This post will not be about Butterfly, but rather on the way our team works with different applications. We want to share with you our passion towards Web-based applications.

We love using cloud computing, Web-based applications, SaaS. Call it however you like.

The Internet provides us with some powerful applications and services.

A few years ago, some of the most obvious services were unthinkable. Looking up any music video on YouTube, have two people work on a document at the same time, share calendars, upload photos to the Internet instantly from anywhere, and the list goes on.

The Web offers a unique advantage over desktop applications. The Web allows users to share and collaborate, together or separately on the same item or information. With desktop applications, that would require a lot of setting up to get a connection. The Web, however, makes that as easy as a click. Another advantage is that you always use the newest version of the service, without installing or updating anything.

The idea for Project Butterfly was inspired by services like Google Docs, and as a team that develops a Web-based application for CAD editing – we have a strong belief in Web applications. When we started out we decided that for the first month we would use nothing but a Web browser – no desktop applications what-so-ever. We wanted to see what issues come up when you use nothing but Web-based applications.

Like in any company, we needed to make use of E-Mail, documents, storage and more. The Internet provided us with next-to-free solutions for our needs – and they serve us loyally to this day. We do use some desktop software, though. Apart from the development workspace and vector graphics design there’s still no online tool that can totally replace its desktop equivalent.

I will admit that there are some setbacks for using Web-based applications, mostly the missing features in the application. For example, we are having a hard time creating rich graphs in Google Spreadsheets, and it’s almost impossible to create print-ready documents.

The Web allows people all over the world share their photos, music, videos, blog posts and documents. We hope that with Project Butterfly, professionals around the globe will work and collaborate on CAD drawings within their Web browser.

Here are some of the Web-based applications that we’re making use of:

• Gmail, Google docs, Google calendar – For all our communication needs, meetings and documents in the office.
• Bugzilla – Our software development and bug-tracking tool. While this is not exactly SaaS (because we installed it on a server of our own), it’s still an important tool for us.
• WordPress.com – Running this blog. We could install a WordPress application of our own, but why do that when we can host it on dedicated, stable servers?
• DropBox – Backing up files and synchronizing our home and office computers.
• Remember The Milk – Managing and sharing work tasks as well as personal tasks.
• Grooveshark – Our way of listening to music during the day.
• And more…

How do you use Web-based applications for productivity?

We’ve discussed the command line before, and people wanted a faster way to access commands.

Truth is, Project Butterfly had several keyboard shortcuts since the beginning – the same commands from AutoCAD. When you type a command in Butterfly you don’t have have to press Enter, the command will execute automatically.

We’ve prepared a quick reference of our commands that you can use with your keyboard:

Move: m / move
Rotate: ro / rotate
Scale: sc / scale
Mirror: mi / mirror
Offset: o / offset
Trim: tr / trim
Edit text: tedit
Explode: x / explode
Match Properties: ma / matchprop

Line: l / line
Polyline: pl / pline
Circle: c / circle
Rectangle: rec / rectangle
Ellipse: el / ellipse
Cloud: revcloud
Leader: le / leader
Arc: a / arc
Insert block: i / insert
Insert text: dt / dtext / text / mt / t
Linear dimension: dimlin / dimlinear
Aligned dimension: dal / dimali
Angular dimension: dimang / dimangular

Copy: cp / copy / co / CTRL+C
Cut: cutclip / CTRL+X
Paste: pasteclip / CTRL+V
Undo: u / undo / CTRL+Z
Redo: redo / CTRL+Y
Erase: e / erase / DEL key
Zoom window: z / zoom
Pan: p / pan
Ortho mode: ortho / F8
Snap mode: snap / os / F3
Line weight mode: F4

Color: col / color
Layers: la / layer
Linetype: lt / linetype

Layouts: lo / layout
Xrefs: er / xref

So start typing, and have fun with your commands.

Tell us what you think, we’d love to know.

We were quite surprised with the results of our latest poll – “Would you draw without a command line?”. We thought that only a few people would work without a command line, but the results were refreshing.

• 34% said they would draw without a command line.
• 66% said they can’t work without it.

We wish to thank all the participants of this poll, and for their feedback. We’re very happy to have our users take an active part in shaping the future of Project Butterfly.

This week we’ve got a new poll.

Most professionals in the field of design hold hundreds, and even thousands of drawings. We want to know:

Hi everyone. We’ve been receiving a lot of feedback from you folks out there. We have listened to your requests and implemented them. Naturally, not all requests were fulfilled in this version, but as you can see – changes occur very often. If your suggestion has not been yet implemented, we might just be working on it right now.

Ready to test the new features? Click here to go straight to Project Butterfly.

So what have we got in store for you?

The new Layers manager - Winner of our feature poll.

Most of you have requested the ability to create new layers and an easy way to switch between layers. Now you can create and manage layers with the new layers manager.

Match Properties, also high on our poll

With the new Match Properties tool, you can copy styles from one object onto another. This includes color, line weight and line style.

Explode Polylines to individual Lines from the contextual toolbar

DXF import and export support

You can now upload and edit DXF files in Project Butterfly, for maximum interoperability with different CAD programs.

Drawing in different dimension styles, and the new Linear dimension

With this version of Project Butterfly you can draw dimensions using different dimesnion styles from the DWG, just like you would in AutoCAD. We’ve also added a new Linear dimension tool.

Edit arc vertexes in a polyline

We have also improved editing vertexes, including vertex merging and more. You can now edit arc vertexes within polylines.

Excited already? Click here to go to Project Butterfly and see for yourself.