Tools for Draw
by Kell Gatherer, Andrew Hersee and Mark Moxon

DrawTools is an application which creates a separate tools window for use with Draw (or any other application which accepts Draw files). Any of the shapes provided within the DrawTools window can be selected and dimensioned as required before dragging and positioning in your main drawing.

Running DrawTools installs an icon on the icon bar, and clicking on this icon opens up the main Tools window. There are five different types of shape that can be created, namely Lines, Arcs, Polygons, Sectors and Boxes. To create a shape, choose the correct radio icon in the Shape section of the main window, and enter the relevant dimensions in the Dimensions section. The cursor up/down keys and Return can be used to move between the writable icons if desired.

The units of the numbers entered can be changed by clicking on the cream text icons. The units that can be chosen for the first and third values (i.e. Length/Radius/Height and Thickness) are: centimetres, millimetres, inches, fractions of inches, points (1/72 of an inch) or pica ems (12 points). The units available for the second value (i.e. Angle) are Degrees and Radians. Clicking with Select cycles forwards through this list, while clicking with Adjuct cycles backwards. Note that for polygons and boxes the Degrees/Radians icon is not relevant, so it is shaded.

The size of a polygon is defined as the radius of a circle which passes through its vertices. Circles can be drawn by selecting the Arc option and entering 360 degrees for the angle.

If the shape chosen is a box, then the Height and Width values are both in the same units - that given in the units icon for the Height value. The values for Height and Width can be conveniently changed by clicking on the blue arrow icons in the bottom left-hand corner of the window; this applies to all shapes, but the display only makes sense for boxes. Also, the box can either have rounded corners or right-angled corners, and this option is changed by simply clicking inside the rectangle in the bottom left-hand corner of the window. There is one final important point with boxes: DrawTools takes the thickness of the line into consideration when creating the box, so that the outside dimension of the box will always be as specified, regardless of the line thickness.

The data that needs to be entered for each shape is as follows:
Line     Length, Angle
Arc      Radius, Angle
Polygon  Radius, Sides
Sector   Radius, Angle
Box      Height, Width
In each case, the value in the Thickness icon determines the thickness of the lines in the object. To obtain Thin lines (i.e. lines which are drawn as thinly as possible, depending on the display medium), simply enter 0 into this icon.

After entering the required information, either drag the Draw file from the Save section of the window to a directory viewer (where it will be saved as a Draw file under the name in the writable icon) or to the drawing you are creating; in the latter case the shape will then appear in the drawing. The position of the pointer when you release the Select button will define where the object will appear. For all shapes except the line and box it will define the centre of the circle which defines the shape. With a line it defines the start point of the line, and with a box, the bottom left-hand corner. By switching grid lock on in Draw you can ensure that all the objects have the same centre. Note that if you drag the resulting Draw file directly to Draw's icon bar icon, the centre of the selected shape will be positioned in the bottom left-hand corner of the Draw window, so the result (except with lines) is that only the upper right quadrant of the shape will appear. It is better to drag the Draw file into a Draw window instead.

To remove DrawTools from the icon bar, simply click Menu over the icon bar icon and choose the Quit option from the menu.

 RISC User 1992
