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General CADD Pro Update
It has been just five months since the General CADD BBS/Forum
went on line and the first in-house beta was released. General CADD Pro
is now poised to become a legitimate successor to Generic CADD 6.1.5.
Jim Faliveno, Carl Ransdell, and Matt Brown, software
developers well known
to many Generic CADD users, assisted by some two dozen loyal beta testers,
will soon deliver a rebirth of my favorite program. Most design/drafting program
users will be delighted that Jim keeps pushing this important technology along.
Jim, Matt, and Carl have recently released beta 1.0.21 of the new
General CADD Pro program. I have been seriously involved and
like the way, the program is developing. It's more like Generic 6.1.5
than Visual CADD v4. It has the macro functions and even loads
archived Generic GCD's without requiring much editing. Even the
Generic style Side Menu and Custom Side Menus are now included.
Only a very few Generic CADD commands remain unsupported.
These, still missing, commands relate to Component Attributes,
Digitizer Support, and the Vector Font Revision, Creation Utility.
Jim tells me that these useful features will be added in future releases.
With the release of the 1.0.21 beta on May 10, 2002 this new
Windows 2D Design/Drafting program continues to undergo careful
beta testing prior to release. Early reports indicate that GCP has
improved upon Generic CADD 6.1.5 in many important ways:
Adds a utility that converts TrueType fonts into vector fonts.
A vector Text Editor is included plus a new Quick Edit command.
Imports GCD, DWG, DXF, EPS, AI, WMF, EMF, and HPGL files.
Exports files as Bitmaps plus the AutoCAD DWG & DXF formats.
Converts Generic CADD Fonts, Hatches, & Component files.
Unlimited number of components may be placed in a drawing.
Visual scaling and rotation of components "on the fly".
Number of layers have been increased from 256 to 1024.
Thumbnail image selector for loading drawings and placing components.
Provides 12 new device line type patterns for improved file compatibility.
Supplemented by 58 realworld line types used with the Line Scale command.
Drawing file size has been greatly reduced using self-compression.
The Generic style Batch File Macro Language is improved.
Optional Cursor Rotation setting matches the ortho angle.
All menus include the, easy to learn, 2-Letter mnemonic commands.
An auto-magical e-mail bug report utility has been added.
Typical Windows GUI Clipboard Commands and Pull-down Menus.
A few selected tool bar Command Buttons are available.
Tool bars and the side menus can be hidden to increase screen space.
Menu and list picks may be accessed by the new scroll mouse input devices.
Includes the ability to zoom in and out with a mouse scroll wheel.
The only negative comment heard to date is the security device requirement.
However, one tester tells us, that during several months of use with the GCP
betas,
the once dreaded Dongle has caused no problems at all.
The GCP beta demo is now readily available so it’s time to contact Jim,
support@generalcadd.com, and download your very own copy.
For more information click on our General CADD
Hot Link, or write to:
General CADD Products, Inc., 1 Railroad Avenue, Cherry Valley, NY 13320.
It’s very important that good, cost effective design/drafting programs
remain
available to those individuals that depend upon these tools to apply their
Craft.
If you once used Generic CADD, you will feel right at home working in GCP.