Nabble - Suggestions & Feedback

Re: Black Background and white lines

2026-03-01T07:43:43Z

You can change the background color.

navigate to Options > Application Preferences, select the Appearance tab, and change the Background color under the "Graphic Colors" section.

Vonzipper wrote

I have some old Autocad Lite drawings and I brought up one in LibreCAD that has an all black background and white lines and figures. Is there a way to reverse this and make it a white background and black lines and figures?

Black Background and white lines

2026-03-01T06:16:28Z

I have some old Autocad Lite drawings and I brought up one in LibreCAD that has an all black background and white lines and figures. Is there a way to reverse this and make it a white background and black lines and figures?

Re: Noun / verb vs. verb / noun

2026-02-26T03:50:52Z

well, under the active development it might be that things changes.

Which version of LibreCAD do you use?

As of 2.2.2-alpha:

As far as I can see - the right command for the "offset" - it's still "offset" or "modoffset" (or short form - "mo" or "moff"). If you prefer using other command - please edit commands aliases file.

Please report what is broken specifically in command line.

Regarding selection of entity - that's common case indeed. When offset is invoked (as well as some other commands) - if there are selected entities, the command will be applied to them. If it's invoked via context popup menu on the entity - the offset is applied to that entity.

In other cases - the user is prompted to select entities first to which the command will be applied.

Actually, I don't see something unusual with with such behavior - it's consistent with other commands.

What may be improved as I can see - is staying in the entity selection mode after applying the command. That will let the user to apply the offset on several entities easier - I'll change this.

P.S - for some commands, the command line might be not the most optimal tool, as such commands rely on mouse and so they can't be performed fully via command line. In such cases, I suppose specifying command's options via "Tool Options" toolbar is more productive than switching back to the command line. Plus, at least as of today, for some commands, the "Tool Options" supports more command' parameters than are available via command line.

Re: Noun / verb vs. verb / noun

2026-02-25T15:08:05Z

Most actions should still support "verb noun": 1. start a command; 2. select entities to work on.

Please report an issue, if changes are needed for a particular action.

"Offset" is one area to improve for sure. Ideally, offset should work for ellipses/hyperbolae/parabolae, and further on any continuous contours. It's a little bit complex to reach those goals though.

Limited development time is major constraint here.

SteveIn44444 wrote

I have been using LibreCAD for a year or so. Once I adjusted (I'm a previous autocad user) I found it to be pretty good overall. Can't beat the price! Recently, I downloaded the latest release for my new pc and found some changes. I notice that some commands now operate in reverse of what they did previously. Offset is an example. First, the command line is broken for entering this command without the menu, which is important to anyone that has significant history with 2d cad. Second, it now requires that you select an entity to offset before the command is activated (noun verb, and it was previously verb noun). This is a mistake that hurts productivity. When you can select the command first (and enter a new offset value on the command line as needed, which is now also broken) it allows the ability to continue selecting entities on the fly, which is much faster than having to exit the command each time, select an entity, and then re-enter the command. I hope to see you revert to the old behavior in the future.

Noun / verb vs. verb / noun

2026-02-25T13:23:52Z

CONTENTS DELETED

The author has deleted this message.

Re: Erro de português

2026-01-13T09:09:26Z

So the correct translation is
"Criar a partir do modelo", instead of

Novo à partir do modelo

I have manually updated the translation, but the proper way is still to update at weblate:

https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/librecad/librecad/

PS: it appears that weblate translation is locked anyway.

Paulo Roberto dos Santos wrote

Uso a versão em português e quando vou em arquivo, a opção "Novo à partir do modelo" o "a" não é craseado.
Espero estar ajudando.
Obrigado.

Erro de português

2026-01-13T06:57:03Z

Uso a versão em português e quando vou em arquivo, a opção "Novo à partir do modelo" o "a" não é craseado.
Espero estar ajudando.
Obrigado.

Re: Suggestion about snaps

2025-12-08T14:02:02Z

Thank you so much dxli, great selfless work you do with Librecad!!!!

Re: Suggestion about snaps

2025-12-08T12:40:04Z

The current framework doesn't have support for angular snapping.

The issue has been discussed briefly once a while for many years.

The good news now is with the new action tweaks added by sand1024, there's finally a unified way to insert angular snapping with preview effects. We will see how long it takes to add this feature.

We already managed to add lots of features for 2.2.2, and angular snapping appears to be within reach to me.

