Easy Position and Size

[beeeno]

In the course of a drawing I draw hundreds of rectangles to specific sizes. The ideal for me would be dimension fields in the bottom bar which activate each time a rectangle or other shape is drawn so I can type in dimensions. One day maybe!
I can get to the Position and Size menu either by clicking the dimension numbers on the bottom bar, or to save my sore hand another click, press the F4 key. The cursor defaults to the 'X' field of Position settings. The irritation for me is that I have no use for X/Y settings, ever. I can use snap to grid, snap to object, copy/paste and slide and many other simpler methods than recalling X/Y parameters of different rectangles. Ideal for me would be a Size and Position menu, a reverse of the present one, so it defaulted to Size first.
I have extra buttons on my multifunction keyboard (an old Microsoft one) that I do not use. So using Microsoft's Intellitype program, Key Settings tab, I customised 2 keys with a macro, and labelled them Width and Height. Width is F4+Tab+Tab+Tab and Height, F4+Tab+Tab+Tab+Tab.
Now I just draw any old size rectangle, or copy and paste an existing one if it has a line style/fill I want to repeat, (my keyboard has copy/paste keys for extra ease), then press my Width or Height keys to put in a single dimension, or if I want both dimensions do Width first and tab key down to Height. Press Enter or Return to finish.
Using the keyboard for drawing a rectangle to a specific size I do not even need to look at the screen beyond the initial rectangle icon. If you suffer tendinitis from excessive button clicking, as I do, then anything which saves mouse clicks is a good thing, especially when the saving can add up to hundreds.

[acknak]

... The ideal for me would be dimension fields in the bottom bar which activate each time a rectangle or other shape is drawn so I can type in dimensions. One day maybe! ...

You can do this now, but you need the current version of OO. You can edit the height & width of a selected object directly in the sidebar.

[beeeno]

Thanks for the info! I just upgraded from, 4.1.0 to 4.1.1. Maybe it was there before? Anyhow no matter. Useful to know now. Downside for me maybe is that I lose 15% of my drawing area all the time I keep it open and available for when I draw a rectangle. I draw hundreds but not continuously, I do other things!
I have tried using the sidebar Position and Size fields and am experiencing bugs. I click the rectangle icon and draw the shape, and the correct sizes relative to the shape drawn show in the fields. Then I try to enter my own sizes to suit what I want and the fields fight back. The fields do not automatically highlight (as they would in the floating menu) so the data can be overwritten. When I delete the figures and start typing the field puts in its own size. I guess this is happening because having removed the figures the shape on screen goes down to its smallest size. It shows either 1.0mm or 0.01mm or 9.0mm. In trying to change these by typing in other numbers the fields mysteriously default to showing 99.99mm. I can try dragging the sides of the rectangle to amend its size and the fields stay showing 99.99mm each.
Could you try the sidebar menu to create a rectangle, ideally with your general settings set to metric, and see if you get the same weird happenings? The floating Position and Size menu I described when creating keyboard shortcuts to it, still works fine.

[Zizi64]

I just upgraded from, 4.1.0 to 4.1.1.

OpenOffice 3.0.1 on Windows XP Home

Please update your signature too.

[acknak]

... Could you try the sidebar menu... and see if you get the same weird happenings? ...

Yes, I see it also.

I don't use the sidebar, myself. I'm used to working without it and I don't see a lot of advantage in using it. I hoped it might help with what you wanted but it seems that it raises nearly as many problems as it solves.

I don't know if your rectangle sizes are predictable; if they are, you may be able to use a grid to allow setting the size easily by dragging. For example, if the sizes are always some number of millimeters, you could set a grid with one mm divisions, or something like that.

Also, if you decide to use the dialog window, you can save traversing the menu by double-clicking on the size as shown in the status bar.

Edit: PS:

If you're really determined to avoid the dialog window, you can create simple shapes using a text editor or spreadsheet. It means diving into the document's xml code but it's not terribly difficult if you've done any sort of coding.

[beeeno]

I will report a bug. The fields lack active highlighting and figures entered should only activate the geometric shape when moving to next field or submitting/pressing enter, as the floating menu does. Hence the strange behaviour.
Grid is helpful. But I also draw to scale, so complicating the process, especially at say 1:50, and often I am looking at full A3 sheet on screen, and cursor movement too tiny or grid too small to get to exact mm. Hence just easier to use my shortcut buttons with their macros to insert shape to size. One reason I need to get exact is because I add dimensions, and the dimension tool quotes the actual drawn dimension. So I need a shape to be say 90mm, not 89.98mm, or I have to keep editing the dimension tool size.
Not hot on coding although I have amended one xml file to make the zoom slider bigger and thus more controllable by a cursor, and the dimension box wider as it can clip off numbers if there are a lot, a bug I reported a long time ago.
Thanks for checking the sidebar problem for me. and your other suggestions.
(Slapped my wrists and updated my signature too!)

[Zizi64]

You can try the extension named MMOVE :
http://extensions.openoffice.org/en/project/mmove

[acknak]

... One reason I need to get exact is because I add dimensions, and the dimension tool quotes the actual drawn dimension. So I need a shape to be say 90mm, not 89.98mm, or I have to keep editing the dimension tool size. ...

I can only suggest that you be very careful to check the results you get from OO Draw. I wouldn't feel confident using it for any kind of professional technical drawing. It's not designed for that and I find that it's quite easy to get the wrong answer out of it; the scaling and dimensional aspects are especially primitive.

For example, people have reported working with a complex drawing according to a grid and eventually finding that items have shifted relative to each other and relative to the grid, and there's no easy way to fix it.

Did you know already? You can set a scale for a drawing and Draw will scale everything accordingly. With a scale 1:50, a 1 cm line (on the paper) will have a displayed length of 50 cm. Can save on some arithmetic. But again, I generally avoid using it because Draw sometimes seems not to restore the scale settings properly--I'm not sure it's trustworthy.

[beeeno]

First thanks to Zizi64 for suggesting MMove. I have loaded it and may be useful if I draw actual size. Unfortunately it does not work with scale. It is good that the menu is small, floats out of way, and remains on screen for sizing further shapes. The directional nudge is useful in that I do not need to remove my hand to use arrow on keyboard. Unfortunately the minimum nudge distance is not as small as can be achieved with Alt+arrow, which I use all the time.
Re: Scale. Yes after a few years playing with it, and experimenting with various settings I am no longer surprised by peculiar results. Safest scales for metric work are any that divide evenly into 10/100/1000. So 1:10 is very good, 1:5 or 1:20 or 1:50 also work, but the listed 1:30 should be removed. Presumably a math formula is used to create scale and you cannot divide 30 into 100, without getting lots of decimal places. I expect the 1:8 and 1:16 are listed for working in ft/inches, as they also throw up anomalies for metric m/mm use. I would expect the scaling option to be at its worst for anomalies if working in ft/inches.