[ANNOUNCEMENT] Eighth release of PythonCAD now available

[Art Haas <ahaas airmail net>]

I'd like to announce the eighth development release of PythonCAD,
a CAD package for open-source software users. As the name implies,
PythonCAD is written entirely in Python. The goal of this project is
to create a fully scriptable drafting program that will match and eventually
exceed features found in commercial CAD software. PythonCAD is released
under the GNU Public License (GPL).

PythonCAD requires Python 2.2. The interface is GTK 2.0 based,
and uses the PyGTK module for interfacing to GTK. The design of
PythonCAD is built around the idea of separating the interface
from the back end as much as possible. By doing this, it is hoped
that both GNOME and KDE interfaces can be added to PythonCAD through
usage of the appropriate Python module. Addition of other interfaces
will depend on the availability of a Python module for that particular
interface and developer interest and action.

The eighth release features improved preference controls. There is now
a unified preference dialog box for setting drawing preferences, and
more optional settings are now possible. Setting the background color
of the drawing window is now available, and many dimension entity settings
have been added, such as dimension bar color, dimension endpoint marker
size, and dimension text color. The new preference dialog also allows
for the setting of leader line arrow sizes and font color. Another
new feature in this release is a tool for drawing polygons. The polygons
can have any number of sides from three on up.

A number of internal code improvements are included in this release as well.
The intersection code has been reworked again to return entity intersections
as tuples containing float values. This release also has the beginnings
of the rework of internal storage and handling of the user preferences
and options. This work will continue for the next several releases at
least. There are the usual assortment of bug fixes, documentation additions,
and code improvements as well.

The new preference dialog does have a display bug when showing the font
selection widget. I haven't figured out what is wrong, but opted to make
the release with the bug present. A simple workaround is to select another
option to modify so the font display widget gets removed, then reselect
the option with the font display widget. This workaround will usually
make the widget display itself properly. The next release should have
this bug removed.

The mailing list for the development and use of PythonCAD is available.
Visit the following page for information about subscribing and viewing
the mailing list archive:

http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pythoncad

I'd like to again publicly acknowledge and thank the developers and
maintainers of PyChecker for the work they've done in developing this
most useful tool. PyChecker is an effective tool for identifying errors
in Python code, and I've been using it more and more. PyChecker gets a
big recommendation from me and so I say thank you to the people who make
it available.

http://pychecker.sourceforge.net/

Visit the PythonCAD web site for more information about what PythonCAD
does and aims to be:

http://www.pythoncad.org/

Come and join me in developing PythonCAD into a world class drafting
program!

Art Haas
-- 
Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities
the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind.

-Thomas Jefferson to James Smith, 1822