Juan1966 wrote

Hello everyone, first of all, and as always, thank you to all the developers who make LibreCAD possible.

My suggestion concerns snaps, specifically the lack of a perpendicular snap.

It would be very useful, and it's something I miss when, for example, I'm creating a polyline and I want the next point to be perpendicular to an existing one. This is possible with individual lines, but not with polylines, and implementing a perpendicular snap would be a great help.

On another note, I think it would be a good idea to define the different types of snaps with different on-screen markers, similar to AutoCAD, or simply display the snap type in text next to each one.

Thank you very much for your effort. I understand that the workload is significant and not all suggestions can be implemented, but I believe this would improve the LibreCAD user experience.

Suggestion about snaps

2025-12-08T11:41:01Z

Hello everyone, first of all, and as always, thank you to all the developers who make LibreCAD possible.

My suggestion concerns snaps, specifically the lack of a perpendicular snap.

It would be very useful, and it's something I miss when, for example, I'm creating a polyline and I want the next point to be perpendicular to an existing one. This is possible with individual lines, but not with polylines, and implementing a perpendicular snap would be a great help.

On another note, I think it would be a good idea to define the different types of snaps with different on-screen markers, similar to AutoCAD, or simply display the snap type in text next to each one.

Thank you very much for your effort. I understand that the workload is significant and not all suggestions can be implemented, but I believe this would improve the LibreCAD user experience.

Re: Ventana del historico de comandos

2025-11-10T13:43:05Z

OK.
Gracias

Re: Ventana del historico de comandos

2025-11-10T13:05:58Z

hm.... yes, it seems in 2.2.1 there were issues with this....
basically, you can try to check development snapshot (2.2.2-alpha version under development, not in production yet).
it's located there - https://github.com/LibreCAD/LibreCAD/releases/tag/2.2.2_alpha-latest

Here this issue seems to be fixed.

Re: Ventana del historico de comandos

2025-11-10T12:13:01Z

Re: Ventana del historico de comandos

2025-11-10T09:48:02Z

Hola
Creo que no , cuando la ventana del historico CMD la tenemos situada en la zona inferior de la pantalla, se puede ampliar y reducir su amplitud hasta un minimo en el que ya no se puede mas, y aun poniendola al minimo, ocupa demasiado espacio, incluso se podria poner la opcion de eliminar la ventana del historico cmd y dejar solo la ventana de comandos
Gracias por tu atencion

Re: Ventana del historico de comandos

2025-11-10T07:20:10Z

hm..?? The size of cmd widget as well as other ones may be changed as needed.

Ventana del historico de comandos

2025-11-09T09:48:32Z

Sugiero que esta ventana deberia poder ajustarse un tamaño menor para ganar espacio activo de dibujo

Re: Feature request: The dark mode ...

2025-10-03T01:55:51Z

Isegrimm_666 wrote

Is there already a downloadable Iconset?

Nope, yet you may just download sources and all icons are stored in separate directory there (in svg format).

So you can either just specify custom colors replacement for icons that are currently used, or you can provide your own icons if you wish.

More information about custom colors and styling is there:
https://github.com/LibreCAD/LibreCAD/pull/2078

Re: Feature request: The dark mode ...

2025-10-03T00:28:54Z

Hi ...

Thanks :)

Looks good :)

That gives me a lot of possibilities. I've now downloaded the AppImage (2.2.2.) for Linux and am trying to adjust the saving paths.

Is there already a downloadable Iconset?

Re: Feature request: The dark mode ...

2025-10-02T22:04:17Z

first, please always refer to the version of librecad you use.

in 2.2.2 (alpha branch, located there https://github.com/LibreCAD/LibreCAD/releases/tag/2.2.2_alpha-latest)
1) custom colored icons are supported, the overall support of dark theme - most probably will be added later. Demo https://youtu.be/mbYkwPAdKJU
2) well, that's interesting request, yet here we're also limited by underling drawing format - DXF. I'll think what may be achieved there.
3) Check the Layer Tree widget in 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 - a bit outdated demo is there - https://youtu.be/kFLRBU7FSCA

Feature request: The dark mode ...

2025-09-30T02:08:01Z

Hi ...

I've only been using LibreCAD for a short time ... and I'm totally thrilled. For me as a CAD newbie, I'm already seeing real success after a short time ... so thank you for your work.

But I would have some suggestions for a later version, if you don't mind.

