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Try mecEdit out!

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mecEdit is a progressive web app that helps you

build

simulate

and analyze

planar linkages.

mecEdit utilizes mec2 as a physics engine and g2 for most graphical elements.

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User guide

Deutsch

English

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Changelog

v0.7.0

general:

• Node and constraint visibility is now reset for each new model.
• Fixed a bug where the drag&drop overlay would persist.

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v0.6.9

general:

• UI updates & optimization.
• Added option to export the model as a standalone html file for viewing.
• Copy a JSON-String of your model to the clipboard by clicking the new copy button in the JSON editor.
• A snippet for chart-views is provided for you to copy to your clipboard and paste it in the JSON editor.
• Drag&Drop your JSON models directly to the canvas.
• You can now reach mecEdit under mecedit.com
• (internal change) you should now get & set app.dragMode only via app.editing.

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v0.6.8

general:

• mec2 charts-views are now fully supported. Charts have to be added via the JSON-editor. They can either be rendered directly to the main canvas or to a separate canvas for each chart. To do so simply give the chart definition in your model a property "canvas":"canvasId" with an arbitrary id as a value. Everything else is handled by mecEdit.
• Added an option to scale the radius of each node by its mass. This can be toggled from the navigationbar under View -> Nodescaling.
• Some CSS fine-tuning.

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v0.6.6

general:

• Fixed some bugs.

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v0.6.5

general:

• Updated mec2 to v0.8.5 which introduced major changes to references in constraints.
• Updated vendor dependency bootstrap to v4.1.3.
• The contextmenu of constraints now shows values for their current orientation and length.

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v0.6.1

general:

• The JSON-editor is now emptied before dragging & dropping files into it.
• Placing components can now be canceled by clicking on the navbar or sidebar in addition to pressing [Esc] so mobile users won't get stuck.
• Some other small changes.

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v0.6.0 - PWA & various improvements

general:

• mecEdit is now a progressive web app! In Google Chrome set chrome://flags/#enable-desktop-pwas to enabled and install from menu.
• Drastically improved panning in MS Edge.
• Updated example 'slidercrank' to showcase drives and inputs.

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v0.5.3 - bugfixes

general:

• The range of inputs is now correctly updated when changing the adjustment range of a drive from the contextmenu.
• Various bugfixes.

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v0.5.2 - various changes

general:

• Moved modal- & editor-objects to namespace app.
• Improved performance.
• Changed version to 3 digits to comply with npm standards.

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v0.5.1.1 - bugfixes

general:

• Fixed a bug where deleting constraints would fail.
• Changing coordinates from node contextmenu changes now x0,y0 as well as x,y.

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v0.5.1.0 - improvements

general:

• Optimized handling of constraints when contextmenu was invoked.
• Fixed a bug where calling model.reset() would explode the model when constraints have len.r0 set.
• Fixed a bug where changing node coordinates via contextmenu would throw an error.
• Fixed a bug where choosing info values was not possible when adding a view-component.
• Handled errors for users trying to pass invalid JSON code from the JSON-editor.

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v0.5.0.3 - bugfix

ctxm-templates.js:

• Fixed a bug where the value of the select menu in the viewcomponent-modal would not be the set value of the view.

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v0.5.0.2 - minor changes

general:

• Cleaned up the code and fixed some minor bugs.

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v0.5.0.0 - Length-Inputs

general:

• Enabled automatic (on initialization) and manual (via contextmenu) adding and removal of range-inputs for driven constraint dofs. This entails various internal changes in app.js, appevents.js, ctxm-template.js and slider.js (formerly mec.slider.js).

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v0.4.9.3 - Quality of life

general:

• Added some additional keyboard shortcuts and documented them under Navbar -> Help -> Keyboard Shortcuts.
• Generalized purging elements via Navbar -> Edit -> Purge Element by replacing app.clearNode() with app.purgeElement().
• Replaced the 'Run' and 'Idle' buttons with a combined button that takes app.state into account.

