Hi Will, I think I'll be doing the docs in HTML and then also convert them into a PDF version that can be used for printing.

> I guess I'm asking, what are the limitations? Does both curves have to be the
> same size, or "cover" each other in space?

Just the curves should be planar, and the extrusions of the curve should intersect each other.

I'm not sure what might have gone wrong with your first attempt... Next time save off the curves and send them over and that will help!

- Michael

Glad to hear there will be a PDF for printing!

Okay will do about sending .3DMs - I think however my profile curve may not have been planar - I'll do a quick test again, this time moving a point "out of wack" from the Top view to see if that causes the object not to be generated as happened to me before.

This does bring up one point - when a command fails, MOI doesn't display any kind or warning or error message?

Granted, I'm pretty used to that now (specially with fillet!) knowing that if I don't see a "calculating..." msg, I know the command has failed - the same with other tools, but when I was working with the intersect (as would a newbie), I didn't know at first if the command had failed or if I neglected to do something. (Of course now I know the command failed.)

I know popping up a dialog to say "command failed" would get annoying on the quick fast - perhaps just some text in that status area "Failed..." or simply turning the status area yellow or a light pink if you get an error back from one of your functions.

I guess in short, I'm saying that the silent failures within MOI sometimes leaves you head-scratching not knowing what's wrong.

Deselecting all and selecting the offending object would be a great help at times too but I don't know what kind of error info you may receive back from your functions - so this might not be feasible.

Having MOI deselect your stuff may also be an annoyance, but I can't see that being any worse than running the command 2 - 3 times wondering why it's not working (which I end up doing most of the time anyway...)


-Will

Hi Will, definitely these are great ideas, I know the lack of error or just feedback in general is a problem.

I haven't quite figured out a particularly nice unobtrusive way to handle it yet, it will probably take some experimenting with a variety of methods, that's why it hasn't made it into V1. Just like you mentioned, something that whapped you in the face too much would get annoying.

One thing I have thought about is a text box in the lower-right corner of the screen, possibly even a bit wider than the side pane (imagine the Options and Help buttons sliding over to the left a bit for that).

One problem is that is can be difficult to phrase error messages or feedback with only a few words, I often times have problems with trying to squeeze very much text into just the width of the side pane... Streaming messages down to the bottom-right corner would be pretty unobtrusive, but maybe _too_ unobtrusive...

- Michael

Dunno, I've sorta got used to looking for that status line at the top ("Calculating..."), if I have to also start looking at the bottom? Dunno...

Okay!, That's it! - It's time for MOI to have Voice Prompting!


Hmmm, Majel Roddenberry hasn't had any Star Trek voice acting, or cameo parts in a while now - I'm sure she'd LOVE to lend her voice for the differing voice prompts and status msgs you may need! :-p

-Will

Probably one line is not going to cut it for many messages though...

The other thing that would be nice about an out of the way area is it would work as a general area to stream non-error supplemental information, like some commands could spit out various information about what just happened on successful operations too (think stuff like "joined 25 curves into 3 closed loops", etc... ).

It will take some experimentation to see what different approaches feel like.

- Michael

Thankyou and much appriciated help

Sorry fro the delay in responding was quite ill yesteday (flu - yuck)

getting my head around the concepts of MoI is the hard step but once you know
its really fun .

Im having difficulty knowing how or when surfaces are retain or lost but you suggestions have helped

For making PDF there is an excellent software called PagePlus by serif
which I use and does a wounderful job also the the open source Scribus but havent used this much as yet