From the ashes of QCad Community Edition 2.0.5.0 comes Architektonas! This project arose because Qt version 3 was removed from the Gentoo Portage tree. Coupled with the fact that QCad CE, which depends on Qt3, had not seen an update for quite some time, QCad was also removed from Portage—and so work began on porting QCad CE from Qt3 to Qt4.
Needless to say, this was a task of Herculean proportions; but soon the effort was starting to pay dividends! At first, simply getting QCad to work with the Qt3Support module in Qt4 was done to see if further work should be carried out. Once positive results were gained in this regard, further work was done to remove all dependencies on Qt3Support in order to make QCad a full fledged Qt4 application.
In time it was determined that while getting QCad to this state would be a worthwhile goal, it would not be the end point of that work. Feature parity with QCad 2.0.5.0 CE, being nice, would also leave users with a good, but not great piece of software. And so the decision was made to go forward and make it even better. And so this would, of course, necessitate a name change: And so the decision was made, and now we have Architektonas!
When just about every variation on FooCAD or CADFoo has been taken, it’s time to start looking for something new! And so after much searching and consideration, Achitektonas was chosen. Architektonas is a rough English transliteration of αρχιτέκτωνας, which is Greek for architect; we believe it to be a fit, if not lofty, name for a CAD program. For a project with lofty goals, a lofty name is needed!
Currently, Architektonas has not yet reached feature parity with QCad 2.0.5.0 Community Edition, but steady progress is being made towards that goal. We intend to surpass that goal, but that is the first major step. If you don’t mind working with semi-broken code, you can check out and compile it on your own. The GIT repository is located at:
https://shamusworld.gotdns.org/git/architektonas
If you choose to go this route, you’re on your own for now until I can set up a reliable line of communication. Good Luck!
To those of you following along in GIT, no, we haven’t been hacked. We are simply following through on our promise to make something that far surpasses QCad CE and all things built from it. As far as we’re concerned, QCad (and its derivatives, such as LibreCAD) is a dead end. If you’re curious as to why we feel that way, stay tuned as we will post a comprehensive breakdown in the near future. We are very excited about the direction Architektonas is headed, and we think you will be too!