cadcraft/docs/gaps.md

# Where CADCraft falls short of AutoCAD

> **Last reviewed:** 2026-10-10 · **Last updated:** 2026-10-11 · **Change:** minor (German catalog landed, L2 narrowed; SPLINE, MTEXT and MLEADER prompt options landed, #408: top-10 row 5, F1 and F10 narrowed) · **Target:** Autodesk AutoCAD 2027

Every known shortfall, one row each, ranked within each section by user impact. This is the work
list: agents pick from here (top of a section first), and remove or update a row in the same PR
that closes it. Numbers and weights live in [target-app-parity.md](target-app-parity.md); hours
are Opus 5.5 agent-hours, calibrated as explained there. "Est." means a judgement from the cited
evidence. Rows marked **[alpha blocker]** are what fails the [alpha gate](roadmap.md#alpha-gate);
do them first.

## Top 10 across everything

| # | Gap | Why it ranks here | Est. | Doc |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | **[alpha blocker]** **Saving DWG drops what we don't model** (DXF now writes back unknown entities and objects, foreign xdata, extension dictionaries, reactors, layer states and colour books, #528; through DWG, acadrust drops custom-class entities and objects, xdata on table records and blocks, entity colour books and reactors; MULTILEADER is still written as LEADER+MTEXT) | Opening a colleague's DWG and saving it still deletes some content: the one thing a CAD user can't forgive | 6–10 | [file formats](file-format-parity.md) |
| 2 | **[alpha blocker]** **No real-file test corpus and no check in AutoCAD** | All 36 file tests are synthetic; nobody has verified a CADCraft DWG/DXF opens cleanly in AutoCAD | 10–15 + human | [file formats](file-format-parity.md#tests) |
| 3 | **Tracking leftovers** (object snap tracking, Extension, Parallel and Apparent Intersection landed, #379): polar angles relative to the last segment, PolarSnap, temporary tracking point | Small now; ranks lower at the next review | 3–5 | [ui](ui-parity.md#tracking-polar-ortho-grid-and-snap--70) |
| 4 | **No code pages when reading pre-2007 files** (saving DWG/DXF at 2000–2018 and binary DXF landed, #421) | Pre-2007 CJK/Cyrillic files are garbled | 3–5 | [file formats](file-format-parity.md) |
| 5 | **[alpha blocker]** **Stubbed prompt options** left in PEDIT Edit vertex, SPLINEDIT and MTEXT columns | Scripts and muscle memory hit "not available yet" (the most-used commands are done) | 3–6 | [features](#features) |
| 6 | **Ellipse and spline geometry is tessellated** (intersections, offsets, closest points; polyline offset ignores bulges) | Coordinates are subtly wrong; offsets of ellipses come out as polylines | 30–50 | [geometry](geometry-parity.md) |
| 7 | **[alpha blocker]** **No xrefs, block editor, dynamic blocks or groups** | Most production drawings use them | 80–120 | [features](#features) |
| 8 | **No autosave in the web build** (the desktop app has SAVETIME autosave, Drawing Recovery, AUDIT and RECOVER since #406) | Browser users lose unsaved work when the tab or the browser goes down | 3–5 | [features](#features) |
| 9 | **Dynamic input lacks grip input; no TK; grip options ignored** (FROM, M2P/MTP, point filters, `*` and `<a` landed, #392) | Precision entry at the cursor is how AutoCAD is taught today | 12–20 | [ui](ui-parity.md) |
| 10 | **No CI runs the Rust tests on pull requests** (`cargo fmt` on main is fixed) | open PRs land without a gate; regressions go unseen | 2–3 | [stability](#stability) |

