type11 Posted January 17, 2003 Share Posted January 17, 2003 We all want it back! The Connect/ Combine tool cannot extend multiple lines of varying length to another line with a single click. It's a real step backward to have to individually click and drag each line you want to extend. Quote Link to comment
0 David Seibert Posted January 18, 2003 Share Posted January 18, 2003 I see your Ditto and raise you two Dittos. : Quote Link to comment
0 P Retondo Posted January 20, 2003 Share Posted January 20, 2003 Call. NNA, it's time to bring back this useful feature, especially since AutoCAD has a similar capability. Eliminating the extend tool was a step backwards. I imagine many people use it as I once did, to project lines from a floor plan to create an elevation or section. [ 01-20-2003, 01:48 PM: Message edited by: P Retondo ] Quote Link to comment
0 Sean Flaherty Posted January 22, 2003 Share Posted January 22, 2003 In which version of VectorWorks did this capability exist? I've been back through a number of old versions and can't find an extend tool that does this. Regards, Sean Quote Link to comment
0 type11 Posted January 22, 2003 Author Share Posted January 22, 2003 I last remember seeing the Extend Tool in VW 8.52. I think VW 9 is where it was removed. I had hoped to see it come back in VW 10... Quote Link to comment
0 Sean Flaherty Posted January 22, 2003 Share Posted January 22, 2003 From the tests I've run and old manuals that I've read, this was never a capability of this tool in 8.5 or 8.0 from my tests. I think its a good wish, however, for a new feature. Best Regards, Sean Quote Link to comment
0 type11 Posted January 22, 2003 Author Share Posted January 22, 2003 Sean, I'll dig out an old version and try and find exactly where this tool was. Quote Link to comment
0 PeterT Posted January 22, 2003 Share Posted January 22, 2003 I also miss the extend tool and wish to see it come back. But I never used it for extending multiple lines with one click. I am also curious what version of Vectorworks allowed this behavior. The extend tool existed in version 8.5.2, but I just sampled it in both the offered modes with all different combinations of lines selected, and I could not get it to extend more than one line at a time. Either way, I would certainly like to have this ability in a future version. Quote Link to comment
0 type11 Posted January 22, 2003 Author Share Posted January 22, 2003 I fired up an old version of VW 8.52 to examine the extend tool. As it turns out you can't extend multiple lines to a boundry with a single click. You have to click each line in order to extend it. This is still way better than having to click and drag each line as in VW 9/10. I was confusing the old extend tool with an OzCad plugin by Julian Carr. He had an Extend to Line tool that worked very well. I am not sure if these plugins work with VW10. I would love to see Extend to Line and Extend Multiple Lines to Boundry in the next rev. of VW. Quote Link to comment
0 Guest Posted January 22, 2003 Share Posted January 22, 2003 Essentially, the connect combine tool (second mode) does this. You click on the one line, then click on the other line and it will drag the one line to meet or extend to the other one. Alternately, you can select several lines and stretch them to be really long using the 2d tool at one time. Then switch to the split by line/point tool using the Split by Line mode and split the horizontal lines with a vertical line. This will break the lines at that intersection point. Then you can delete the bogus lines. OR you can use a vertical line on horizontal lines as a trimming line. Using the Trim tool, click on the lines and pick them off one at a time. There are lots of different ways to get the same result. Quote Link to comment
