VCB “calculator” input

I must be doing something wrong because the way I’m drawing shapes and lines with specific dimensions seems terribly awkward.
-Draw line
-Tap length box (opens tiny calculator thingie)
-Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap to delete existing dimension
-Tap numbers in with pencil
-Close box

This seems way more involved than the desktop?

I noticed you can just type to replace the existing text just like desktop, but the flashing cursor at the end doesn’t imply that. It’s at least visually confusing.

Yup, what’s working wrong is that if you delete a part of the current number you can’t start typing from there.

I see what you’re saying; backspace from the end some, and typing still replaces everything. I found I could use the Pencil to place the cursor anywhere in the text field and edit as you would expect.

BTW, I do this on desktop from time to time despite being told never to tab into the VCB. Anytime I do, I immediately use the arrow key to position the cursor to edit bits of the number string, so it’s possible here on iPad by manually placing the insertion point in the string with the Pencil.

Not the way I seem to be doing it!
What is your process? I really think I’m doing something wrong!!

instead of deleting the numbers, try immediately typing the numbers that you want. you’ll see that your new typed numbers replace whatever is in the calculator thingy.

I was sure I had tried that before but it works well! I wonder if there could be a way we could pin the calculator thingy to remove the step of tapping on the number?

Quick note to close the loop here. The measurements box is now dockable (to either of the available docking stations along the top and bottom edge of the screen. And we think we’ve developed a nice implementation that, especially when paired with a keyboard, mimics in many ways the behaviors that folks are accustomed to in Desktop. Still very much open to feedback here though, if there are other things that need improving with the measurements box.

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You should know that Angle of View (AKA Field of View) can’t be set to a numeric angle using the ASCII degree character (°), and this is true of desktop, not just iPad - I only realized that a week ago. You can set it by typing “deg” after a number. Without a keyboard, I can’t choose to do that with iPad. Maybe someone with a physical keyboard can try. I tried typing it in a text editor and copy & pasting it in the VCB. That didn’t work either, but after that it did toggle the input from assuming mm for Focal Length to assuming degrees. That behavior is a bit odd on desktop as well.

To be a good citizen, the VCB should accept numbers copied and pasted from other apps.

The rotate tool seems OK with the ° character, but then again, it doesn’t seem to need any character, so I’m not sure that ° does anything?

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That’s a very nice catch, Robert. There’s some good cleanup work here for us to address.

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