## Features

| # | Gap | Evidence | User impact | Est. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| F1 | **[alpha blocker]** Prompt options print "not available yet": PEDIT Edit vertex Break/Regen/Tangent, some SPLINEDIT options; MTEXT Dynamic/Static columns (no column model). SPLINE, MTEXT and MLEADER options done (#408): closed splines keep but ignore a fit tolerance, SPLINE Object fits the polyline's vertices (no spline frame is kept) (TRIM/EXTEND, PLINE arc mode and Length, XLINE done (#397); OFFSET, ROTATE and FILLET options done earlier) | `modify2.rs:594,783,806`, `cmd/mtext_opts.rs` | Medium: the most-used commands are done | 3–6 |
| F2 | XREF editing in place and clipping: REFEDIT and XCLIP are missing. XATTACH, the External References palette, -XREF (Bind/Detach/Path/Unload/Reload/Overlay), XBIND, XOPEN, overlays, relative paths and loading at open are done (#525). Unloaded state and xref-layer overrides last only for the session | `cmd/blocks/xref.rs` | Medium: xrefs can't be edited in place or clipped | 15–25 |
| F3 | **[alpha blocker]** (block editor and REFEDIT; dynamic-block authoring is beta) No block editor (BEDIT) or dynamic blocks (parameters, actions, visibility, lookup); dynamic blocks from other files lose their behaviour | issue #185 offers help | High: standard libraries are dynamic | 50–75 |
| F4 | Autosave leftovers: no autosave in the web build (browser storage); autosave files are DXF, not DWG; no AUDITCTL `.adt` log and no separate RECOVER mode in the file readers (SAVETIME, Drawing Recovery, AUDIT and RECOVER landed with #406) | `engine/src/autosave.rs`, `engine/src/audit.rs` | Low-medium (web users) | 3–5 |
| F5 | Arrays are not associative: no ARRAYEDIT; ARRAY/ARRAYRECT/ARRAYPOLAR edit the array in an option loop, then create plain copies (ASsociative, Levels, polar ROWs and grip editing print "not available yet") | `cmd/array.rs` | Medium-high | 8–12 |
| F7 | Dimensions: no DIMSTYLE manager dialog; 43 of ~80 DIMSTYLE variables (DIMTOFL, DIMATFIT, DIMTMOVE, DIMLTYPE, DIMLWD, DIMFXL, DIMTOLJ, DIMALTU …); no smart DIM; no DIMJOGGED, DIMJOGLINE, DIMBREAK, oblique DIMEDIT, inspection; QDIM continuous only (SETVAR DIM* now become style overrides, #129) | `doc/src/tables.rs:223-266`, `annotate.rs:64,364` | High for detailers | 25–35 |
| F8 | TOLERANCE leftovers (feature control frames landed, #420: model, our own symbol drawing, DXF, command-line prompts, explode, grips): no Geometric Tolerance dialog, no LEADER/QLEADER tolerance annotation, no in-place editing of a frame's contents | `cmd/tolerance.rs` | Low-medium (mechanical) | 2–4 |
| F9 | MTEXT editor is a dialog box, not in place; no columns, bullets, numbering, tabs, indents; no fields (FIELD, UPDATEFIELD); no spell check (SPELL) | `ui-egui/dialogs.rs:188-240` | Medium-high | 30–45 |
| F10 | MLEADER: no MLEADEREDIT/ALIGN/COLLECT; MLEADERSTYLE has 5 fields (block content and spline/no-leader types are per command, not in the style; block content has no attributes) | `annotate.rs`, `cmd/mleader_content.rs`, `tables.rs:417` | Medium | 8–12 |
| F11 | Tables (cell styles, formulas, TABLEDIT, TABLEEXPORT, table breaking and CSV data links landed, #534): formulas aren't read from or written as AutoCAD FIELD objects (other programs see values); number formats apply to formula results only; cell text doesn't wrap; custom cell styles, breaks and data links travel as CADCraft xdata (not through DWG); data links read CSV only (no Excel ranges, no write-back, not on the web); no cell-style tab in the Table Style dialog | `cmd/table/*`, `io/dxf_table.rs` | Low-medium | 6–10 |
| F12 | Annotative scaling: the flag is stored, nothing scales; no scale list, no "Annotative Object Scale" commands | 4 uncovered menu items | Medium-high in layouts | 10–15 |
| F13 | Hatch: 23 patterns (AutoCAD ~85; ours must stay original); no hatch dialog (HATCH and HATCHEDIT options work at the command line and in JSON), no MPolygon; HATCHEDIT can't add or remove boundaries; a hatch copied with its boundary isn't linked to the copy; HPGAPTOL closes gaps between curve ends only | `doc/src/library.rs`, `cmd/hatch.rs`, `cmd/hatch/edit.rs` | Medium | 8–12 |
| F14 | **[alpha blocker]** No plot preview, plotter devices, PUBLISH/batch plot; Print opens no plot dialog (#160, PR #200). Plot styles (CTB and STB, [plot-styles.md](plot-styles.md)) apply since #410; their end/join/fill styles aren't applied and binary `.ctb`/`.stb` files can't be read | `palettes.rs:666` | High for sheet output | 15–25 |
| F15 | Viewports: no polygonal, object or clipped viewports; no viewport scale control in the UI | menu items uncovered | Medium | 6–10 |
| F16 | Groups: no group bounding box or single grip when a group is selected (GROUPDISPLAYMODE), copying a whole group does not make a new group, no Object Grouping dialog (GROUP, GROUPEDIT, UNGROUP, -GROUP, PICKSTYLE group selection and the DXF/DWG round trip landed, #417); PICKSTYLE's associative-hatch bit is stored but unused | `cmd/groups.rs` | Low | 2–4 |
| F17 | Attributes: BATTMAN lists only; no ATTSYNC, EATTEXT, global ATTEDIT | `blocks.rs:300` | Medium | 6–10 |
| F18 | Layer bugs: edits change geometry on locked layers (#87, PR #196); delete/purge removes layers used by blocks (#72, PR #189); rename misses paper space and blocks (#75, PR #191); linetype rename breaks assignments (#74, PR #195); rejected freeze changes colour (#71, PR #188) | issues | High (correctness) | 3–5 (PRs open) |
| F19 | MATCHPROP Settings is a keyword prompt (no dialog) and has no material, shadow or centre-object settings; TEXTTOFRONT and HATCHTOBACK act on the current space only; OVERKILL doesn't compare polyline segments with other objects (picker and Settings, DRAWORDER Above/Under, TEXTTOFRONT, HATCHTOBACK, OVERKILL tolerance/ignore/overlap/end-to-end options landed, #439) | `props/matchprop.rs`, `draworder.rs`, `overkill.rs` | Low | 2–4 |
| F20 | OPTIONS/Preferences dialog missing (#23) (UNITS has a dialog since #38) | — | Medium | 6–10 |
| F21 | MLINE, REGION and HELIX are objects since #510, with gaps: MLEDIT has no Merged Tee and tees trim square; UNION/SUBTRACT/INTERSECT only combine regions whose boundaries don't meet; regions are saved as closed polylines (no ACIS data); PURGE skips multiline styles | `draw2/mline.rs`, `inquiry/regions.rs`, `dxf_region.rs` | Low | 6–10 |
| F22 | Inquiry: MASSPROP approximate; COUNT counts model-space inserts only; no QuickCalc palette (CAL is an evaluator); no DWG Compare | `utility.rs:203,310-352`, `inquiry.rs:305` | Low-medium | 15–25 |
| F23 | No Sheet Set Manager, eTransmit, Share, Traces, Markup Import, Activity Insights | menu items uncovered | Low-medium (team workflows) | 40–70 |
| F24 | No 3D: UCS, 3D views, orbit, solids, surfaces, meshes, sections, visual styles, materials, lights, rendering (150 menu items) | [parity-checklist](parity-checklist.md) | Medium (3D users) | 300–450 |