0 P Retondo Posted January 23, 2003 Share Posted January 23, 2003 Sean and Katie, Perhaps you are somewhat misled by the way we are characterizing the use of the extend tool. With the old extend tool, you select the line to be extended to, select the tool, then click once on each of the lines to be extended. N.B.: the line to be extended to does not have to be in your view! It can be hundreds of feet away, and you can zoom in to see the individual lines to be extended, which may be inches or less apart! So besides one click for each extend, no panning and zooming between clicks. This is what we miss. Better than just bringing back the extend tool, it would be great if there were a second mode where you could select multiple lines to be extended, then hit enter to extend them all at once. [ 01-22-2003, 09:10 PM: Message edited by: P Retondo ] Quote Link to comment
0 Carl Burns Posted January 23, 2003 Share Posted January 23, 2003 quote: Originally posted by P Retondo: Sean and Katie, Perhaps you are somewhat misled by the way we are characterizing the use of the extend tool. With the old extend tool, you select the line to be extended to, select the tool, then click once on each of the lines to be extended. N.B.: the line to be extended to does not have to be in your view! It can be hundreds of feet away, and you can zoom in to see the individual lines to be extended, which may be inches or less apart! So besides one click for each extend, no panning and zooming between clicks. This is what we miss. Better than just bringing back the extend tool, it would be great if there were a second mode where you could select multiple lines to be extended, then hit enter to extend them all at once. Yes, clearly said. It's the "out of view" ability which makes the tool so useful, and a "multiple line" version would be more so. - Carl Quote Link to comment
0 jan15 Posted January 23, 2003 Share Posted January 23, 2003 The beauty of the Extend tool in VectorWorks is tied to the ease with which rectangles and other surfaces can be created. In VectorWorks, I normally draw with rectangles, not with lines, and add and clip them to form shapes which can be easily re-shaped, filled, hatched, and given new line weight and dash pattern. Often it's necessary to fill one of those shapes with something for which a hatch doesn't work, or just extend several lines to the edge of a floor, wall, window, etc. It's easy and quick to select a polygon or surface, and then extend a lot of lines to its boundary, even if the boundary is off the screen. In versions up to 8.5.2, the Extend tool had 2 modes. The first mode was useless because it required dragging the extendee to the boundary. Stretching with the Selection tool would be just as easy. The Second mode is the great tool everyone misses so much: select boundary object or objects, then select Extend tool (second mode), and then click once on each line that you want extended to the nearest boundary. No dragging. You have to click on the half of the line that's in the direction you want it extended. You can click again to extend to the next boundary after that. I'm still using version 8, even though I bought the upgrade to 9, because of this problem and a few others which version 9 had. I'm looking at version 10 now, and it seems to me that it corrects all those other problems of version 9, and sometimes even improves on version 8. But it still doesn't have the very important Second mode of the Extend tool. The Connect/Combine tool only works like the useless First mode of the Extend tool, i.e. by dragging, and only it extends a line in one direction. It's certainly not a replacement for the old Extend tool. Quote Link to comment
0 Carl Burns Posted January 23, 2003 Share Posted January 23, 2003 I think that this thread is a little more evidence that (some) users continue to care about improvements to 2D tools. These tools may be old-fashioned and counter to the single model ideal, not interesting as a programming challenge, and insofar as they mimic ACAD, (extend tool, "fences") they may even contribute to loss of program character. But, they are efficient and useful for certain tasks. - Carl Quote Link to comment
