Hi Denis, > Thanks for all the very good suggestions for how to make xournal > competent at precision technical drawing. As you have probably noticed, > the initial focus was very much on quickly jotting handwritten notes, > i.e. the model is NOT drafting machines but rather something much > simpler: pencil and paper.
I understand that very well and would not like this to be changed at all. My primary use case are just handwritten engineering notes and sketches; I just would like to put my everyday paperwork on the computer for easy filing and and speed up of the work flow. For that, screwing with a lot of menus and different commands would be completely counter productive. Simple drawings and sketches are the handwriting of the engineers. Few people realize that very often with very simple geometric constructions quite complicated problems can be solved quickly and efficiently. This is best done on squared paper with only the aid of a good compass and a triangle protractor. With such aids for instance the kinematics and kinetics of rather complicated mechanisms can be solved intuitively within very little time and good enough precision. In the past this was common knowledge among engineers, nowadays this is almost a lost art. To be able to do most engineering tasks without paper only the electronic equivalent of a simple compass (arc with a snappy center, the radius to be shown in a small window) and a good grid is necessary. This would take care of of the vectorial stuff and be a natural use case for Xournal. All the rest would be done by handwriting (mostly short annotations and formulas). Right now I still have to do most of this on paper. Initial designs also take a lot of trial and error, sketching and erasing, best done on several layers. As a good rule it usually starts out on the bottom layer with some auxiliary lines on the often symmetric centers, than an outline of the mayor parts on the next, and thereafter some detailing and hatching for better visualization. A simple dimensioning layer follows and on the last layer go the formulas and the annotations. Xournal can do that already pretty well, but better layer properties are needed (i.e. named layers would be helpful). With better geometric precision even some simple sketches could be made quickly and good enough for publications and presentations. The serious stuff would then be made with the common specialized programs (i.e. ipe, a very good complement to Xournal, it also has some inking capabilities). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipe_%28program%29 http://ipe7.sourceforge.net/ > In the long run, I do think that having the capabilities you mention is > highly desirable; I do want the whole thing to remain as intuitive as > possible and so the user interface should be thought about extremely > carefully. I absolutely agree. The simple and intuitive interface is the main strength of Xournal. > Presumably there'd be a separate technical drawing palette of > tools, or perhaps an alternative mode -- either way I want to make sure > this doesn't require any learning. There is really not much needed, only the following I would consider essential for good engineering use: - a snapping grid that must be easily switched off for handwriting - an arc (circle) with a snappy center, if possible combined with a radius indication - a ruler with angular snap and ideally length/radius indication - better layer management > One small note about your wish to have several documents open at once: > what's wrong with just having several instances of xournal, one for each > file, and copy-pasting between them, as you can already do currently? I > don't quite understand the advantage of having them run in separate tabs > or sub-windows of the same window rather than in separate windows, which > strikes me as more flexible? I agree and regularly do this on a Desktop. On a tablet however there is only limited space, so that the applications usually have to be run in full screen mode there. Also the constant multiple changes are distracting to the work flow. A tabbed interface would be an intuitive simple one click operation, like almost everything else in Xournal. For a pen interface this would be the best. Thanks again for the program, Best regards, Gerhard ps @Daniel: A5 paper follows later today. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book "Graph Databases" is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/13534_NeoTech _______________________________________________ Xournal-devel mailing list Xournal-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xournal-devel
