Topic Title

I don't use Dir/Dist often so bare with me

When using Dir/Dist and trying to insert a symbol relative to a point it's not working for me. Here is what I am doing.

Pick symbol to insert, hit ~ for ref point, snap to ref point, drag the mouse in the direction I want relative to the ref point, type distance & hit enter.

Nothing happens? Active layer is on. Fixed Ref is off. Any ideas?

Josh, try this:

Prior to picking the Symbol, enter the Reference Point and indicate the direction. Now, select the Symbol and press the spacebar and enter the distance to offset from the reference point at the angle you specified when defining the reference point.

Dave

So that works, but it's really counter intuitive in that it's almost backwards compared to the other input methods in having to set your distance from a reference point before selecting the symbol at all.

... o.k. so playing with this method a bit I just figured out what I was missing. When inputting the direction, you have to click twice to set the direction. Click the first point for the reference point and then actually click a second point to confirm the direction. You can't just drag your mouse in the direction, you actually have to click it to lock in the direction (left or right mouse button apparently works according to another forum post). If I do the same steps as I did originally in my first post adding the second click to indicate direction then that works. I think I was missing this because for most of the other commands like Move, Stretch, drawing a line or arcs, etc, the direction is inferred just by the location of the mouse, you don't have to actually click the second point of the direction. That's what was messing me up. I am actually surprised this has not come up before for dir. dist users sooner, that when using a reference point you can't use inferred direction.

Either way, thanks Dave for getting me to where I needed to be. Since I won't be using Dir/Dist as my primary input method this works fine for me, but if possible, I would guess those who use Dir. Dist might enjoy having inferred distance work the same when using a ref point as the other dir/dist. input methods if it's possible. Seems like not having to click the button might help aid in a mouse moving accidentally when trying to locate at a specific angle by mousing so the use can drag to locate the angle and then start typing the distance. Thanks!