How do we make Protocase Designer better?

[mellott124]

How about Mac compatibility??

[dronne]

How about Sure! It will be out this week.

[jlogajan]

Things to improve the user interface:

1. Allow the primary origin reference point to be moved. Not all designs start out with the lower left face corner as the measurement reference and this forces users to recompute EVERY coordinate by hand. This human intervention is error prone and can be easily offloaded to the computer.

2. Rectangle cutout reference points should be in the geometric center, not the corner. If resizing a rectangle ALL coordinates have to be recomputed. Simplify the human interface by centering the reference point.

3.) Add resizable radius curves to rectangle corners.

4.) Allow vertex editing of path defined cutouts. There is no numerical access to path vertex coordinates. Path is therefore little more than a toy. You have to eyeball everything.

5.) Allow grid snaps smaller than 0.1"

6.) Fix inconsistency of enclosure resizing after holes and cutouts have been placed. I resized a U-shaped box, the front face holes moved left whereas the bottom and back face holes retained their distance from the origin.

[dronne]

I do plan on allowing the origin to be moved. It isn't in the next set of changes to be made but it isn't too far off.

The reason rectangle coordinates are from the corner facing the origin is because that is the CAD standard. It is much easier to measure to a corner of a rectangle physically than to the center of the rectangle.

Resizable corner radii on the rectangles would be very nice and I will add that to the list of enhancements.

The paths can be resized by drag-editing. If you hover over a corner you can drag it. I intend to enhance this soon and add numerical entry for an additional method of editing paths.

Do you have a good idea of a minimum size to be allowed? I can't allow 0, so I need a slightly larger than 0 value.

I will look into the issue of always keeping the coordinates of the cutouts the same after resizing.

Thank you for your feedback!

[jlogajan]

As per rectangle origin, a competitor (faceplates only) uses the geometric center. (They also have corner radius selection.)

These things can be options so people can use it they way they prefer.

The grid snap is less important if you improve numerical input to path vertex values. However I imagine down to 0.001" would be enough. Beyond that it's outside mechanical production tolerances anyhow.

[jlogajan]

Oh and I almost forgot, allow circle diameter to be input instead of radius. I almost always have to derive the radius from the diameter.

[dronne]

I will change the minimum grid size right away. I like the idea of having the option of using center referenced rectangles and will look into doing that, along with diameter for an input for circle size.

Thank you,

[jlogajan]

It would be nice if the designer calculated total enclosure weight. This would be a pretty simple table lookup of material weight by guage per unit area.

I just had some enclosures fabricated out of galvanized steel that I just now calculated to weigh about 15 lbs. Had I chosen an equal thickness aluminum they'd only weigh about 5 lbs. That would most likely effect shipping costs particularly as well as making the units easier to move around generally.

[dronne]

That is a good idea, I will look into it.

[hardcase]

I don't have an internet connection. How about some kind of exportable codestring that can be emailed to you later from a different machine, for a quote?