Musa CAD 0.8.0

The drawing-content release: draw order, transparency on single objects and ByBlock; multilines, spline-fit polylines and splines that keep their fit points; associative hatches and dimensions; multileaders with styles; the Block Editor; data links and fields; plot preview and PUBLISH; and Express Tools from TEXTMASK to BLOCKREPLACE.

Linux first. The Linux AppImage and the Flatpak bundle ship with the tag (the macOS disk image too, the command line only). The Windows installer follows once it has been verified on real Windows hardware, added to this same release; a v0.7.0 installation then updates to it from the Update window.

If you are coming from v0.7.0, the native format moved from v39 to v45 (multilines, a fitted polyline’s frame, a spline’s fit points, a multileader’s style, the draw order, an object’s own transparency and ByBlock): v0.7.0 files open unchanged, files saved by v0.8.0 need v0.8.0 or newer.

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Draw order, transparency and ByBlock (#55, #68, #69)

Every object has its place in the draw order: a new one goes over the rest, a copy over its source, an edit stays where it was. DRAWORDER (DR) brings objects to the front, sends them to the back, or puts them above or under others; TEXTTOFRONT and HATCHTOBACK do the same for the text, dimensions and leaders, or for the hatches. Fills, hatches, wipeouts and images hide what is under them, on screen and on paper.

An object’s own transparency (the Properties palette, CETRANSPARENCY) beside the layer’s, and ByBlock colour, linetype and lineweight: an object in a block drawn in the block reference’s. All of it is kept in the drawing and in DXF.

Drawing (#39, #40, #45, #52)

• MLINE, MLSTYLE and MLEDIT: multilines with their styles, caps, fill and joints; crosses, tees, corners, cuts and welds.
• PEDIT Spline makes a spline-fit polyline as AutoCAD does, keeping its frame for the grips, the vertex editor and Decurve; the vertex editor’s Tangent steers Fit.
• SPLINE keeps the fit points it was drawn through (grips on them, refitted as one moves), with start and end Tangency and toLerance; Object turns a spline-fit polyline into the same curve.
• WIPEOUT is an object of its own and reads and writes AutoCAD’s WIPEOUT in DXF; REVCLOUD Modify; point display (PDMODE, PDSIZE); isometric drafting.

Hatches (#41)

Associative hatches that follow their boundaries, AutoCAD’s standard patterns and .pat files, user-defined hatching, GRADIENT, the hatch gallery and swatches, -HATCH’s options, and HATCHEDIT — Properties, boundaries added and removed, the origin, recreated boundaries, separate hatches.

Dimensions (#58, #59, #60)

Associative dimensions that follow the objects they measure, DIMREASSOCIATE point by point and the dimension grip menus; the Dimension Style Manager’s Tolerances, alternate units, zero suppression and text placement; DIMBREAK, DIMJOGLINE, DIMINSPECT, and QDIM’s datumPoint and Edit.

Multileaders and leaders (#61)

MLEADER with MLEADERSTYLE (a style’s multileaders follow it), MLEADERALIGN, MLEADEREDIT and spline leaders; QLEADER as AutoCAD has it, with its settings.

Blocks and attributes (#75)

The Block Editor (BEDIT, BCLOSE, BSAVE), BLOCKREPLACE, ATTSYNC, BASE and drawings inserted as blocks, -INSERT’s options, block units, and attribute values kept by tag when a block is redefined.

Text, fields, tables and data (#43, #44, #62, #71)

MTEXT’s corner options and -MTEXT; the Field and Geometric Tolerance windows; data links to CSV and Excel workbooks (with Excel’s number formats), DATALINKUPDATE and UPDATEFIELD; DATAEXTRACTION and TABLEEXPORT.

Layers (#55, #69)

LAYERSTATE and the Layer States Manager (import and export of .las files), layer group and property filters, LAYERP, LAYMRG, LAYDEL and LAYWALK, layers that are not plotted, descriptions, transparency and the Plot Style column.

Output (#74, #81)

PREVIEW, EXPORTPDF and PUBLISH, the Page Setup Manager with a page setup for each layout, and plotting in inches.

Drafting aids and units (#54, #65, #81)

Dynamic Input’s pointer input and option list, DSETTINGS, GRID and LIMITS, grip dimensions and hot, shared and several grips; feet, inches and fractions at every prompt, and the drawing’s units in DXF.

The interface (#72, #73, #78)

The View Manager with view categories and boundaries, the navigation bar and the UCS icon; tool palettes, workspaces, keyboard shortcuts and command aliases of your own; the Quick Access Toolbar’s drop-down; ribbon tabs and panels shown or hidden, minimized, and searched.

Express Tools (#77)

TEXTMASK, TXTEXP, TCOUNT, TEXTFIT, BURST, GATTE, EXTRIM, NCOPY, MOCORO, FLATTEN, VPSYNC, VPSCALE, XLIST, ATTOUT and ATTIN, MPEDIT, DIMEX and DIMIM, TFRAMES.

Fixed

• JOIN chains into a polyline only ends that meet, and keeps every piece of the chain.
• A hatch’s Undo, PEDIT Multiple’s Undo and FILLET with wide polylines keep what they should.
• The Plot window and the Page Setup Manager list the page setups saved with the drawing.
• DIMCONTINUE and DIMBASELINE use DIMLAYER’s layer; LAYUNISO works after switching drawing tabs.
• Ctrl+C then Ctrl+V pastes what was just copied, whatever was on the clipboard before.

The full list is in CHANGELOG.md.