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Post by Mike Richardson on Apr 16, 2006 0:43:17 GMT -5
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Post by sumgai on Apr 16, 2006 14:54:21 GMT -5
Mike, It's certainly worth a try. If you were to ask me what I'd look for in a draftng program like this, for your needs as I perceive them right now, I'd say there are five indispensible "properties" that you can't do without. If even one of these items is crippled or missing, then I'd suggest looking elsewhere. But as usual, ymmv. IMHO, you must be able to: 1) Save files in at least one common format, not just a proprietary one. Common graphic formats like JPG and GIF are preferred. DXF and TIF (TIFF) are also acceptable, but BMP is not. 2) Move one part of an object, and have the program redraw the object in it's new location without further intervention from you. IOW, you should not be forced to erase and redraw a new line when you move just one end point of that line. 3) Build and save individual blocks of raw objects (circles, arcs, lines, etc.), and to be able to insert them at will into whatever drawing you're currently working on. 4) Add text, in any size and font style. 5) Use color to differentiate objects. Sometimes it's just a help to you, the drafter; other times it'll make all the difference in legibility for people looking at your drawings. OK, that about does it. Report back here ASAP with your findings. ;D sumgai
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Post by Mike Richardson on Apr 16, 2006 19:02:16 GMT -5
Here's some info: You can change font and color of text. Don't know about size yet. You can choose colors for wire, junctions, pins, bus, no connections, power and background. With Blocks, you can drag, move, rotate and duplicate. It can do Word or Windows copy/paste. It can do .pdf files, as well as PNG and EMF. The last two are new to me, so I don't know if it means anything.
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Post by sumgai on Apr 16, 2006 21:03:02 GMT -5
Mike, Sounds a tiny bit simplistic, but it's still worth a try. After all, you're the one who has to make drawings that are usable here on the site, so you have to determine your level of comfort. PDF files are OK, but you can't post them as an image file with the tags. Almost every browser made in the last 5 years can handle PNG files. I'm not so certain about EMF files, that's a Windows-exclusive format that may not render on browsers/operating systems other than Microsoft. Regarding blocks..... In general, a block is nothing more than a collection of raw objects. It's important to me to be able to create them once, and be able to save them to disk for later use. If you can Import or Insert one drawing into another with TinyCAD, then I'd be satisfied on that front. Seems like most of the bases are covered, so what they hey, try it out! ;D sumgai
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Post by Mike Richardson on Apr 17, 2006 10:43:36 GMT -5
I've been messing around with both TinyCad and the stuff John H sent me. So far, they both show potential. On the other hand, I don't really know what I'm doing yet. Somebody needs to write a "CAD For Dummies" book. I'll take two.
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Post by fobits on Apr 17, 2006 12:15:08 GMT -5
After Mike provided the link, I downloaded TinyCad and tried it out. It's a small file that installs in a few seconds, and you certainly can't beat the price.
The good news is that it meets most of sumgai's requirements above. It comes with librarys which contain roughly a jillion different symbols, and it's easy to add them to the drawing. They can be flipped and rotated and resized as desired.
The components can be connected with wires, and if you later move some things around, the wires stay connected.
There isn't a way to add your own groups or drawings to the librarys, but you can select a group of objects for copy-and-paste as a unit. It also supports more than one window at a time. A workaround is to create a file with an name like "TEMPLATES." You can put your own groups there, then copy and paste into the drawing that you're working on.
There is also some bad news. Even though it has a huge number of symbols, it may not have the ones you want, or they may not be drawn in the way you like.
Example - there are six choices for a potentiometer, but none are an actual drawing of a pot, a circle with three lugs attached. They are all the more abstract symbols.
Example - there are six drawings of an NPN transistor, but none for my all-time favorite 2N5306. This one is packaged like a regular small-signal NPN, but internally it's a Darlington pair. TinyCad doesn't have any Darlington pairs of any kind.
This wouldn't matter so much, except that the tools for drawing your own are so primitive and hard to use. There isn't any tool for drawing a straight line! You either have to draw a wire, with automatically connecting endpoints, or draw a flattened polygon. This soon becomes frustrating.
It's quick and easy to download the program and try it out, and it may meet your requirements. This is just a quickie Owner's Report for those who are interested.
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Post by sumgai on Apr 17, 2006 13:36:28 GMT -5
Frank, TinyCAD still doesn't look so bad that we should discourage Mike away from it. Let's let him determine his own level of frustration as his skills ramp up, and he feels more and more like he's being held back. ;D Mike, I looked around, and the old time standby, GenericCad, is now gone and forgotten. It was the only shareware product to put a dent in AutoCAD's sales.... so they bought it! Then they re-named it to QuickCAD, made it commercial (no more shareware), and then dropped it entirely. You might find it at a Half-Price Books store, or on Craig's List, etc. At least that way, you know where to go for support! There are several ".....CAD for Dummies" books out there, but none of them are truly generic, they all want to deal with a given program. Not exactly what you need, in my estimation. Don't know where else to turn at this point. Perhaps John's solution (using Word) will prove to be the better one. At least that way, you'll know where to go for support! sumgai
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Post by UnklMickey on Apr 17, 2006 14:03:42 GMT -5
...There isn't any tool for drawing a straight line! You either have to draw a wire, with automatically connecting endpoints, or draw a flattened polygon. This soon becomes frustrating.... this isn't as hard as it seems, at first. select the polygon tool. left-click on the startpoint of the line. right-click on the endpoint. dialog window opens. select finish polygon. change line width and/or color if you choose. click anywhere on image to complete. unk
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Post by fobits on Apr 17, 2006 21:23:26 GMT -5
I wasn't trying to discourage him. He already has it, and can find the pluses and minuses for himself. I was just trying to give an objective review for others here.
Yes, I found that out by trial and error. That's what I meant by a "flattened polygon", although it wasn't too clear. It's still a pain.
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Post by sumgai on Apr 17, 2006 23:21:00 GMT -5
Frank, OK, I sit corrected. And good point about others maybe wanting to know such things. There used to be a couple of websites around that carried downloadable 'old' versions of software. Those quotes are not meant as humor, this is truly Old School stuff, left behind by companies gone out of business, or prior shareware versions, etc. Now, only OldVersion.com seems to be showing up, and they don't have anything related to CAD. Perhaps someone else here might come up with a previous version of GenericCad, eh? I know this package almost as well as I do AutoCAD (and so does Chris ), so if we can get people up and running on this, we'd be able to share a lot more stuff a lot more easily. Just my brain, churning through some grist that came out of the mill. ------------ DISCLAIMER: The following is an attempt at humor. Do NOT try to do this at home! Remember, I am a trained professional, and you are not! Pain of a flattened polygon? Hmmm, lessee here..... BS procedure to draw a line, or 4KiloBucks? No doubt about it, I've got to get bittorrent! j/k ;D sumgai
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