In article ,
Martin wrote:

Google Sketch Up is free, and easy to learn, or so I am told by my son.
http://sketchup.google.com/

A quick glance indicates that it's a lot more complicated than xfig,
but could well be worth trying. I can't be bothered to fire up a
Microsoft system to look.

It's used by professionals as a quick design alternative to Autocad.

DEFINITELY a lot more complicated than xfig, then. If they had a
Linux version, I might be interested, but I am not going to inflict
Microsoft upon myself just for that.

Some of us have their PCs set up to be able to run both. )

Well, so do I. But I have never found anything that is worthwhile
enough for me to use Microsoft for anything significant. I fairly
often use it when the Linux utility fails on a Microsoft-generated
file, only to discover that the Linux utility is bug-for-bug
compatible with the standard Microsoft distribution, and the file is
only readable with whatever bizarre version and configuration was
used to write it.

And, if Microsoft Offence springs to mind when reading that, you have
understood me perfectly.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.