Release notes 014

Work in progress - do not translate yet!!

Site migration
We finally moved al the web applications of FreeCAD from SourceForge to our own domain. The new FreeCAD homepage can be found at http://www.freecadweb.org, the wiki is now at http://www.freecadweb.org/wiki, the bug and features tracker at http://www.freecadweb.org/tracker, and the forum at http://forum.freecadweb.org. If you had an account on one of these applications when we were on SourceForge, you can regain your existing user following these instructions.

The only part of FreeCAD that remains at SourceForge is the main git repository, at the same address: http://sourceforge.net/p/free-cad/code/ci/master/tree/ but there is also have an automatic mirror of that code set up on github, at http://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD_sf_master

If you haven't met the incredible FreeCAD community yet, pay us a visit on the forum, and be amazed by its talent, energy and helpfulness.

Move to pyside, FreeCAD is now fully LGPL
With the many complications caused by the double-license model of FreeCAD (LGPL & GPL), some of the components of FreeCAD (namely the OpenCasCade kernel) being incompatible with GPL code, we decided to switch all the remaining bits of GPL code of FreeCAD to LGPL. As a result of this operation, PyQt is not used anymore, and has been replaced by PySide. There is not much consequence for python scriptwriters, PyQt can still be used inside FreeCAD.

After we finished the move to LGPL, OpenCasCade has switched to LGPL too, which would have solved all our license conflicts too. But we have now a much clearer and unified license model, which should satisfy all the strictest linux distributions.

Plugins and side projects: Parts library, BOLTS, Eagle importer
The last year has seen a couple of interesting side projects emerge along FreeCAD. A Parts library has been started by the community and is slowly growing, consisting of a collection of reusable parts to add to your FreeCAD models. It can be launched and used from inside FreeCAD with the use of a macro.

Another similar but more ambitious project is BOLTS, which is also a parts library, but built from parametric scripts, able to produce a wide variety of parametric parts. BOLTS, although application-independent, can also be run from FreeCAD by launching a macro.

Another interesting external project is the EAGLE importer, which allows you to import PCB board designs made from several applications into FreeCAD.


 * Imperial units (should we talk about it already?)
 * WebGL export

Part

 * Offset
 * Thickness

PartDesign & Sketcher

 * Validate sketch

Drawing

 * Symbols

Raytracing

 * New rendering tools
 * Luxrender support

Spreadsheet

 * New spreadsheet workbench (not sure we should talk about this, since it's being recoded)
 * New spreadsheet object + cell controller

DWG import/export
FreeCAD is now able to import and export to the DWG format, thanks to the free, multiplatform Teigha Converter. Once the Teigha Converter is installed, and its path set in the FreeCAD Draft preferences settings, FreeCAD will be able to use it to import and export dwg files, by converting them to dxf, then using the Draft dxf importer and exporter. The import and export of dwg files has therefore the same limitations as the dxf format.

Draft to Drawing works with groups
The Draft to Drawing tool, used to place Draft objects on a Drawing sheet, can now be applied on groups, allowing to create fewer View objects on the Drawing sheet. By intelligently combine your Draft objects into a couple of groups, you have a quick way to control the appearance of many objects on your page.


 * Dimensions recoded
 * Lock mouse direction
 * Ellipses
 * Chamfer
 * Upgrade and downgrade scriptable
 * Facebinder
 * Hatches

Arch

 * Structure presets + profiles
 * Window presets
 * Multilayer walls
 * Spaces
 * Stairs
 * Rebars
 * Frames
 * Survey
 * IFC browser

Full list
The full list of bugfixes and new features can be read on http://freecadweb.org/tracker/roadmap_page.php