Musa CAD 0.6.0

The text and dimensions release: TEXT with AutoCAD’s fifteen justifications and line after line of entry, the Dimension Style Manager with named styles and a live preview, dimension text that moves with its dimension line, DIMLINEAR and DIMANGULAR with every option, polylines with widths, object snaps for one pick, polar and object snap tracking, and an update check that says when a new version is out. Musa CAD is on Flathub now too.

Linux, macOS and Windows. The Linux AppImage, the Flatpak bundle and the macOS disk image shipped with the tag; the Windows installer was added after verification on real Windows hardware, built from the tagged source. Run over an existing installation, it updates that installation where it is; from v0.6.0 on, the Update window downloads and installs new versions itself.

If you are coming from v0.5.0, the native format moved from v36 to v38 (polyline widths, text justification, dimension styles): v0.5.0 files open unchanged, files saved by v0.6.0 need v0.6.0 or newer. TEXT no longer ends after one line, so a script or macro that types a TEXT now ends it with an empty line.

---

TEXT as AutoCAD has it (#42)

Specify start point of text or [Justify/Style]: with the fifteen justifications — Left, Center, Right, Align, Middle, Fit, and TL to BR — each asking for its own point; Align and Fit run the text between two points, Align scaling the height to reach, Fit squeezing the width. The height and the rotation take a value or a point and are remembered with the justification. Then the text, line after line: each Enter starts the next line under the last (its own undo step), an empty line ends the command, and the line is drawn on the canvas where it will stand while you type it. JUSTIFYTEXT changes the justification without moving the text, SCALETEXT scales each text about its own point, TXT2MTXT joins single-line texts into one paragraph, and TEXTEDIT asks for one object after another. A centred or right-justified text is bounded, picked and edited where it is drawn, and DXF carries the justification both ways.

Dimension styles (DIMSTYLE)

D opens the Dimension Style Manager: the drawing’s styles, a preview of the selected one — a sample part dimensioned in it by the same code that draws the drawing — and a description. Set Current, New, Modify, Rename and Delete, also on the list’s right-click menu. A style opens on AutoCAD’s tabs with the preview beside them, following every change:

• Lines — dimension and extension line colours, lineweight, how far extension lines run past the dimension line and how far they stand off the object.
• Symbols and Arrows — the arrowhead (shown as it draws), its size and colour; leaders use them too.
• Text — height, colour, above the line or centred on it.
• Fit — what moves outside when the text does not fit, and where moved text goes.
• Primary Units — decimal places, the decimal separator, leading and trailing zeros.

New dimensions, leaders and tolerance frames are drawn in the current style, which is saved with the drawing and in DXF. At the command line, -DIMSTYLE [Save/Restore/STatus/?] and the dimension variables (DIMTXT, DIMASZ, DIMDEC, DIMDSEP, DIMZIN, DIMTMOVE, DIMCLRD and the rest) set up a drawing’s dimensions from a script.

Dimensions placed and moved as AutoCAD does (#56)

• DIMLINEAR decides horizontal or vertical from where you put the dimension line — above or below the points it measures across them, beside them it measures up — and the preview turns as the cursor goes round. Horizontal, Vertical and Rotated fix the angle; Text and Mtext type the text (<> stands for the measurement); Enter at the first prompt selects a line, a polyline segment, an arc or a circle.
• DIMANGULAR takes two lines, an arc, a circle or three points, puts the arc where you click and dimensions the angle that point stands in — reflex angles included — with Quadrant to choose the angle apart from the arc’s place.
• Moving the text: drag a linear or aligned dimension’s text and its dimension line comes with it, the text sliding along between the extension lines or out beside them. Radius and diameter text stands where you place it — outside the circle on a leader with a short landing and a centre mark, inside it on the line, broken around the text — and dragging it swings the leader round the circle. Angular text slides along its arc.
• DIMRADIUS, DIMDIAMETER, DIMJOGGED, DIMORDINATE and DIMARC take Mtext / Text too, and ROTATE and MIRROR now turn a dimension’s own angle with it.

Polylines with widths (#37, #36, #52)

PLINE’s Width and Halfwidth, in line and arc mode, with tapers; RECTANG’s Width, Elevation and Thickness; PEDIT’s Width for the whole polyline or one segment. A wide polyline is drawn as a filled band, picked anywhere on it, carried by every edit command and saved in DXF. FILL shows or hides the bands. DONUT makes a real polyline.

Snaps and tracking (#66, #64)

Type END, MID, CEN, INT, TAN, PER, EXT and the rest at a point prompt for that pick alone (Shift + right-click opens the menu), with FROM, M2P, TT and TK. Polar tracking draws the alignment paths at the polar angles with the tooltip and locks the cursor onto them; object snap tracking acquires points and tracks from them; Shift + A / X / Q / E / V / C override the modes for a moment. OFFSET offsets construction lines, ellipses and splines, its result following the cursor (#50).

For scripts and pipelines

musacad --check drawing.musa now checks the text as well (#80): letters over letters, letters outside the frame (--window, or the drawing’s largest rectangle), characters the font has no glyph for, and with --lines lines through letters. --json prints the report for a program, and the exit code is 4 when there is a problem. The stroke font gained the em dash, the multiplication sign, omega and the micro sign (#79).

Updates, on Flathub, OPTIONS

flatpak install flathub org.musacad.MusaCAD. Once a day Musa CAD asks where it was installed from whether there is a newer version and says so in the status bar; Windows installs update in place. OPTIONS holds the update check and the performance overlay.

The full list is in CHANGELOG.md.