## UI/UX

Detail and evidence: [ui-parity.md](ui-parity.md).

| # | Gap | User impact | Est. |
|---|---|---|---|
| U2 | Dynamic input: grip dimensional input, lock icons, DYNPROMPT options menu (pointer boxes with Tab and relative entry landed in #60) | Medium | 3–5 |
| U4 | Tab snap cycling offers the closest snap of each mode, not every candidate. Typed snap overrides (`END`, `MID` … `NON`), the Shift/Ctrl+right-click snap menu and Tab cycling landed (#393), the menu's Temporary track point in #441 | Low | 1 |
| U5 | Hot-grip options (Base point, Copy, Undo, Reference) are shown but ignored; multiple hot grips; multifunctional grip menus (Add/Remove Vertex, Convert to Arc) | Medium-high | 6–10 |
| U6 | Selection: lasso; selection cycling (a list of overlapping objects, SELECTIONCYCLING); the CLass keyword; isolation saved with the drawing (OBJECTISOLATIONMODE 1) and the status-bar isolate button. Press-drag windows (#63), the W, C, F, WP and CP keywords (#226), BOX, AUto, SIngle, Multiple, Group, Add, Remove and Undo, SELECTSIMILAR, and ISOLATEOBJECTS/HIDEOBJECTS/UNISOLATEOBJECTS (#428) landed | Medium | 3–5 |
| U7 | Right-click context menus (canvas, selection, command, command line, palettes, tabs) | Medium-high | 6–10 |
| U8 | Snaps missing on some objects: MID on circles/ellipses/splines; NOD on dimension points; INS on ATTDEF/MLEADER; TAN on ellipses/splines; GCEN on splines | Medium | 4–6 |
| U9 | Isometric snap/grid and ISODRAFT (dead toggle). Polar additional angles, angles relative to the last segment and PolarSnap landed (#441) | Medium | 2–4 |
| U10 | UNDO Mark/Back/BEgin/End/Auto; SETVAR coverage (~60 of ~1,000 variables) | Medium | 6–10 |
| U11 | MVIEW Restore (a saved viewport configuration into a layout); VIEW Orthographic, UCS and background settings; view twist is kept but not shown (Zoom Realtime and Dynamic, ZOOMFACTOR, named views (VIEW) and tiled model viewports with saved configurations (VPORTS) landed in #463) | Low | 1–2 |
| U12 | Workspaces, navigation bar, CUI customisation, alias editor, ViewCube drag (#7) | Low-medium | 15–25 |
| U13 | Window controls misaligned on macOS (#161); `.dxf` from Finder fails to open (#158) | Medium | 2–4 |