-----

1. The "dark mode - Icons"

I prefer to use the “dark mode” in Linux and unfortunately have to realize that the icons in dark mode are not entirely advantageous. On the net - and also here in the forum - the exchange with a self-made icon set was recommended, but these are also not without complications.

The only solution that works here is to change the theme in Linux from “dark” to “light”, as libreCAD follows these settings.

But always changing the theme in the OS cannot be the solution.

Feature request:
Would it be possible to establish the dark mode with suitable settings, i.e. switchable, or to include an icon theme that is also easily recognizable in dark mode?

-----

2. pen vs. print:

As written above, I like to use the dark mode. That's why I mainly use light colors on the drawing layer (cyan, yellow, green, etc.).

If I then switch to the print view, these colors are retained ... which is of course critical on white paper.

Here, too, there is a workaround: always switch to monochrome in the printer menu before printing. But then all colors are black (or grey).

Feature Request:

It would be nice if a print color could be specified when selecting a color in the layer properties. This would allow me to draw pipes in yellow in dark mode, for example, but they would then be red or black in the printout and therefore easily recognizable.

Alternatively, I would have to change each layer color separately before printing, which is of course also inconvenient.

-----

3. Groupings

I use some layers as construction layers, e.g. a layer containing a frame in sheet format, one with the plan frame and the title, etc.

I would like to group these layers together to create a better overview.

Feature Request:

Create the option to group layers together.

Re: Feature request : Password for hidden layers

2025-08-26T00:25:08Z

Welcome adhikayev!

This feature is missing for a good reason. Because the format LibreCAD drawings are based on, DXF, which is basically the open format for drawing exchange, does not support it.
Also, DXF is usually a human readable ASCII file. With a little reading in the references it will be possible to bypass this protection easily. To prohibit this manipulation the feature will need encryption, which makes it much more complex.

So to achieve this feature it will probably need some incompatible hacks with DXF which might make drawings not readable with other CAD software. Making LibreCAD drawings exclusive is not our intention and basically not the idea behind free software.

When no other CAD software has this feature, I'd suspect that there is no need for it.
CAD software for games or disaster management also sounds like abuse to me. There are probably better platforms than LibreCAD for these tasks.

Armin

^{investing less than half an hour into Search function can save hours or days of waiting for a solution}

Feature request : Password for hidden layers

2025-08-25T21:06:02Z

This probably might not be too important, but it may increase the popularity and utility of LibreCAD. No other CAD application (or even any drawing software) has this feature.

Might it be possible to add a password feature to layers as such that to show a hidden layer, a user must input a password specific to that layer?

This will be of immense use for people who require a drawing platform for double blind simulations (such as disaster management training) and games (such as Harpoon, Star Fleet Battles and D&D). One or several layers will be accessible to a certain group of players/users, while another set of layers will be accessible to another group. So groups of people will only be able to see objects available to them (based on knowledge of layer passwords).

Thank you

Re: Merge of arcs creates circles

2025-08-20T14:04:33Z

The circles in your drawing are constructed as semicircle ARC entities.

So the easiest way is to create a new layer for easy separation.
Then use Snap to Center, which will snap to the center of the arcs and create circles with the Circle/Radius tool.
The circles will exactly overlap the semicircles.
When all circles are created, make the circle layer invisible to delete the semicircles. If needed, move the circles from the new layer to their destination layer.

A separate tool for this would not be more efficient than the described workflow. It might even need some more steps to select and convert the arcs.
It will also be error prone when the composed circle is inaccurate with gaps, more than 2 arcs or diverting radii.

Armin

^{investing less than half an hour into Search function can save hours or days of waiting for a solution}

Re: Merge of arcs creates circles

2025-08-20T07:35:54Z

SKRINE_KONTEJNER.dxf

Re: Feature request: Layers management

2025-08-15T07:56:32Z

yes, Layers Tree is quite atrificially, as there is no native support of layers hierarchy in DXF (that is coming from AutoCAD).

Therefore, that tree is built based on layers naming convention - and relies on some layers hierarchy separator.

By default, that separator is "-" - and that's the reason why layer names were parsed as tree.

If "-" has some specific meaining - you may always change separator in settings for Layer Tree Widget (the button with gear icon in the right top cornder of the widget).

Also, Layer Tree widget also supports flat mode (switched by appropriate button in it's toolbar) - in that mode, its similar to layer list.

For sure, 2 widgets for layers management may be overkill - yet Layer List was there rather for historical and backward compability reasons.

