macOS Install
Prerequisites:
A computer with macOS Sonoma (14.0) or later
At least 2 GB of free space. (Only ~60MB will be used for LDCAD; the rest will be used for emulation.)
A computer with the Apple Silicon Chip Series (M1 or later)
Downloading LDCAD
Click on the link, and download the zip file.
Once downloaded, open the zip file.
Installing Whisky
Click on the link, and download the installer. Once installed, open the app.
Setting up Whisky
On the top right corner, click the + symbol. Name the "bottle" anything. I use "LDCad". If this is your first time using Whisky, creating the bottle may take some time.
Once your bottle is created, go into the lower right hand corner and click the "Open C: Drive button. Here, drag your LDCadVEX folder into drivec > Users > crossover > Desktop.
Now, go back to Whisky and click the Run... button in the lower right hand corner. Select the LDCadVEX.exe file that is in the folder you just now moved. After a while, you will see an installation prompt. Follow through.
Once you are done installing, it will ask you to select a library. Go into the same LDCadVEX folder again, and select the folder called Library, and then open.
Changing the font
Once you enter the program, you'll see a lot of X's
This is because the program is looking for a font called "Verdana." However, our fonts folder is empty, because of a totally clean install of Windows.
We will replace this with the GNU Free Font FreeSans.
Close LDCad.Download the FreeFont package from this link, and extract the resulting zip file.
Within the extracted contents, locate the file
FreeSans.ttfinside thesfddirectory.Again, find the drive_c folder through Whisky.
Then navigate over to the
windowsfolder, and then find theFontfolder. This is the Windows font folder where we'll place the font file.The drive_c folder is the same one we opened in the first part of the installation.Copy the
FreeSans.ttffile into the Windows font folder.
Make a second copy of FreeSans.ttf in the Windows font folder, and rename the new copy to verdana.ttf .
There should now be two files in the Windows font folder, FreeSans.ttf and verdana.ttf . These are the two font files LDCad expects to find in this directory. If you want to use a font other than FreeSans, you can, just make sure you end up with two .ttf files in the Fonts directory with the exact names FreeSans.ttf and verdana.ttf . LDCad will use verdana.ttf for almost everything and FreeSans.ttf for only the small "part info box" that appears when you select a part.
Now, you can reopen LDCad. To do this, go to Whisky > Pin program, and find you LDCadVEX.exe file in the Desktop folder (in the user folder crossover). Then, select it to pin. Name it whatever you want.
Now, right click the newly pinned LDCad, and click run. Everything should look correct now.
Troubleshooting / FAQ
My parts show up as blank items/Red plus's.
This is because you haven't set the correct library, or the correct shadow.
Many people download the CAD files from the official VEX website, but that folder isn't compatible with LDraw. You need to use the "Library" folder found in this guide. (the gDrive) Another possibility is that you didn't set your shadow.
Usually it should set it by itself. In LDCad, go into the "Prefs" tab in the top, and then click LDraw, then Search (library) paths .... Here, make sure your LDCadVEX Library folder is an "Official" library. To add the shadow: Open your c_drive, then go into the users/crossover folder, and then go to your %AppData% folder, and into Roaming. Find a folder called LDCadVEX, and open shadow > offLib. Inside this folder, you'll see 2 files.
One of them in offLibShadow.csl. Go back to LDCad, and in the shadow box, click browse folder, and find the offLib folder. (you will NOT see the csl file, as LDCad is very old and the code is kinda crooked.) Press open. Now, manually type in \offLibShadow.csl after the offLib folder. Then, click Accept.
Close and reopen LDCad
If you have any other issues please DM @ruiguan on Discord.
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