## File formats

Detail: [file-format-parity.md](file-format-parity.md).

| # | Gap | User impact | Est. |
|---|---|---|---|
| FF1 | **[alpha blocker]** Round-trip what we don't model. DXF done (#528): unknown entities and objects (with their CLASS records), foreign xdata (hyperlinks included), extension dictionaries, persistent reactors, DICTIONARYVAR and XRECORDs, layer states, colour book colours, references remapped on save; IMAGE, VIEW/UCS, groups, block descriptions, true colours, transparency (#201, #204, #208, #209, #213, #223); WIPEOUT and gradients (#147, #162). Left: through DWG, acadrust drops custom-class entities and objects, xdata on table records and blocks, entity colour book names and reactors; UCS elevation; MTEXT background colours; unknown entities follow only layer edits, and renamed layers and blocks lose their foreign data | High | 6–10 |
| FF2 | **[alpha blocker]** Native MULTILEADER objects (read and write) | High | 6–10 |
| FF3 | Save-version leftovers (DXF/DWG 2000–2018, binary DXF, SAVEAS `version`/`binary` and the default save version landed, #421): no R14 DWG or R12 DXF output; the Save dialog can't pick the version per file (the file picker doesn't report the chosen type; File > Default Save Format sets it); no command-line SAVEAS format prompt | Low | 2–4 |
| FF4 | Code pages (`$DWGCODEPAGE`, ANSI_932/936/949/950/125x) when reading pre-2007 files | Medium-high (Asia, Eastern Europe) | 3–5 |
| FF5 | **[alpha blocker]** Real-file corpus (`storytold/cadcraft-corpus`), open → save → reopen tests, black-box check in AutoCAD | High | 10–15 + human |
| FF6 | **[alpha blocker]** DWG throughput: a 10 MB DWG took ~2 min to fail (#57) | High for real projects | 6–10 |
| FF7 | Table record and object handles from other programs' files are renumbered on the first save (entity handles are kept; `*D` blocks no longer duplicate and once reopened, CADCraft's own files keep every handle across saves, #495) | Low | 4–6 |
| FF8 | SHX fonts (shape and big fonts) not read | Medium-high (text metrics differ) | 8–12 |
| FF9 | `.pc3` plotter configuration files; linetype shape (SHX) elements are skipped (templates and `.dwt`, user `.lin`/`.pat` and `.pgp` alias files landed, #552; `.ctb`/`.stb`, #410) | Low-medium | 5–10 |
| FF10 | PDF: text as real fonts, layers (OCG), multi-sheet; PDF import and underlays; raster image attach | Medium | 30–50 |
| FF11 | DWF/DWFx, DGN, WMF, EPS, ACIS/STL and other exchange formats | Low-medium | 50–100 |
| FF12 | DWG in the web build | Medium | 6–10 |
| FF13 | R12 binary DXF, pre-R13 DWG | Low | 10–20 |

## Hardware

Detail: [hardware-parity.md](hardware-parity.md).

| # | Gap | Est. |
|---|---|---|
| H1 | 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse (needs the device and 3D views) | 6–10 + human |
| H2 | Multi-monitor: floating palettes on other screens, per-monitor DPI (PR #110 for Windows 11 DPI) | 4–6 |
| H3 | Plotters and system printers (PC3 devices) beyond PDF files | 6–10 |
| H4 | Pen tablets / digitizer (TABLET) | 3–5 + human |
| H5 | Screen magnifier tracking (#39, PR #187) | 1–2 |

