LibreCAD

Every once in a while I need to do some drafting.  Every single time, I look for an open source drafting tool, but end up giving up.  I end up dusting off my copy of AutoCad R14 that I have had since high school.  This time around, I decided to try out LibreCAD.  The reviews inside of Ubuntu's software center said the tool was hard to use and that the documentation was either non-existent or poorly translated.

LibreCAD was a little hard to get used to, but it did remind me a bit of AutoCAD.  I was able to draw up the floor plan relatively easily.  The target point for the line could be expressed as the distance-then-angle notation.  One thing that took me a bit to get used to, was the fact that you couldn't directly type "@2>90".  You have to click on the Console input, then you can type.  The fact that the console requires focus is something that slows me down considerably.  It isn't a deal-breaker, though.

The multi-copy functionality is different between AutoCAD and LibreCAD.  In AutoCAD, after you give the reference and target points for the copy, the object gets copied and you have an opportunity to put in another reference and target point to perform another copy.  You can keep doing this over and over again.  The first major difference is in LibreCAD, the copy and move commands are the same.  After you give the reference and target points, a window pops up.  This popup gives you the opportunity to select if this is a move, a single copy, or a multi-copy.  In the multi-copy scenario, you give a copy count.  This means you can only repeatly copy the object in the same vector in a repeating pattern.

I have not fully figured out how to use the trim function.  It seems to be similar to AutoCAD.  First, you select a line that forms the barrier to trim based off of.  In AutoCAD, you can select multiple barriers.  In LibreCAD, you can only select one.  This gets annoying, but I have been able to work around it.  Second, in AutoCAD, you select the side of the line that should get removed.  In LibreCAD, you select the side of the line that should be kept.  For straight lines, this seemed to work well.  When I was trimming circles, weird things started to occur.  I was able to use it, but I can't fully describe how it works.

One function I haven't been able to find is the join command.  I drew a rectangle with rounded corners and I wanted all the lines to join together.  I tried to fire up the help, but I got an error that said the documentation was not available.  I have not found a pan function like in AutoCAD.  I mostly used pan because AutoCAD's scrollbars did not work very well.  The pan was pretty fast as well.  Although I would prefer pan because of the speed, it hasn't hurt LibreCAD much.  In LibreCAD, the scrollbars work better than AutoCAD.

A major different between the two products is how snapping works.  In AutoCAD, you have checkboxes that let you enable and disable the various different ways you can snap to.  When you hover over something snappable, the snap logo for the type of snap shows up.  If it is an intersection, it is a diamond.  If its an end point, its a square.  At times, complicated diagrams end up having too many snappable points together.  You end up having to zoom to isolate the snappable points.

In LibreCAD, you are only allowed to have one snappable type enabled at a time.  The menu at the top allows you to quickly change which snappable type is active.  I don't exactly know how I feel about this.  On one hand, I found myself going to the menu a lot to switch between the snappable types.  On the other hand, I did not have the need to zoom in as much, since there wasn't a concentration of snappable points that were close together.  This seems like a good example of using two different strategies to solve a problem.

One thing that has really annoyed me is the fact that I can only move one object to another layer at a time.  There is a properties command.  You select the single object you want to change, and a window pops up.  In the window, you can change the layer.  I have not been able to pick multiple objects, then open up the properties window.  This wouldn't be as much of a deal if I could join objects together before trying to move them to another layer.  This problem is almost a deal breaker.  I have a habit of starting my work in a single layer, then creating new layers based on the complexity of the diagram.

At this point, I have not used the product enough to really rule it out.  I spent two hours drafting up two rooms in my house as well as all the furniture in the rooms.  Two hours was enough to get a good feel out of the program, though.  I think I will continue to use it for now.  I wouldn't recommend it for someone new to drafting, though.  I feel like I have been able to use it because of my experience with AutoCAD.