Glad you like it !
Yes, I don't know why enter doesn't work initially actually.
Yes it's true it annoyingly clutters the mouse pointer. Rather than putting default as no constraint, I was thinking about moving the constraints a little bit on the side as to not clutter the mouse pointer. But I need to find a way to move the constraint consistently on the side. Because using just +5 (mm) in the move is not consistent and looks good only in one zoom position. It needs to be relative to the screen width.Haavard wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 12:00 am
- When you click a first point, the tool defaults to lock (X and Y lengths). I rarely use lock, and this clutters the mouse pointer and makes it hard to select the second point. How about the default is no constraint, and you can cycle using shift, just as it works now, to lock, x and y?
Yes it's a reason why I hesitate to make the alternate constraint with shift. Because if it becomes to complex it loose the advantage of being intuitive.Haavard wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 12:00 am
- This tool is so powerful it could be a bit difficult to learn all the features by testing. It would be cool with a hint somewhere, perhaps above the numbers in Tool settings. For example, you click two lines, and get asked to input angle. Then the hint could say "Input 0 ° for parallel, or 90 ° for perpendicular constraint". Or even better, if you could press shift so cycle between angle, parallel, perpendicular and tangent..?
And yes you are right, the hint could be displayed in the tool settings. I tried to put some hints in the cursor text but it's not really good.
I didn't knew of other shortcuts that were usefull when a tool is active so I have not seen this issue. The box need to catch the letters because user can delete the unit, also he needs to be able to change it. Though I could perhaps set the unit as none and prevent the box from catching any letters. Alternatively some letters could not be caught by the spinbox. It really needs only few letters for the different units.Haavard wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 12:00 am
- Is there a need to accept letters in the number box? It already displays the default document units. Because of this keyboard shortcuts does not work when creating geometry, and i often like to switch between normal and construction geometry using a shortcut when sketching. This way those preferring M for polyline would not have an issue.
It is possible. It feels like a good idea, but I'm afraid that if there are too many ways to change the type of constraints, then the intuitiveness of the tool might be lost.Haavard wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 12:00 am
- Could double clicking be used? Say i want to constrain two points witch coincident. Now i click the first, then the second, input 0, then enter. It would be nice to click the first, then doubleclick the second to apply coincident. Also if i press a line, and would like to make it equal to another line, i could doubleclick the second line, sort of like if i was clicking on three lines. And you could create coincident constraint on multiple points this way, by clicking on many points and doubleclicking the last point.
Equality of the two lines could be done with the shift key too.
It would look cleaner indeed. Though the advantage of the 0mm distance is that it can be edited easily. Are there advantages to have coincident/pointonobject rather than the distance=0 ? Rather than just looking better.
Hmm I thought Contextual was OK but yes it's not a super-seller. Smart Constraint sucks apparantly even though I think it conveys the meaning pretty well IMO. I was thinking about "Auto Constrain" but in the backend there is a thing called auto-constrain so it felt misleading to use that name. Though if this name is used only in the UI ?Haavard wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 12:00 am
- The name and icon could definitely be better. I know "Smart constraint" it perhaps a bit disliked by some, but maybe something similar? It would at least be fitting for this tool. "Contextual Constraint" would tell me absolutely nothing if i didn't know about it beforehand. Super constrain? Multi constrain? Genius constrain? Any other ideas?
A setting in preferences would be good indeed. Also it could allow further customization of the tool. But it needs more explorative work as I don't know how to make preferences settings. And I have other things I want to work on first (distance for circles, scaling and rotating, CTRL-C CTRL-V).Haavard wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 12:00 am
- Creating a new settings block in Preferences -> Sketcher is probably needed. When people begin to use this i guess many will have their own preferences between tool cycling, default settings e.g. And even if i think the auto radius/diameter should be default for curves, it would be nice to have it as an option in settings for those who disagree.
Maybe you can give it a go?
Those are great. It helps going further towards merging a well thought/debugged tool. The distance idea you posted at the beginning is particularly awesome in my opinion.