What is MacDraft 1.x?

For those of you singing the praises of MacDraw, here is a new program that does things that MacDraw just can't do: MacDraft.

MacDraft allows up to tour document windows open concurrently, with full cut and paste capabilities between the documents. Objects can be drawn to scale, and if you copy an object between two windows with different scales, it will be resized to conform to the scale of the receiving window. Up to 16 different scales are available, with the scale of a document changeable at any point during a work session, A show size command interactively displays the size (to within 1/100 of an inch), to scale, of any element that can be drawn, and also the angle of displacement from the horizontal plane (for lines). Objects can also be rotated in 1 degree increments, and the degree of rotation is displayed interactively (updates itself as the rotation occurs). Architects and mechanical engineers, take note: MacDraft will also generate dimension lines (used to indicate the size of a plane),

MacDraft generates flexible arcs that can be defined by entering three axis points or by specifying a radius. Circles can be generated from arcs, and vice versa. The familiar resizing handles of an element can be split in two, if you need a handle where there is none.

Unlike the fixed restraint grid in MacDraw ; MacDraft allows variable grid sizing, and the grid can temporarily be disabled by pressing the command key. Very convenient, indeed. The program’s most interesting capability is that you can zoom so close that the screen will go into FatBits, Drawing in FatBits in an object oriented program is a dream come true!

So is this program perfect? Not quite. In testing MacDraft, we discovered that the program was not fully optimized for the LaserWriter. Rotated objects don't quite print as expected, probably due to the complexity of interfacing QuickDraw to PostScript, the LaserWriter s resident language. Grouped objects can’t be stretched. Serious problem. MacDraft also can’t open MacDraw documents, which is inconvenient. This is a good program that needs a bit more work.

Biedny, David. (December 1985). MacDraft. MacUser. (pg. 36).

Download MacDraft 1.x for Mac

Architecture

Motorola 68K

System Requirements

From Mac OS 1.0 up to Mac OS 9.2

Compatibility notes

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Mini vMac