[ANNOUNCE] Eighteenth release of PythonCAD now available

["Art Haas" <ahaas airmail net>]

I'm pleased to announce the eighteenth development release of PythonCAD,
a CAD package for open-source software users. As the name implies,
PythonCAD is written entirely in Python. The goal of this project is
to create a fully scriptable drafting program that will match and eventually
exceed features found in commercial CAD software. PythonCAD is released
under the GNU Public License (GPL).

PythonCAD requires Python 2.2 or Python 2.3. The interface is GTK 2.0
based, and uses the PyGTK module for interfacing to GTK. The design of
PythonCAD is built around the idea of separating the interface
from the back end as much as possible. By doing this, it is hoped
that both GNOME and KDE interfaces can be added to PythonCAD through
usage of the appropriate Python module. As of the sixteenth release,
a Cocoa based front end is available for people on OS X having
the Python/Objective-C bindings. Addition of other PythonCAD 
interfaces will depend on the availability of a Python module for that
particular interface and developer interest and action.

The eighteenth release of PythonCAD enhances the printing abilities
introduced in the seventeenth release. Radial and Angular dimensions
are now printed completely, and dimension markers like arrows or slashes
are printed for all dimension entities. Another enhancement in this
release is the improved restoration of deleted dimensions in undo
operations. Previously the dimensions were recreated with their various
attributes having default values, whereas now they are recreated with
the attribute values being restored to the values they had when the
dimension was deleted. This release also features numerous internal
code improvements dealing with the storage of entity values for undo/redo
operations, and a wide variety of bug fixes and code improvements are
present in this release as well.

Additionally, an RPM '.spec' file is now included in the code for people
wishing to build RPM packages of PythonCAD. The '.spec' file was created
by D. Scott Barninger, and I'd like to thank him for this contribution.
I'd also like to thank Cedric Delfosse for providing PythonCAD '.deb'
packages to Debian users.

The mailing list for the development and use of PythonCAD is available.
Visit the following page for information about subscribing and viewing
the mailing list archive:

http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pythoncad

Visit the PythonCAD web site for more information about what PythonCAD
does and aims to be:

http://www.pythoncad.org/

Come and join me in developing PythonCAD into a world class drafting
program!

Art Haas
-- 
Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities
the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind.

-Thomas Jefferson to James Smith, 1822