Re: Merge of arcs creates circles

2025-08-15T07:24:12Z

well, in 2.2.2 alpha release we have similar functionality - the command is "Circle -> By Arc".

I'm not sure whether it's available in 2.2.1, however.

With that command, the scenario is as follows:

1) Delete some arc (from 2 arcs circle)
2) invoke that command
3) make sure that the following settings are set (in Action's options toolbar) : Replace Arc - checked, Radius Shift = 0. As for setting pen and layer - that's up to you, where created circles will be located.
4) apply that command by selecting remaining arc.

After this operation, you may delete 1 arc for each place where your circle is represented by 2 arcs.

After that, select remaining arcs (as "By Arc" command handles not only single arc, but also entities, that are selected at the actions' invocation).

Invoke the command - and that's it.

You can find alpha build for 2.2.2 here:

https://github.com/LibreCAD/LibreCAD/releases/tag/2.2.2_alpha-latest

P.S merging arcs may be also interesting options - yet here we have to be sure that their coordinates are without gaps.

Could you please share a sample DXF with such representation of circles by arcs?

Merge of arcs creates circles

2025-08-15T06:55:22Z

I am using LibreCAD for preparation of CAD files for software Vectric for generating of CNC codes.
So that I could use drilling processes I need all circles to be defined as circle. Nevertheless some CAD files generated by designer represent circle by two arc which has the geomtry of the circle together. Unfortunately I do not know any way how to merge them into cyrcle. I just managed to merge them to polyline which does not work for Vectric. So I suggest to add function which merge all selected arcs with suitable geometry to circles.

Re: Feature request: Layers management

2025-08-13T09:45:18Z

DmitryArchitect wrote

...
Ok, so as I see it, the Layer List is unnecessary, because you can get more information from Layer Tree.
...

I'm just getting started with LibreCad, using dxf2gcode to generate code for CNC mill. dxf2gcode uses suffixes to layer name for mill parameters (milling depth etc) but Layer Tree breaks these parameters up, loses minus-signs, and displays part as a modified name field and the rest as a sub-layer name. This makes it misleading to read and almost impossible to edit in Layer Tree as required for dxf2gcode. The simple edit box in Layer List works fine. Practical issue is that from my very limited tests some of the useful features of dxf2gcode - 'BREAKS:' layer to make milling tabs, for instance - seem to work much more simply and reliably when the associated mill parameters are embedded in the layer name line.

I too would prefer a single common interface rather than two slightly different ways of doing the same thing, but for this particular usage I definitely need the Layer List type editing.

Feature request: title bars for Toolbars

2025-07-20T12:03:57Z

Would be good to have title bars for Toolbars, so you can see the title of a Toolbar when it is floating, because there are a lot of Toolbars and it's quite difficult to tell what is what unless you turn on and off them one by one. It would be much easier to be able just to read the title.

Question / feature request: Function keys in librecad.alias

2025-07-20T11:58:15Z

Is it possible to assign a Function key to a command in a librecad.alias?
If not, then it would be useful for AutoCAD users to have an option to assign F8 key to "Restrict Orthogonal" command and F3 key to turn on and turn off Snaps.

Question / feature request: Line width

2025-07-20T11:36:51Z

I don't understand why a Line Width is limited to 2.11 mm. Why can't I draw a 5 mm line? Doesn't make much sense to me.

Feature request: Layers management

2025-07-20T11:26:16Z

So, now we have Layer List and Layer Tree.
And almost like with Properties and Attributes of objects, we have some duplications and some different behavior, which is strange.

I mean that both windows show almost the same information:
Visibility
Lock
Printable
Construction
Color
Name

The difference is that in Layer Tree you can arrange them in a tree structure.
And another difference is that if you right-click a layer and choose Edit Layer Attributes in a Layer List and in a Layer Tree, you will have different windows! Amazing. Why?

Ok, so as I see it, the Layer List is unnecessary, because you can get more information from Layer Tree.

And speaking of the windows itself, they are not very usable, because there is not enough information and you can't change the parameters easily.

So, what would I suggest to do?