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v0.4.9.2 - Inputs

general:

• [WIP] Inputs are back. Driven constraints allow now to toggle an input element via the contextmenu which gets added to or removed from the DOM. Constraints with input: true automatically get an input element on initialisation. Currently only ori inputs are supported!
• Holding the [Shift] key while clicking a button to add nodes or constraints from the sidebar keeps the respective build state after finishing. This allows for a chained adding of elements without having to click the button again. When you're done adding elements, simply press [Esc] as adviced by the GUI.

g2.editor.js:

• Disallowed views from being detected.

mec.slider.js:

• [WIP] Updated to utilize inputCallbacks and tick. While func works, Dt is disregarded at the moment so all forward/backward takes always 5 seconds.

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v0.4.9.0 - bugfixes & hiding graphics

general:

• Additionally to hiding labels, the linkage can now be hidden from the Navbar -> View -> Togggle Graphics.

appevents.js:

• Models from examples.js are now passed as copies.
• Added events for hiding model.

app.js:

• Dragging in ´dragEDIT´ mode now correctly restores Dt-value of drives.

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v0.4.8.9 - Examples

general:

• Added examples for models examples.js which can be found under File -> Load Example.

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v0.4.8.8 - more components, drives & views

general:

• The <add drive> button in the sidebar now adds drives to constraint's ori and len types free.
• Enabled type drive option in constraint contextmenus. This allows to set some limited optional properties. For additional properties refer to the built-in JSON model editor (Hotkey [e]).
• Added a 'Components' menu to the navbar that will offer more components than the sidebar which only is intended for quick access.
• Added fix and flt shapes to the navbar's 'Components' menu.
• Added an option to define views to the navbar's 'Components' menu. This opens a modal to build the view-object. (Hotkey [v])

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v0.4.8.5 - loads & node-tracing

general:

• The sidebar has now buttons to add loads (forces and springs) to the model. Those loads additionally have their own contextmenu.
• The contextmenu of nodes now offers an option to trace this node. Clicking this toggle adds or removes an view type:'trace' to the model.
• Reworked the tooltip. It now shows node coordinates while dragging them in dragmode EDIT and views while hovering nodes with views in dragmode MOVE.

app.js, appevents.js:

• Modified initCtxm to work with the minimal asJSON string since toJSON did contain default properties.
• Added various functions and conditionals to handle load and view components.

g2.editor.js

• Elements that do not return a member type {string} (e.g. shape.beam) are now ignored.

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v0.4.8.4 - controlpanel & light-theme

general:

• Introduced app-states. The controlpanel in the navbar sets app.state, which is then utilized in app.tick().
• Users can now switch between a light- and a dark-theme for the editor window via the Navbar -> View -> toggle darkmode. The app defaults to dark because I like my retinas unburnt.

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v0.4.8.2 - new model editor & mec2 release merge

general:

• merged changes from mec2 library (initial release)
• added a model-editor where the user can directly edit the code (in JSON) that defines the model. menu -> edit -> model editor (or Hotkey [e])
• added dependency CodeMirror for syntax highlighting in the model-editor
• added entry 'New model' to the Navbarmenu. This discards the current model and initializes an empty one.

appenvents.js:

• values of nodes are now dynamically applied from the contextmenu without having the node replaced (app.tempElm stays false)

mixin.js:

• mousemove events now distinguish between pressed buttons.

