At 2005-05-09 08:56 -0700
tkat@tkat.com wrote: >I'm going to divert here for a little while and delve into what I have>discovered about changing the scale of the dwgs --- either temporally>or permanently. Tkat - with respect, I think there's the possibility of a bit of confusion here.Some the features you have very usefully detailed refer to changing the scale of the elements in a document, and some to changing the scale of the display (or zooming). >1. Bring up a new dwg or open an existing. In the lower left below>the prompts is a box w/ a drop down menu. Select the scale you want. All the objects drawn from now will be at the chosen scale. As a demo, try the following:Open a new drawing document (or use the stationery pad you created with all your personal preferences already set up).Using the scale pop-up menu at the bottom below the co-ordinate entry line, set the scale to 1:1 if not already set to that.From the contextual menu (control-click) or the toolbox palette, choose Line / Line at an angle.Enter the co-ordinates 0, 0.Enter the angle and length as 45, 5.Now change the scale using the pop-up menu as above to 5:1.Enter the co-ordinates 0, 0.Enter the angle and length as 135, 5.Now you may have to hit the Z (zoom) button at top right to get it all at a sensible size on the screen. Note that the 2 lines are different lengths - one is 5 times longer than the other. Their attributes include the scale they were drawn at. You can always check the scale of an object by choosing the measuring tool (Graphic / Measure) and clicking on the object. In my case, significant items in the measurement listing for the above 2 lines are:Type LinesPen 1Intensity 100%Style SolidlineColor 0, 0, 0Width 0.25Group 0Layer 1Scale 1:1x0 0.00mmy0 0.00mmx1 3.54mmy1 3.54mmLength 5.00mmAngle 45.00°-------------------------------MeasureType LinesPen 1Intensity 100%Style SolidlineColor 0, 0, 0Width 0.25Group 0Layer 1Scale 5:1x0 -3.54mmy0 3.54mmx1 0.00mmy1 0.00mmLength 5.00mmAngle 315.00°-------------------------------MeasureI captured the above text by choosing Saveinfo as... from the File menu. I'm not sure if the degree symbols in the Angle info will survive passage through the various e-mail servers and clients - apologies if they do not.NB! although they appear as different lengths on the screen (and on a printout) they are the same length in CADintosh's internal database of elements in that document!Some aspects of the scale of document elements I haven't fully got to grips with properly yet. For instance, I found that in a document which had different parts created in different scales, there were some things I couldn't do. I went back just now to see if I could re-create the issue and give an example, but think I'm not recalling it correctly as I can't reproduce it exactly. Another thing is that the "imperial" scales offered in the pop-up menu don't seem to do what I would have expected. I don't find this a handicap as I haven't needed to use them so far.[Digression: I do remember that I had a drawing with variously-scaled asemblies in it. To later edit an area which was at a scale of 1:2.9 I had to re-set the scale to that value. I now can't remember why I picked that scale (I think it might have been a calculated value, to fit available space in an article, that didn't yield a nice round number), and it seems it wasn't exactly 2.9 anyway; if I just entered that value in response to the prompt "Enter user defined scale or select element:" things still didn't work. I had to click on an element at the desired scale instead of entering a value, and then all was fine. That is a useful feature I tend to forget about - the ability to pick up attributes such as scale, pen width, etc direct from the elements of the drawing.]Anyway, one thing you can't do is to draw a line (or indeed any other element) between 2 other lines which have been created in different scales. Just try drawing another line between the ends (use line point-to-point & mid/end or auto selection mode) of the 2 lines in the demo above to close the triangle and see what happens! Also, once you've got a few more elements on the drawing so that the measure tool starts to work properly with the first element highlighted in red, you'll find that it is not happy if the second element is not the same scale as the first. >Don't worry about the basic point moving away. You can just reset it>by clicking in the co-ords, upper left, and then in free hand mode set>the point. I don't find that the 0,0 point moves when I change scale. In any case I prefer not to move the 0,0 point freehand as it usually fouls up the convenient integer distances from the 0,0 point that I have chosen for important aspects of the drawing. Entering the co-ordinates would be a tidier option, if it worked. Thorsten, this seems to be a bug! >2. In the vertical right hand menu there are 5 symbols, the + & - will>either increase or shrink the dwg by a factor of 2 --- either multiply>by or divide 2.>>3. The "Z" in this menu will shrink the scale factor so the whole dwg>will be shown.>>4. Clicking in the scale % box of the co-ord menu allows you to enter>a new scale factor in %. Hit return or enter to activate.>>5. By clicking option-click and dragging the dwg can be zoomed. Be>sure to click/drag where you want the zoom to be. That's where it>happens. Sometimes this brings up a window that expands what's inside.> I haven't figured out what it is that causes this to happen yet. W/>my dwgs, it normally just zooms. Items 2 - 5 above are all about zooming the whole document - the display size. Any changes here do not affect the scale of the drawing elements, just how big they are on the screen. >W/ any scaling, option-command-L will get you back to the last scale>size. Use this when you've zoomed in on an area & then want to back>out to your original [last] size. Cmd-alt-L only works if you have already used the alt-drag method to zoom in. It does not operate if you have used the + or - buttons at top right. >If all else fails, command Z backs up the steps one at a time. Command>Y will move them fwd again. Cmd-Z is Undo - but it doesn't (for me) appear to have any effect upon the display zoom, whether last done with the + & - buttons, or with alt-drag. Nor does it revert the scale chosen with the pop-up menu at bottom left to the previous value. It just allows you to step back through the elements you've created, deleting them along the way. It won't go back beyond the last Save, of course.Thanks for all the work you have been doing to enhance the CADintosh documentation. I hope my comments are not seen as over-critical. You have introduced me to things I'd not been aware of, and together we're learning how to be more productive.regardsRowland-- : Wilma & Rowland Carson <
http://home.clara.net/rowil/>: <
rowil@clara.net> ... that's Rowland with a 'w' ...