19 Sep
2009
19 Sep
'09
3:11 a.m.
On 19 Sep 2009, at 02:12, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote:
Message: 17
From: "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com>
I honestly don't know. I woulad have to demo MacDraft.
If you want to, there are demos free to download from www.microspot.co.uk
. Look for the 'Download a demo' button on the individual product pages.
The P.E. version is restricted to 17" x 17", no layers, no AutoCAD
file formats, reports, dimensions cannot be linked and a few other
minor things.
Both versions work to scale, but it defaults to 1:1 scale. You can of
course zoom in and out irrespective of the printing scale.
As you were a MacDraw user, I think you will be at home with the user
interface once you get the idea of multiple tools in a pop-up menu in
a single tool icon in the tool palette.
Once I
switch to the Mac Pro I'll have to decide if I setup a
Classic
Mac to run a couple apps (there is no replacement for me for
ClarisDraw aka MacDraw), or if I run them under an emulator). I've
stayed at 10.4.11 so I can continue to run Classic.
What do you need in MacDraw that is not in MacDraft or MacDraft PE
(personal
edition) ? I must declare an interest here as I maintain MacDraft
and am a
shareholder of the company which bought the source code of MacDraft
from IDD
about 15 years ago. One of my questions
would be what file formats does it support?
The current version reads from MacDraw II, DWG (not PE vsn) and
exports to PDF, PICT, various pixel map formats (such as JPEG) and DXF
(not PE and a bit limited functionality). The old 5.5 could also read
from Dream and write to enhanced PICT (with embedded
PostScript).
I'm not doing CAD work, I
simply find that ClarisDraw does what I need, and I've been using it
(and
before it MacDraw II) for close to twenty years.
My suspicion is that CAD software is better suited to what I need than
something like Adobe Illustrator (which I have but don't like).
Prior to
MacDraw/ClarisDraw I would use DesignCAD on the PC.
I don't think the CAD aspects of MacDraft get in the way of use for
general drawing but of course I don't have an objective view of my own
work.