As an example, I want a block arc with an inner radius of 5cm, and outer radius of 8cm, and a central angle of 40 degrees. I’d like to do it without computing coordinates and dragging around control points. I want to enter the numerical values for the inner radius, outer radius, and central angle. A similar question can be asked about arcs and circle pies.
There exist no UI for doing it. Only solutions currently possible are writing a macro or editing the file source.
You can get more precision when using the mouse, if you draw some helper objects: inner and outer circle, two lines for the angle. For these objects you can set the exact values in the Position&Size dialog. Then draw the block arc above the helper objects and drag it as needed. Working in high zooms helps to get it more accurate.
Good material for a feature request then.
ok. Block arcs have 2 curved edges, and they’re not constrained to be circular when trying to drag vertices or control points. So I tried something like what you said using circles, lines (esp. radials) and intersection points to make polygons. I got an acceptable but not as good result. It doesn’t help that the editing UIs accept only 2 decimal places.
I’ll try to submit an enhancement request soon.
I have submitted enhancement bugzilla #100596 for this.
I have added a macro as intermediate solution to the issue.
@regina - how would i access your macro? I would love to be able to manually set the block arc control points so I can have proper progress rings that ‘close’ (currently it goes only to like 98% with the mouse before it resets to 0)
Download the attached file from the mentioned bug tdf#100596. The file contains the macros in a library “BlockArrowEditor”. You can export the library with the Macro Organizer and import it to where you want, your user profile or a currently opened file.
Select the shape then, press Alt+F11, select the macro and then press Run.
But be aware, you cannot “close” a block arc (that would be angle 90°) because that is excluded in the code for this kind of shape and for the legacy arc (e.g. start=end=270°) as well. You would need a self-made shape which combines two half circle for example.