1) There should be more parameters in that list/tree. All the parameters from "Edit Layer Attributes" should be in a list/tree.
Width, Line type.
2) The parameters should be editable in drop-downs or something like that, you shouldn't have to right-click every time.
3) If there is a tree, it is logical to have objects in that tree and to be able to expand the layer to see all the objects it contains.
4) Now you can try to grab a layer and to move it in a Layer Tree, but it doesn't really move anywhere. So it would be good to be able to move layers to change their order.
5) It's great that there is an option to move an object to a layer by simply select an object and click on a layer, but I would add a button like "Move selected objects to a layer" to make it more obvious
6) As I wrote in another topic, would be great to add Layer to a Pen tool or to make a separate one-line toolbar with a Layer drop-down. To be able to change the layer of an object just by selecting it from a drop-down.

Bug report / feature request: Properties and Attributes and Pen

2025-07-20T09:39:40Z

I don't quite understand the concept of Properties and Attributes as they are implemented in LibreCAD. Let me explain.

In Properties we have:
Layer
Color
Width
Line type
Coordinates of points defining geometry

In Attributes we have:
Layer
Color
Width
Line type

When you have multiple items selected and change something in Properties window, only 1 item is changed (I believe that the last selected) (And actually I see at as a bug because if you allow user to do something with many items selected, user thinks that the operation would be applied to all of them. So either allow the operation to be applied to all selected or don't allow the operation when there are more then 1 item selected.)

When you have multiple items selected and change something in Attributes window, all selected items are changed.

So, basically we have duplicated tools with slightly different functions. And Attributes is much more powerful, because you can select half of the drawing and change its properties/attributes in one click.

And where do we have this powerful tool? Right, only in Tools -> Modify -> Attributes. No right click, no docked window. By the way, we don't have a docked window for Properties either, and this is another problem.

And also we have Pen toolbar, where we have:
Color
Width
Line type

That Pen, by the way, doesn't change anything in selected items until you press "Apply Pen to Entity" button and then click on selected items, which is also very strange and unusual. And I would make it to apply the changes to selected items immediately, without any unnecessary buttons and clicks.
Well, additional button to "paint" items with selected properties is useful, but if you have already selected everything you want to be changed, then it doesn't make sense to make some more clicks.

So we basically have those functions not doubled, but tripled.

And all that mess doesn't help you in a workflow, because you want to be able to see and change properties/attributes of different objects easily, and not by right-clicking on every single line (from several hundreds).

So, how should it be organized in my opinion?

It is really convenient to have information about properties/attributes in 1 line as it is made in Pen toolbar, but you can't place all the information there.

So there should be 2 places.
1) 1-line toolbar like Pen, but containing more information then now:
Layer. And some tools to manage that shown layer (turn on and off at least)
Color
Line width
Line type

And this tool should immediately change the properties and move objects to the selected layer.

Or, probably, if you don't want to combine properties with layers, you should add separate 1-line drop-down tool for layers.

2) Dockable window, containing all the information about an item:
Geometry type (line, circle, spline etc.)
Layer. And some tools to manage that shown layer (turn on and off at least)
Color
Line width
Line type
Coordinates of points defining geometry
Some selection filters. (To select the items with some properties (geometry type, colors, layers
etc.))

And both those tools 1) and 2) should be able to affect all selected items (not like current Properties) and to move items between layers.

And if there are different attributes in the selection set (for example you have red and green lines selected), just show "varies", and then if user chooses "blue" from drop-down, the lines become blue.

Bug report: Properties window

2025-07-19T14:31:28Z

If you right-click on a line and choose Edit Properties, then everything is fine.
But if you right-click on a circle and choose Edit Properties, then the Properties window is slightly strange - Pen properties (Color, Width, Line type) are quite narrow and text there is almost unreadable. Well, yes, you can enlarge the window, but nevertheless. And, by the way, Line Properties window could be reduced only to the minimum acceptable and readable sizes of all fields, but Circle Properties window, and especially Ellipse Properties window could be reduced to the 1-pixel size of text. Looks funny, but I believe that it shouldn't be like that.

My configuration:

LibreCAD, from "About" section:
LibreCAD 2.2.1.1
Compiler: GNU GCC 14.2.0
Qt Version: 5.15.15
Boost Version: 1.80.0

Flatpak version

My system:
AlmaLinux 9.6
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.11
KDE Framework Version: 5.115.0
Qt Version: 5.15.9
Kernel Version: 5.14.0
Graphics Platform: X11

NVidia graphics driver

Feature request: option for dockers' tabs

2025-07-19T14:16:26Z

If you place docked widgets on top of each other, then there appear tabs representing them, like in other software. But why are they under the dockers and not above it? It looks rather unusual. Would be great to have an option to switch their position between bottom and top. I believe many people are accustomed to have tabs on top of a window.