Thanks for the kind words, Dave.
1) and 2) If you want to email your skippy to me, I'll take a look at it, but I suspect that you have a tenon that is not a subcomponent of its timber. That's why it won't cut a mortise, and why it does not stay with it's timber when you move the post away.
3) There is a brief point in time when you can type into the VCB, usually just before or just after the final click for using a tool. For the protractor tool, this is after the second or third click as Mark describes above. You can type a value in degrees (eg 14) or a roof pitch using a colon (eg 3:12). One other note about the protractor tool: it changes color to show you which plane it's on. You can lock it onto that plane with the shift key.
4) Mapping a tool to a specific key is done like all other shortcuts: On the main menu, use window | preferences | shortcuts. I distributed a file called preferences.dat in the precon, which mapped the dimension tool to the F4 key, along with several others. When adding dimensions to shop drawings, I find I'm frequently switching tools, and the dimension tool really needs a shortcut key. One other note about shortcuts. You can map shortcut keys to items on the context menu (the menu you get when you right-click on something). But the context menu contains different commands depending on what you right-click on. So you must have an item of the correct type selected before you open the shortcuts window. For example, if you want to map "flip along components red" to the F6 key, you must first select a component and then open the shortcuts window. All the menu items that would appear on the context menu are now listed under "edit/item".
Mark's "x" and "/" tricks are really useful. Someone at the conference showed me a similar trick: Draw a line (along the edge of a principal rafter, for example) and then right click on it and select "divide" from the context menu. Note the red dots that appear, dividing the line into equal length segments. Move your mouse, and you see the number of segments change. Pause, and you'll even get a hint to show you the length of each segment. Once you click to finish the divide, you can use the segments as guides to locate components (say common purlins). You can delete the segments when you're done.
CB.
