Full Version: Grayed out commends

Why are the commands at the bottom of the windows - zoom, pan etc., grayed out? How are they activated? They are described in the online guided, but no mention that I could see about how to turn them 'on'
Thanks

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Hi Atheokas, they're drawn with transparency so they can be "low profile" and stay out of your way unless you're using them.

To activate them just move your mouse on top of them.

- Michael

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Michael,
That's what I thought. It seems there is a demo on you tube that has these icons adopt color or appear 'activated'. The version I have does not do this but they do work when you hold the mouse button down. Thanks.
Andrew

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Hi Andrew, so that sounds like a bug - they are supposed to appear normal and ungrayed just with moving the mouse over even if no button is down.

What version of MoI and what operating system are you running with?

- Michael

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There is a checkbox "Show view controls" under Options button / View.

-But that does not match "mouse button down" making them appear...

?You have the no save demo version?

- Brian

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Michael:

I have v3.2 nosave trial running on a Mac OS High Sierra v10.13.3.

The pdf I am trying to work is attached.

Attachments:
curves-pdf-tests.pdf

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Hi Andrew, so for v4 the Mac version is significantly different - it's a native compiled Mac app, while v3 and earlier used a porting mechanism called Wineskin.

So hopefully v4 will solve that problem and have properly behaving view controls on your system. I had wanted to have v4 out by the end of this year but since that's only a few days away now I'm going to miss that but it won't be too much longer.

- Michael

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Michael:

Many thanks. No worries. There is plenty to learn in the meantime, but I now look forward to this new Mac version!

Since this question on the controls though another one has popped up, and now I am not sure whether my difficulties with a particular command may also be due to this Mac version.

I am have been trying out the sweep command. Easy to create a circle perpendicular to the end of a line and then create a tube. But I wish to sweep a half circle along a path. I imagine that the first step is to draw a semi circle using the arc command, connect the ends and sweep that. But there seems no way to draw the arc perpendicular to the end of the circle, i.e. there is no 'vertical option' as there is for the drawing of a circle. I did look at a a couple of videos on YouTube, helpful, but did not answer that specific point. This is more than an exercise; we will want to use this specific command to create a sundial to be carved out of metal using a CNC machine.

Perhaps you might point me to something that speaks to this?

Thanks again

Andrew

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Hi Andrew, there are a few different ways you could draw an arc like you're describing. One way is to make a circle first and then cut pieces of it away using the Edit > Trim command with the "Add trim points" option.

Or also if you draw a circle where you want if you then draw an arc using Draw curve > Arc > Center and snap the center point onto the circle's center it should draw in the circle's plane and then you could delete the circle.

Another way is to use View > Cplane to set the construction plane and then that sets the default plane that commands like arc will draw on.

Or also you could draw it flat initially and use Transform > Rotate > Axis to rotate it up to vertical.

Let me know if you need more information on any of these methods.

- Michael

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Michael,

Thanks for this.
Seems that there is more than one way to do this!
Actually, I have already successfully employed the first method you described: draw a circle and then edit it using the trim command.
However whichever method involves the fewest steps (clicks) will be the one that works best as it is a step that will have to be repeated several times for each project.

Andrew

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Hi Andrew, another way to set the drawing plane for an arc is to drag out 2 construction lines from the same point, if you then snap the center of the arc onto the shared point it will take the plane that those 2 lines form. Here's a demo:



- Michael

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Michael - thanks for this! This is perfect as the lines can dimension the width and height of the arc above the dial surface which is exactly what I need.
Thank you for taking the time to send.
Andrew

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Hello Michael:

I have been using the no-save trial version on my iMac. The main thing about MoI I like is not so much what it can do, but what it helps to avoid. It seems that we can work with Corel Draw and this software to produce our dials and avoid CAD altogether. That is a relief because I found CAD, especially AutoCAD, tedious, even though I am quite familiar with it.

So, we have decided to purchase MoI, but there is no urgency. As it appears to be fairly soon we will await the rollout of v4, inasmuch I expect it will have a different UI than what I am working with now.

If there will be an email sent out re this launch, then fine. Otherwise I will check your website from time to time.

Thanks

Andrew

(P.S. No pressure!)

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Hi Andrew, that's great I am glad that MoI will be useful for you!

It is a big goal for MoI to not lose the simplicity and streamlined-ness of it, the v4 UI is like 99% the same as v3.

Thanks, - Michael

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Michael:

Your reply to me on 9 Jan says the following:

"It is a big goal for MoI to not lose the simplicity and streamlined-ness of it, the v4 UI is like 99% the same as v3.

But in an earlier reply on 26 Dec you said that " for v4 the Mac version is significantly different - it's a native compiled Mac app, while v3 and earlier used a porting mechanism called Wineskin."

Perhaps you mean the difference lies in the architecture and not the UI? If the UI is different than the version I am using now on my iMac then I prefer to wait until the launch and leave this current learning curve.
But if the UI is similar to the version I am now using, then fine.

Hope this makes sense!

Thanks

Andrew

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I think the UI should not change.

-Yuan

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MoI4Beta is superb! IMHO
I'm using the beta nearly exclusively.

- Brian

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Hi Andrew, yes it's the internal architecture of the program code that is significantly different for v4 (especially for the Mac version), not the UI. The UI remains almost completely the same as before.

But the native Mac build fixes numerous glitches for the Mac version that were side effects of the "Wineskin" mechanism used for v3. Stuff like Retina displays supported now, you can size windows from any edge instead of only from the corner like OSX 10.6 behavior, Full screen mode is supported, and more.

Also v4 is now a 64-bit program and so can use all system memory instead of having 32-bit limits.

There are also a lot of improvements to basic functions like file loading and display speed.

- Michael

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Hi Michael-
Great tip!!!!
Thanks,
Robert

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