Draft/Copy/Offset - Nothing happens ?

[sjb]

I'm following this, https://all3dp.com/freecad-tutorial-3d-printing/
At "Step 2.2: Offset", nothing happens when I try to use Draft/Copy/Offset - no new object is created.

In Tree View, "Rim 1" is selected. In the dialog, I enter "-2.5" and check "copy". Now what?
<Enter> does nothing, nor does the "Close" button.

In the above tutorial, step 3 says
"...When using the offset tool it is very important to move and keep your curser in the modeling window. You will notice a rectangle following your curser..."

I see no rectangle, and if I deliberately click/place the cursor in the 'modeling window', I cannot enter any values. In fact, the numbers are seen as View Face shortcuts. (For example if I hit '2' the view changes).

If I click in the Offset Distance box, then move the cursor to the 'modeling window' (without clicking again), it does not help matters.

OS: Windows 7
Word size of OS: 32-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 32-bit
Version: 0.16.6706 (Git)
Build type: Release
Branch: releases/FreeCAD-0-16
Hash: f86a4e411ff7848dea98d7242f43b7774bee8fa0
Python version: 2.7.8
Qt version: 4.8.7
Coin version: 4.0.0a
OCC version: 6.8.0.oce-0.17

[Willem]

Hi, welcome to the Freecad forum

you made a mistake in step 1 of this tutorial,

In Part design workbench you created a new sketch and made in that sketch a rectangle

The tutorial says go to the Draft workbench and draw a rectangle

This rectangle can have an offset like shown in the tutorial

[sjb]

Hi Willem

Thanks for your answer - When you say

...a mistake in step 1...

I'm not sure where you mean by "step 1"
- can you quote a sentence (or paragraph) please?


Is this the place

FreeCad-2.jpg (34.79 KiB) Viewed 1228 times

---> 'Draft Workbench'|# Icon to choose the plane. Now return to 'Part Design Workbench'.

I see a error also "Running the Python command "Draft Offset" failed..." See status bar in attached image.

FreeCad-3.jpg (260.74 KiB) Viewed 1226 times

Regards
Stephen

[sgrogan]

Hello sjb,
Please do not click when you move the cursor to the 3D view. Move the cursor around, even inside the box. When you see the rectangle do not click and simply type the dimension and enter. Avoid the corners of the box when you are moving the cursor around.

EDIT: The workflow in the tutorial is non-optimal. "Draft/Copy/Offset - Nothing happens ?" There are two problems:
1) Understanding of Draft_Offset
2) Creating the Dwire, and then tracing in a sketch, then deleting the Dwire, can be avoided by doing it the Rim1 sketch.

[sjb]

Hello sgrogan,

Thanks for your advice. The problem has been that I never see the rectangle - even when simply moving the cursor without clicking.