[Particle]

I'm hoping some of you might have a suggestion for a free or low-cost (~$100 or less) CAD package for doing basic 2D drawing. I cut my teeth on AutoCAD 2000 over a decade ago and am just not picking up the control system of any of the half dozen packages I've tried.

Quite simply, I'd like to be able to do most drawing without the mouse. In the old days with AutoCAD 2000 for a simple line that meant pressing L[enter]X1,Y1[enter]X2,Y2[enter]. So far nothing I've tried seems to replicate that functionality. Many require the use of a mouse to perform or augment basic drawing which I'd rather not have to do.

I gave these a shot but they don't seem to work that way, at least in their default configurations:

• DesignCAD 3D Max 22
• DeltaCAD
• PowerSHAPE-e 2013
• JustCAD
• BRL-CAD (shudder)
• FreeCAD

Is there anything else I should try? My requirements seem really, really simple so I'm not sure why nothing seems capable of it.

[CCW]

You haven't tried Draftsight yet? Sounds exactly like what you are wanting; maybe try Qcad too. Most Autocad-like programs let you do either; that is draw by clicking or via the command line. Using the mouse with features like object snap tracking, incremental inference and polar snapping make things a hell of a lot easier though.

[Particle]

DraftSight looks very promising! Thank you very much.

[DareBee]

Yep - you want DraftSight
Done deal

[Particle]

It's official. I'm in love with DraftSight. It's a near-clone of the version of AutoCAD I remember. Most of the same commands work, too.

Thanks to you both.