0 Ian Kelshaw Posted January 29, 2003 Share Posted January 29, 2003 I have found the command routine from VW 7.03 that I use perhaps a hundred times during my normal drawing work day. It is CRITICAL to my descision to update to VW10. It was authored by Sean Flaherty himself. I use it as a command from my saved sheets pallette off the bottom scroll bar which I find more useful than as a traditional command. It allows single or multiple line extensions with a one click selection. I can email it to anyone who feels they can update it to work in VW10. Thanks in advance, Ian Kelshaw Quote Link to comment
0 Alexandre Villares Posted January 29, 2003 Share Posted January 29, 2003 Hi Ian, You can send it to me, I'll be glad to have a try on updating it to VW9 & VW10. regards, Quote Link to comment
0 Ian Kelshaw Posted January 29, 2003 Share Posted January 29, 2003 Alexandre, The code is on it's way, as the world waits in anticipation of a breakthrough... Quote Link to comment
0 MullinRJ Posted January 30, 2003 Share Posted January 30, 2003 Does anybody use the Extend Tool to extend arcs or polys to boundary objects, or is the majority of its use for snapping lines to boundaries? Raymond Quote Link to comment
0 Alexandre Villares Posted January 31, 2003 Share Posted January 31, 2003 The code sent by Ian works perfectly on VectorWorks 9 and 10 without any modification. It could be re-writen a lot simpler in VW10 but that's not the point. It can be used from a script palette or be made into a 'tool', like the others on the 2D Tools/Editing Palette. regards, Alexandre [ 01-30-2003, 09:08 PM: Message edited by: Alexandre B A Villares ] Quote Link to comment
0 Alexandre Villares Posted January 31, 2003 Share Posted January 31, 2003 code: PROCEDURE Extend; {* by Sean Flaherty of Graphsoft, Inc. *} {* Takes the selected lines and extends them to a line *} {* chosen by the user. *} VAR theList, theObj : Handle; whereX, whereY, px, py, vx, vy : REAL; ? FUNCTION CrossP( x1, y1, x2, y2 : REAL) : REAL; BEGIN CrossP := x1 * y2 - x2 * y1; END; ? FUNCTION DistToV( x, y : REAL ) : REAL; VAR num, denom : REAL; BEGIN num := Abs( CrossP( x - px, y - py, vx, vy )); denom := Sqrt( vx**2 + vy **2 ); DistToV := num / denom; END; ? PROCEDURE GetEquation( x1, y1, x2, y2 : REAL; VAR slope, off : REAL; VAR inf : BOOLEAN ); BEGIN IF x1 = x2 THEN inf := TRUE ELSE BEGIN inf := FALSE; slope := ( y2 - y1 ) / ( x2 - x1 ); off := y1 - slope * x1; END; END; ? PROCEDURE ExtendLine( u : Handle ); VAR s1x, s1y, s2x, s2y, rx, ry : REAL; FUNCTION SectToV( a1x, a1y, a2x, a2y : REAL ) : BOOLEAN; VAR infA, infV, tmpBool : BOOLEAN; slopeA, slopeV, offA, offV : REAL; ????????? BEGIN GetEquation( a1x, a1y, a2x, a2y, slopeA, offA, infA ); GetEquation( px, py, px + vx, py + vy, slopeV, offV, infV ); IF infA & infV THEN tmpBool := FALSE ELSE BEGIN tmpBool := TRUE; IF infA THEN BEGIN rx := a1x; ry := slopeV * rx + offV; END ELSE IF infV THEN BEGIN rx := px; ry := slopeA * rx + offA; END ELSE IF slopeA <> slopeV THEN BEGIN rx := ( offV - offA ) / ( slopeA - slopeV ); ry := slopeA * rx + offA; END ELSE tmpBool := FALSE; END; ????????? SectToV := tmpBool; END; BEGIN GetSegPt1( u, s1x, s1y ); GetSegPt2( u, s2x, s2y ); ????? IF DistToV(s1x,s1y) < DistToV(s2x,s2y) THEN BEGIN IF SectToV(s1x,s1y,s2x,s2y) THEN SetSegPt1(u,rx,ry); END ELSE BEGIN IF SectToV(s1x,s1y,s2x,s2y) THEN SetSegPt2(u,rx,ry); END; END; BEGIN theList := FSActLayer; IF theList <> NIL THEN BEGIN Message( 'Pick the line to extend to' ); GetPt( whereX, whereY ); ClrMessage; theObj := PickObject( whereX, whereY ); IF ( theObj <> NIL ) & ( GetType( theObj ) = 2 ) THEN BEGIN {* set the constraining vector *} GetSegPt1( theObj, px, py ); GetSegPt2( theObj, whereX, whereY ); vx := whereX - px; vy := whereY - py; ????????? WHILE theList <> NIL DO BEGIN IF GetType( theList ) = 2 THEN ExtendLine( theList ); theList := NextSObj( theList ); END; END; END; END; RUN( Extend ); [/code] Quote Link to comment
Question
type11
We all want it back!
The Connect/ Combine tool cannot extend multiple lines of varying length to another line with a single click.
It's a real step backward to have to individually click and drag each line you want to extend.
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