Re: [femm] New beta version

[dcm3c@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 3/8/01 6:53:57 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
djsquires@xxxxxxxx writes:

> I would like to recommend a few minor changes to FEMM
> that will help speed up simulation setup, and analysis. 
> These are simple changes that can have a big impact.

Thanks for these suggestions; you've picked up some cases where I wasn't 
seeing the forest for the trees....

> 1. Do not reset the grid size when reloading or opening new
>     files. I would like to set it and have it remain at what I set
>     it to from then on.
> 2. Set the default to "snap grid" when first starting up the
>     simulator or femmview. I have no occasion to NOT use
>     snap-to-grid when I am drawing shapes or drawing line
>     integral contours.

I really need to make some sort of "Preferences" menu that makes these 
behaviors user-specified.  This is pretty straightforward.

> 3. Do not reset the window size when reloading or opening
>     new files.  If I have set it to full screen I want it to stay
>     that way.

This one is sort of annoying, and I don't exactly know why it does this 
sometimes--I think it's part of the standard CView implemenation.  Anyhow, 
I'll try to sort this out.

> 4. Couple the + and - zoom screen buttons to the numeric
>     keypad + and - as hot keys and also the arrow keys to
>     the on screen arrows for hot key panning.

I should have done this a long time ago--thanks for pointing it out.  I put 
it in this morning, and it took exactly one line of code to add in the 
functionality for each key.  I've also mapped page up and page down to zoom 
in and zoom out, as well as the 'home' key to 'zoom natural.'

> 5. In FEMM view allow interrupt of panning or zooming so we
>     can zoom in quickly to set up line integral contours fast
>     without having to wait for the screen redraw to finish. This
>     would be very helpful for larger simulations. Interrupt can
>     be esc or just click the arrow button or press the arrow
>     key to stop redraw and increment to the new position.

This one could be a bit more subtle.  I'll have to think about how or if I 
want do to this.  A better solution might be just to rethink the way that I 
draw the screen to try to speed up the algorithm to the point where the 
rendering of flux lines and density plots it isn't irritating for large 
models.

Anyhow, thanks again.

Dave Meeker
--
http://members.aol.com/dcm3c