GNOME 3590 Published by

The seventeenth development release of PythonCAD, a CAD package for open-source software users, is now available.



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 or Python 2.3. 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 seventeenth releases of PythonCAD can print! This release includes the ability of the program to generate a PostScript file that can either be sent to a printer or saved directly to a file. Printing support is not entirely complete however, and will be enhanced over the next several release. This release also includes improvements in the user interface for changing existing drawing entities, especially text and dimensions. There have been numerous improvements made to the code for these entities as well, and subsequent releases will continue this effort. This release also includes a restructured code layout that should make PythonCAD less likely to cause unexpected interactions with other Python based programs like Zope. Finally, various improvements in the undo/redo code, plus a good number of bug fixes, are included in this release.
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