  • left-mousebutton for dragging nodes
  • middle-mousebutton OR [Ctrl] + left-mousebutton for panning
  • right-mousebutton is a pointer eventtype

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v0.4.8 - added forces/moments & optimizations

general:

• merged changes from @goessner (02.08.18) which mainly add forces and moments to the model
• some functionality might still be broken

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v0.4.7.7 - contextmenu streamlining

general:

• replaced dependency 'Ti-ta-toggle' with some lines of CSS in app.css
• all global event handlers are now found in appevents.js which has been split off from app.js
• styled the contextmenu for nodes
• slightly changed the behavior when closing the contextmenu and the handling of its input-element-events

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v0.4.7.6 - simplified UI

general:

• got rid of all css media-breakpoints except for one custom breakpoint @400px viewport-width
• replaced the old vector button images with new svg-symbols

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v0.4.7.5 - bugfixes

general:

• various major & minor bugfixes

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v0.4.7.3 - modifying constraints & nodes

general:

• version numbers have now a leading 0 to better indicate the development status of the app

app.js

• implemented fully dynamic contextmenu (styling still unfinished) to modify selected nodes and constraints -> all changes are applied when the contextmenu is closed
• updated the global changehandler of the contextmenu

ctxm-templates.js:

• added templates for referenced constraints
• added templates for all node properties
• various minor changes

mec2.js, mec.constraint.js & g2.editor.js

• various minor changes

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alpha v4.7.1 - modifying constraints

general:

• main.js is now called app.js

app.js:

• added new functions to handle the dynamic contextmenu

ctxm-templates.js:

• new library that contains functions which return html-templates to build a dynamic contextmenu

mec.constraint.js:

• partially implemented constraint.prototype.toJSON(), which re-enables the export function

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alpha v4.7.1 - actuators, streamlining & bugfixing

general:

• clicking the contraint-type 'ctrl' lets the user add an actuator to an existing constraint. for now this only works with constraints of type 'rot' and only for a single actuator
• streamlining & bugfixing
• reorganized the file structure of the app
• constraints are now shaded when hovering over them and are selectable
• selected elements in the editor are now shaded yellow to indicate which element is responsible for the EDIT flag
• added dependency Draggabilly to make the contextmenu for element-modifications dragable and contained in the editor
• added dependency Ti-ta-toggle for a fancy-looking toggle switch (checkbox)

main.js:

• a tooltip with coordinates is now shown when dragging nodes; on the downside this produces stuttering. bug: fps stay constant
• enabled a contextmenu which opens when a constraint is selected by left-clicking; in future versions the elements will be modifiable through this
• started to implement a function to modify existing constraints modConstraint(elm)
• started to implement a function to convert an existent non-actuated constraint to an actuated constraint addActuator(elm)

mixin.js:

• events now pass clientX & clientY to the editor namespace

mec2.js, mec.constraint.js & g2.editor.js:

• various changes

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alpha v4.7 - inverse kinematics mode & merged changes from @goessner libraries (20.07.18)

general:

• implemented mode-switching (for now via a checkbox) between inverse kinematics and constraint-editing when dragging a node

main.js:

• bug: actuator functionality is broken, mec-slider no longer working
• probably implemented a whole lotta other bugs in the process of merging versions...

mec2.js & mec.constraint.js:

• to update a constraint you can now simlpy call constraint.prototype.init() again and pass the model

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alpha v4.6 - nodes can now be deleted

g2.editor.js:

• hovered element now belongs to editor namespace -> editor.curElm

mec2.js:

• actuators-controls now adopt to new angle when dragging node with actuated constraint

main.js:

• fully implemented deleteNode()
• changed graphics queue approach -> adding & deleting elements from app.model now rebuilds the queue, thus maintaining the correct order/layer of graphic elements
• added global escape event -> pressing [Escape] now leaves and resets app.edit-state at any time
• model properties for actuator angle representation (e.g. app.model.phi) are now added dynamically and thus can be omitted in JSON-files
• fixed bug: clicking in empty space when adding a constraint no longer freezes the app

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alpha v4.5.9 - node dragging is now permanent

g2.editor.js:

• updates adjacent constraints to new node coordinates when dragging ends

mec2.js:

• nodes now inherit the methods adjConstraintIds() & updAdjConstraints() which look for and update values of all adjacent constraints
• constraints now inherit the method update() which mirrors init() but works with initialized an model
• partially implemented constraints.prototype.toJSON(), which fixed a bug with the export function

main.js

• partially implemented deleteNode()