MacDraft Pro 6

Launching MacDraft Pro 6, the 2D Cad and architectural drawing application, is like opening a window on the past. At first glance, you could be forgiven for thinking you'd stumbled into a parallel universe in which MacDraw never left us. From the single bit tool icons to the dotted grid and huge ruler labels, it all looks very 20th century.

Despite the retro look and feel, MacDraft Pro clearly has something to offer the 2D technical drafting market. This is the 25th anniversary edition, and you don't get

to last that long without fulfilling the needs of users. Having said, the budget 2D technical illustration software might be said to be something of a niche market.

The primitive nature of MacDraft Pro's tools extends, to a certain degree, beyond their appearance, although they perform their limited functions well and it's possible to put together the bare bones of a drawing very quickly. Tools are arranged over three palettes, with basic drawing tools in one, 'accessories' - for extending and modifying existing objects - in another, and a third containing dimensioning tools.

Dimensioning is one of MacDraft Pro's strong suits. There's a good range of dimensioning tools, with imperial and metric formats following ANSI, BS, DIN, ISO and JIS standards. You can also define your own custom formats.

Although individual tools offer quite basic functionality, there are many options. Nearly all the tools have flyout variants and, providing you know what to use, you can nearly always produce the object of your desire. It may just take you some time to get there, as there are lots of niggling things about the interface that get in the way of productive working.

Take transforms, for example. There's a rotate 90˚ tool in the toolbox, but it only rotates a selected object counter - clockwise. Then there's a Mirror tool, although it's not on the Rotate tool flyout, or even next to it, but on the Accessories palette. The Mirror tool at least lets you click to define the reflect angle, but there's no copy option.

The Layers palette has been redesigned in this version, but only provides the most rudimentary features. You can rearrange layer order, toggle visibility and merge them, but you can't easily move or copy objects between layers, there are no layer groups and you can't control layer transparency. The workspace lacks the kinds of refinements most people have come to expect from software costing hundreds of pounds. For anything but the most basic projects, you soon end up with a large number of palettes cluttering the screen, with no means of minimizing or docking them. Instead of providing a tool options palette or placing frequently used functions on contextual menus, a large swathe at the top of the screen is wasted on big buttons for file housekeeping, grouping, selecting and arranging. And keyboard shortcuts, where they exist, are non-standard and unintuitive.

MacDraft Pro isn't without its strengths, though, which include an integrated database and reports generator that dynamically updates lists of components and costs, the ability to import and manipulate images from iPhoto, and support for the import and export of AutoCAD DWG and DXF files.

By: Francis David

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