Judge Posted June 2, 2017 Share Posted June 2, 2017 I have been using Xara for years as it's probably the fastest and easiest vector drawing programming there is. I have made a lot of my own symbols and found d others. I often wonder if I should get a proper lighting drawing npackage though. I have Capture Atlas and it does do good plans, but it is so much easier to grab and move and scale objects in Xara.I have friends who use LX Free and it's a great dedicated lighting plot program and as the name implies it is free. It runs s native on Mac but if you want to run it on PC then you need to have Java installed, and I just will not do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chelgrian Posted June 2, 2017 Share Posted June 2, 2017 I don't need 3D, I don't need it to do clever things with weights and equipment lists - just draw nice plans and label them! If you need 2D CAD then https://www.3ds.com/products-services/draftsight-cad-software/ is free for the standard version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alistermorton Posted June 2, 2017 Share Posted June 2, 2017 you need to have Java installed, and I just will not do that. OOI, why not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.elsbury Posted June 2, 2017 Share Posted June 2, 2017 Well, if he wants to be paranoid, no reason not to let him... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ANDYLASER Posted June 4, 2017 Share Posted June 4, 2017 Another vote for Visio if you are doing 2d drawings, schematics, plans and layouts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Judge Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 Well, if he wants to be paranoid, no reason not to let him... It is nothing to do with being paranoid and everything to do with not wanting to have an invasive, bloated bunch of software on my work machine that also happens to be a massive security risk.Lets look at that first. Java, Flash and Quicktime for Windows all present massive opportunities for attack vectors and unless you have a pressing need to use them then you shouldnt. QT has been dead in the water for some time and was never any good on Windows.Flash became a tool for invasive advertising and exploits a long time ago. Which is a shame as it used to be an excellent tool.Java and anything by Oracle makes me shudder. Its is constantly exploited so they have to constantly patch it. These patches do not install automatically, they have to be manually done, which requires you to download a massive update and then sit and wait while it installs, then restart your machine.Thats a hassle right? So people dont do it, and many are still running old versions and are open to threats. So I will not expose myself to online threats aby more than necessary and I certainly will not have an ugly badly behaved blob of software that has an enormous overhead in terms of memory, disk space and CPU usage installed on my system just so that I can run one small and simple program. Its a shame because LX Free is really very good indeed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alistermorton Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 I take your point about Flash and Quicktime, they tend to be used as attack vectors, especially when they're installed as browser plug ins. I'm not a great fan of java myself, although I do think its sometimes wrongly maligned. Java is patched regularly (same as Windows is, and OS X, and linux, and ...) although my machine tells me when the updates need to be applied, and I rarely need to reboot after updating. I don't install the java browser plug in, though; that's a different part of the java ecosystem, is often used as an attack vector, and is simply not needed to run desktop or server applications (we use java extensively at work to run server processes, for example). That's the bit that exposes you to online threats. I'm guessing you probably don't use an android phone for the same reasons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Judge Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 I think you have had better experience with it than me then. I ditched it several years ago and everything still works.So why was it installed in the first place? I cannot even remember but it started annoying me so I ditched it. Its good to have a cull of useless software now and then. So, like I said I see no point in having such an unwieldy framework installed just in order to run one app, which is tiny in comparison to the Java structure. I do have an Android phone and tablet. That software ecosystem has its problems perhaps, but I would rather deal with that than Apple - which is another story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alistermorton Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 I have the JRE (java run-time environment) installed, rather than the admittedly larger JDK (java development kit). I installed it because I occasionally need to run applications written in java (LX free is one of them). I have in the past installed the JDK because, as a software developer, I've dabbled in java. I find it overly verbose, but that's a different story. It does work, and work well. Any web page that tries to launch java will find it isn't 1998 any more and fall at the first hurdle. Android, of course, runs on java. See Oracle v Google passim. EDIT: Typos correction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dsharp7th Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 My preferred method for years has been Adobe Illustrator with the HotDoor CADtools plugin. I don't know anyone else who uses this method, but it does exactly what I need and it's great to work with wide area site plans, venue/stage plans, structures, branding, signage, and vector media assets all in one environment. It's reasonably good at importing CAD drawings, great at manipulating and generating compressed pdfs, and you can make plans look a lot 'nicer' for the non-technical, than AutoCAD can. A lovely feature is being able to work in millimetres or metres, but enter the odd dimension in feet and inches whenever dealing with marquees or steeldeck. Only 2D though, with some isometric drawing tools. Certainly not cheap from a standing start, but worth considering if you already have access to Adobe Creative Suite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted June 5, 2017 Author Share Posted June 5, 2017 I don't know this one - I'll have a hunt about for it. I tried one of the ones suggested above but it refuses to run on my mac for some reason, and the help system didn't actually help. A bolt on to illustrator could be ideal - leave it with me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 I'm not a great fan of java myself, although I do think its sometimes wrongly maligned. Java is a pain in the neck product. The theory was "write once, run everywhere", but as a developer friend of mine points out, it's more "write once, debug everywhere". Many applications only work with specific (or selected) versions of Java, and thus one has to have multiple JREs installed, and ensure that each application gets the correct version of the runtime for it to work. I avoid anything that needs JRE wherever possible, buit sometimes, th right application is one that requires JRE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alistermorton Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 Exactly, hence the "sometimes" qualifier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mac.calder Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 I tried one of the ones suggested above but it refuses to run on my mac for some reason If you primarily dwell in OSX: OmniGraffle is very similar to Visio designed for OSX. It is superior in many ways, inferior in a few others. User friendly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dsharp7th Posted June 11, 2017 Share Posted June 11, 2017 OmniGraffle is very similar to Visio designed for OSX. It is superior in many ways, inferior in a few others. User friendly I've long intended to give the demo a proper spin but I always associated OmniGraffle with flowcharts and schematics. Does it have scale drawing / cad-lite functions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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