from Northern VA

Post by doobs » Sun Feb 12, 2023 10:19 pm

I don't typically use one letter shortcuts, but type in commands. My AutoCAD life started way back yonder with v2.15 and all the commands were typed into a command line. We use Draftsight at work, which echo's that.

That is a REAL issue with QCAD as firstly you have to tell it that you are going to type and secondly none of the commands bear any reference whatsoever to the ones I'm used to.

Not certain I'm gonna spend the time to wrap my head around QCAD unless I can create an alias file for commands I'm used to. Definitely prefer not to enter in the commands one by one into a dialog box. A text file of some sort (xml?) would be 'da bomb. I've got a spreadsheet with the commands I want that could easily be reformatted to xml, etc.

cheers
Chris

CVH
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Re: Greetings from Northern VA

Post by CVH » Sun Feb 12, 2023 10:34 pm

Hi Chris,

The commands would be the place to insert your preferred aliases.
Still, 'line' is a line from two points but I don't see a way to draw an infinite line.
doobs wrote:
Sun Feb 12, 2023 10:19 pm
We use Draftsight at work, which echo's that.
QCAD is intentionally not a ACAD clone to start with.
doobs wrote:
Sun Feb 12, 2023 10:19 pm
A text file of some sort (xml?) would be 'da bomb.
User modifications are all stored in the QCAD.ini/conf file.
That is per each individual tool.
So you need to come up with a bridge to insert them where QCAD can retrieve them.

Regards,
CVH

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Husky
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Re: Greetings from Northern VA

Post by Husky » Sun Feb 12, 2023 10:38 pm

doobs wrote:
Sun Feb 12, 2023 10:19 pm
That is a REAL issue with QCAD as firstly you have to tell it that you are going to type ...
What do you mean by that? Shortcuts will work either way in Model_Space and/or Command line ...
doobs wrote:
Sun Feb 12, 2023 10:19 pm
... and secondly none of the commands bear any reference whatsoever to the ones I'm used to.

Not certain I'm gonna spend the time to wrap my head around QCAD unless I can create an alias file for commands I'm used to. Definitely prefer not to enter in the commands one by one into a dialog box. A text file of some sort (xml?) would be 'da bomb. I've got a spreadsheet with the commands I want that could easily be reformatted to xml, etc.
You can change shortcuts within QCAD. Maybe changing them to the commands you know can avoid the need of such a spreadsheet. If that still isn't working for you maybe you need to consider to stick to AutoCAD, Draftsign and co.
Work smart, not hard: QCad Pro
Win10/64, QcadPro, QcadCam version: Current.
If a thread is considered as "solved" please change the title of the first post to "[solved] Title..."

CVH
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Re: Greetings from Northern VA

Post by CVH » Sun Feb 12, 2023 11:35 pm

Or maybe it is time to step away from the keyboard and start hitting buttons.

One can arrange all tools is a few Toolbars.
Frequently used tools in 2 custom Toolbars.
One can use the Tool Matrix.
...

Tons of options without extensive use of the keyboard.
Even in QCAD I don't see me entering 'lineorthogonaltangent' in the Command Line. :lol:
I prefer a simple click on the button or just typing LN when in the main drawing area. :wink:

Regards,
CVH

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doobs
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Location: NOVA

Re: Greetings from Northern VA

Post by doobs » Wed Feb 15, 2023 12:14 am

Husky wrote:
Sun Feb 12, 2023 10:38 pm
doobs wrote:
Sun Feb 12, 2023 10:19 pm
That is a REAL issue with QCAD as firstly you have to tell it that you are going to type ...
What do you mean by that? Shortcuts will work either way in Model_Space and/or Command line ...
doobs wrote:
Sun Feb 12, 2023 10:19 pm
... and secondly none of the commands bear any reference whatsoever to the ones I'm used to.

Not certain I'm gonna spend the time to wrap my head around QCAD unless I can create an alias file for commands I'm used to. Definitely prefer not to enter in the commands one by one into a dialog box. A text file of some sort (xml?) would be 'da bomb. I've got a spreadsheet with the commands I want that could easily be reformatted to xml, etc.
You can change shortcuts within QCAD. Maybe changing them to the commands you know can avoid the need of such a spreadsheet. If that still isn't working for you maybe you need to consider to stick to AutoCAD, Draftsign and co.
And there it is.

"We've done it the way we think it should be done, and foo foo on the rest of the user community"....

And you Linux geeks wonder why there isn't more uptake....

So it seems like I wasted my money buying the Pro version.

Lesson learned.
Chris

John Hyslop
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Re: Greetings from Northern VA

Post by John Hyslop » Thu Feb 16, 2023 10:10 pm

Hi Doobs

And welcome to the forum :)
I can understand what you're saying because I was the same.. going way back to Acad running on 5 1/4 inch floppies and was using it for over 35 years :wink:
I used Qcad and AutoCad for a few months side by side and as talked about in the replies above I too was looking for a hotkey solution
because the Acad ones are burned into our old brains lol.. I did make them single key hotkeys like Autocad uses,
O for offset L for line C for circle etc
but trust me... give the 2 letter hotkey commands a go they are more practical to use :) I've gone back to the Qcad default hotkeys and I have no problem switching between Qcad and Acad.. in fact now I rarely use Acad e_surprised maybe to run a lisp routine.. that's pretty much it.. :) anyway try playing with these hotkeys in Qcad.
Tip.. Hitting the space bar after the command lets you type in the command bar :wink:
LI = line
CI = circle
OF = offset
TM = trim
DH = dimension horizontally
DV Dimension Vertically
DD = Dimension diameter
DR = Dimension Radius

Something I find useful, say after the line command "LI" is typing EO "it's the same as F8 in acad :) restrict orthogonality... then hit the space bar and type in the lengths...

Don't give up, you'll regret it.. from experience I find it much faster and practical to use than Acad.
Everyone here is friendly,helpful and very responsive to any questions you might need answered..it's a great community.. :)

Go on.. I challenge you to give it a go.. you'll thank me in a couple of months ;-)

Hope to see you on here in the near future.. bragging about how much faster and more efficiently you can draw :D

Good luck..

Best Regards
John Hyslop
IF IT IS TO BE IT IS UP TO ME [ Ten most powerful 2 letter words ]

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