Hello Michael and everyone,

As the title says : is there any way to access and edit object properties directly with the keyboard, and having them displayed at all times next to the objects ?

By object properties I mean the useful data that is displayed in the UI when selecting various objects. When selecting a line, its length is shown ; for rectangles, the two dimensions appear ; and for circles and arcs, the diameter is shown. And the numerical display also acts as a button, opening a popup letting the user edit said values.

This is a fantastic feature as it allows to loosely sketch a drawing and later dimension it, similarly to the way one would use constraints in regular CAD programs ... but much more flexible.
But is there a way to interact with the edit popup using keyboard entry, just like one does when using the move tool or when entering a dimension ? This would be way faster than having to reach for the button in the UI for every single edit.

Also, is there a way to display the relevant information on the objects, at all times ? Or some clever workaround to do so ? This alone would speed up the 2D drafting process immensely.



On a side note : it would be great for circles and arcs to have both their radius and diameter shown, regardless of the ini preference for circle entry. For context I personally input circles by diameter 90% of the time, but I also use rounded chamfered corners in my designs - and these are obviously more naturally though as in terms of radius.

Thanks !

Hi pior, it is possible to trigger the "Edit size" menu to be shown using a shortcut key. To do that set up the following on a shortcut key:

script: /* Show edit size menu */ moi.ui.showMenu( 'EditSizeMenu.htm', moi.ui.findElement('PropSizeContainer'), 0, 0 );

Then when you push that shortcut key, when the menu shows you don't need to click inside it you can just start typing numbers and your input will go into the edit field in the menu.


> Also, is there a way to display the relevant information on the objects,
> at all times ? Or some clever workaround to do so ?

Sorry no it's a general focus area for MoI to try and not have very much stuff cluttering up the viewport. So there isn't any method set up for showing a label on every object like that currently.

- Michael

Hello Michael, thank you for another quick reply as always.
This command does the job perfectly - will be testing it out asap.

Regarding the display of dimensions : Well, setting aside wether or not it would be in the spirit of the design of the application to do so ... I sure believe that being able to instantly see this information would be useful :) Perhaps not as something to display 100% of the time as it would indeed be visually cluttered, but moreso something to be used as a design review tool.

Maybe there are other ways to display similar information ? Wouldn't it be possible, for instance, to batch generate Aligned dimensions for all selected lines/polylines ? Resulting in something like this :



Best,
P.O.

Hi pior,

re:
> Maybe there are other ways to display similar information ? Wouldn't it be possible, for instance,
> to batch generate Aligned dimensions for all selected lines/polylines ? Resulting in something like this :

Yes, that's possible, I've attached a script that will do that.

- Michael

Well, this is excellent ! Thanks again for such a quick answer and solution. Even in such a "barebones" state I find it very helpful.

FWIW I've found myself quickly generating these Dims to check various dimensions, and then deleting them right after to clear things up again - rince and repeat. Of course in theory I could do the same just by selecting a given object and looking in the corner of the UI to see the dimensions, but the ability to run it on many objects at once is absolutely a time saver.

I could probably imagine a few things to make the process even more fluid (like automatically moving the resulting dims away from the measured line) but then this would be getting into feature creep territory. If anything this is a good excuse for me to look into MOI scripting.

Thanks again for the help !

Cool! Thank you Michael!
This comes in very handy!