## Localization

Detail: [localization-parity.md](localization-parity.md).

| # | Gap | Est. |
|---|---|---|
| L1 | Catalog covers the UI (989 rows, #36) but not engine diagnostics, CLI/MCP replies or command history | 4–6 |
| L2 | AutoCAD for Mac's other languages (zh-Hans, es, fr, ja, ko, it; de landed 2026-10-11) plus pt, hi, ar, id, vi from the standard's list | 35–55 + native review |
| L3 | Complex-script shaping for Devanagari and other Indic scripts in drawing text; RTL (mirrored) UI. Arabic-script shaping and bidi in drawing text landed (#287) | 20–30 |
| L4 | IME fixes on every platform (PRs #110–#119); vertical text styles | 6–10 |

## Stability

| # | Gap | Evidence | Est. |
|---|---|---|---|
| S1 | No CI runs `cargo xtask ci` on pull requests (only packaging lint and release builds) | `.github/workflows/` | 2–3 |
| S2 | ~~`cargo fmt --check` fails on main~~ fixed on main (8fceaaf) | — | 0 |
| S3 | 47 open PRs, many community bug fixes awaiting review | `gh pr list` | 10–20 |
| S4 | Open correctness issues: extents union far-apart geometry (#166), lines not visible mid-command (#44, PR #56), browser save/plot deliver nothing (#133, #134), closing a tab switches drawings (#76, PR #192) | issues | 6–10 |
| S5 | No smoke test of every command through the UI (PR #42 proposes one) | — | 6–10 |
| S6 | No property-based or fuzz tests for geometry; hostile-input tests cover parsing only | [geometry-parity](geometry-parity.md#tests) | 4–6 |

## Platforms

| # | Gap | Est. |
|---|---|---|
| P1 | Web build: File > Open does nothing (#55, PR #199), saves don't download (#133, PR #193), plot shows raw PDF bytes (#134), no DWG | 6–10 |
| P2 | Windows and Linux get little runtime testing; Linux Mint mouse delay (#25); Windows magnifier (#39) | 6–10 |
| P3 | macOS file associations: opening `.dxf` from Finder fails (#158) | 1–2 |

## Ecosystem and automation

| # | Gap | Est. |
|---|---|---|
| E1 | AutoLISP interpreter (safe subset first: `defun`, `command`, `entget`/`entmod`, selection sets, `getpoint` …), APPLOAD, `acad.lsp` startup | 60–100 |
| E2 | SCRIPT command reading `.scr` files (scripts run today through CLI/MCP/control only) | 1–2 |
| E3 | Express Tools equivalents (TXT2MTXT, BREAKLINE, BURST, NCOPY exists, SUPERHATCH, Move/Copy/Rotate) | 30–50 |
| E4 | Plug-in API (owner decision: Rust/WASM plug-ins rather than ObjectARX/.NET) | 30–50 |
| E5 | CUI customisation and alias (`.pgp`) editor | 15–25 |

## AI features

| # | Gap | Est. |
|---|---|---|
| A1 | Smart Blocks equivalents (placement suggestions, replace, detect and convert, search), using local open models | 25–50 + model licensing |
| A2 | An in-app assistant (AutoCAD has Autodesk Assistant); CADCraft's MCP server already lets any agent drive it | 10–20 |
| A3 | Markup Assist (import markups from PDFs/images) | 10–20 |

## Revision history

| Date | Change | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-11 | minor | German interface catalog landed: L1 row count 936 → 989, L2 narrowed (de done; 40–60 → 35–55 h) |
| 2026-10-11 | minor | SPLINE Knots/Tangency/toLerance/Object, MTEXT Height/Justify/Line spacing/Rotation/Style/Width/Columns, MLEADER spline and no-leader types and block content landed (#408): top-10 row 5, F1 and F10 narrowed |
| 2026-10-11 | minor | Object snap tracking, Extension, Parallel and true Apparent Intersection landed (#379): top-10 row 3 and U1 narrowed to the leftovers |
| 2026-10-10 | minor | Merged main: closed or narrowed rows for the Ukrainian catalog, UNITS dialog, shortcut display, dynamic input pointer boxes, press-drag windows, SETVAR DIM*, WIPEOUT and gradients, fmt |
| 2026-10-10 | minor | Alpha blockers marked (rows failing the core-workflow gate) |
| 2026-10-10 | major | First gaps list: ranked top 10 and every known shortfall by dimension, with evidence and estimates |