Draw Line Tab not going in direction I want

[NectarDesign]

I've been using Chief Architect Pro for a few years and all of a sudden when I draw a line in a direction, say straight up, then tab to put in its length, the line ends up in a totally different direction then where I dragged it. I recently switched to a new computer and also upgraded to x10, so there is a good chance I've lost a setting that was on an old program or my old computer. I just don't know where to start... probably something simple...

Thanks all,

Jennifer

[Kbird1]

seems to be working fine here ,straight up looks like this for me when I tab it.....

[Chopsaw]

Yes I have noticed that but not sent it in.  If you are not using the "Polar" option as is shown in Mick's post chief often does not highlight  the correct plane for direct entry.  X seems to be the default and Y does not register.  Is that what you are seeing ?

I think you may be correct that is used to work in previous versions.  If you can confirm that I would be glad to send it in.

[NectarDesign]

I think your right Chopsaw, Here's a screen shot to help. When I draw a line, and then tab, I put in 20' for all the lines. If I placed the 20' into the Y coordinate it sometimes went in the  general direction I wanted, but wasn't a 20' line. I dimensioned them all so you could see.

[Chopsaw]

Ok I see that it is working for X and Y inputs.  However It looks like you should be using the Polar setting for inputting random angles. Otherwise you would need to set the X and Y coordinates of the new end point and not just the length at an established angle.

 

Does your setup highlight the Y value when you start to draw a line horizontally?

[NectarDesign]

Yep... I swear I tried the polar option and it didn't work for me... but of course now it's working perfect. Thank you.

 

But to further your question, when I'm in the line draw function while drawing a line horizontally, it highlights the X coordinate first, then I just tab again to get the y coordinate input area

[Chopsaw]

Ok great, that would be nice if it was automatic but hitting tab a second time seems to work fine.  Thanks.

[glennw]

57 minutes ago, NectarDesign said:

I think your right Chopsaw, Here's a screen shot to help. When I draw a line, and then tab, I put in 20' for all the lines. If I placed the 20' into the Y coordinate it sometimes went in the  general direction I wanted, but wasn't a 20' line. I dimensioned them all so you could see.

 

 

When you input x and y coordinates without Polar checked, you are not entering line lengths you are entering x and y offsets from the start of the line.

ie, you are telling Chief that the endpoint of the line is so many units in the x direction and so many units in the y direction from the start of the line.

So that if you go x=20 and y=20, the line will be at 45deg and 28.284 units long.

 

If you want to enter line length (Distance) and angle, you need to check Polar.

 

Or, you can use Polar unchecked and have a line go horizontal by entering the line length in x and enter zero in y - this tells Chief that the line end is offset by the line length in the x direction and a zero offset in the y direction.

 

You are better off using Polar though - less confusion when the direction is not 0, 90, 180 or 360.