jDraft is a simple 2D drawing program for creating engineering drawings. On a superficial level it resembles simple drawing programs, such as old MacDraw or later day OpenOffice-Draw. But there is a difference. Anyone who tries to draw accurate drawings (that would conform to good engineering draftmanship guidelines) with these programs will soon find out that it simply is not possible.
The main design goal of jDraft was to make it possible to draw geometrically accurate/correct drawings in a simple and natural way, not unlike the time honored way of using a compass/divider and a straight edge. jDraft is by no means the only show in town, plenty of 2D CAD software around. Without badmouthing any particular software, I think it is fair to say that while those programs allow the creation of accurate drawings, many of them are not that easy to use. s jDraft attempts to be an animal of a different color, combining the ease of use of simple drawing programs with the accuracy of full blown CAD applications.
It is perfectly possible to use jDraft without any manual at all. The user interface conforms to the common idioms, concepts and practices of hundreds of other ’office’ applications. This manual is not about describing every button and check box in every dialog and window in the software. Instead, this manual tries to give insight into the design philosophy and advice at a higher level on how to use the software, addressing the deeper, underlying concepts that are not obvious from the user interface.
Unavoidably, this manual contains a bit (no pun intended) of computer jargon, some of which is specific to the operating system the application is being used on. It is not necessary to understand this jargon, it is included for the benefit of those who feel they need to / want to know it. You can safely ignore it. In most cases, using the software is totally intuitive if you are the least bit of computer savvy. In case you experience some ’computer’ woes you might want to lookup the jargon bits.
Mac OS users should substitute the COMMAND (aka Apple) -key for the CTRL -key.
In Mac OS, the CTRL -key is used together with a mouse click to effect the Right -click of other platforms.
Reading about a thing is all very well, but there is nothing like the real thing. So why not, take her for a spin!
Users of this application are most likely computer savvy enough to unpack it and just do it.
Just double-click on the application icon and you open up a brand new but empty drawing.
Select a line tool from the drawing tools palette and click or drag on the drawing area to create some shapes. Click on the snap tools to experiment how the cursor snaps to shapes you’ve already created, as you draw.
Go on, draw circles within circles (not a biblical reference here).
Pick the selection tool. Click and drag a shape to move it. Drag a box around the circles to select them. Click the fill icon to create a hatched area.
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See, it’s easy!