Topic: My 2009 has arrived...

[Josh Nieman]

Remember, also, to get your printed materials if you so desire.

I like to have them... they're "free", which means they already added the charge to your bill!

URL changed, this year:

http://www.AutodeskDocAndMedia.com

[ReneRam]

I have been beta testing for a few months now, ... always a lot of bugs, but I ended falling in love with the "ribbon" . apart from that the 3D studio max engine is something that might bring users back to Autodesk from rhino.

[Josh Nieman]

I haven't seen too much changed about the modeling this year, other than mention of gradient procedual materials?  I understand the procedurals, as I had used them in max a bit, but I'll have to see what they did with Autocad this year...

I'm a modeler/renderer by hobby, have been for a decade now... so I'm excited to see what went on.

However.

WHERE IS IMPRESSION!?!?!

I have read numerous times that it's available for free, shipped with 09 to subscription customers... I saw no option to install it, and the only thing on my computer right now is the demo I installed months ago.

Where is Impression!?

I was looking forward to a licensed copy of that software.

[Josh Nieman]

Spoke too quickly, it's available via the Subscription Center.

You log into the Subscription Center and it's available for -DOWNLOAD- to subscribers to the various CAD packages.

I swear I read it shipped with it, but maybe it was a semantic translation in my head... and they just meant available.

Cool beans.  Downloading Impression v2 now.

[Josh Nieman]

1st impression.

Wow, big performance hit..  this sucks butt.  Doing simple tasks are so slow now.  I cannot find a way to get around the "quick"* view layouts and use the old tabs method.  This feature is also hilarious to me.  Quick view... apparently it's so quick, it doesn't take the time to show you what the layout looks like!!  I have the border in each layout at 0,0 and nothing off in space... yet it shows a black screen.  Awesome 

However, I did find that using the Migrate Custom Settings (CUI, PGP, Workspace, etc) like normal, allowed for an excellent switch to the new release... appearance was near normal.  I've attached my workspace as seen in 08 and as seen in 09.

It did not give me the Ribbon, it did not harass my with menus... Very much as before, except I have to reset the location and appearance of my Palletes.  No big deal there.



*quick is apparently San Fernando talk for slow as molasses uphill in January

[sinc]

What do you think about what they did to the menus?

Overall I like it, but I wish they had given us Drawing Window tabs in the status bar at the same time.  It's now more-annoying than ever switching between drawings when more than one is open.  Something that sat next to the Model/Layout buttons (the new-style ones, to the right of the LWT button), but let us switch between drawings, would be very nice.  (And yes, I'm aware that I can purchase a third-party solution that does something like this, but it seems like such a simple thing to build into Autocad itself...)

[mjfarrell]

you have part of this in your Masterview mode of the Prospector Tab of Toolspace....I know not the same....

[Josh Nieman]

to be honest with you, I despise the menu browser.

It's extremely intrusive to smooth working.

This isn't just the "it's different, I don't like it" because I'm doing my best to take that into account, and I know those feelings do exist.  I'm a lot younger than most of y'all so I'm sure I don't feel the "change woes" as hard as y'all, but this Menu Browser BS is ... well.. BS  It's Bovine Scat.

The boss was just asking for an update on this project I'm working on, and he kept laughing at me, because I kept cursing at the screen... "Switch to the other file, real quick" *hits ctrl+tab... nothing happened*  "WHAT THE #*)&# HOW... #(&$#&("...

To cut it short... Some reason CTRL+TAB wouldn't work... I decided to open the file to make sure I hadn't closed it for some reason... I hit CTRL+O... nothing happened.

I fumbled my way through the menu browser and tried to open it... and here's a wonderful kicker.  It didn't ask me if I'd like to open the drawing read only!!!

I have two instances of a drawing open and I have no idea which one is read only!!  It doesn't say at the top, or on the quick drawing browser (finally found that, btw) or anything!!! 

What the heck is going on here!?

However, my ctrl+/shortcuts are now working... most of the time... it seems that randomly CTRL+O or CTRL+TAB don't work at first, but I've yet to narrow down the reason... it doesn't have to do with a window not being active, or the cursor being somewhere else... no... I tried that, hoping it was a simple solution.

I hope this is just a 'ghost in the machine' that goes away with a restart... but I restarted just before this started happening

[Josh Nieman]

2 days into using the menu browser or whatever the red A icon is called.

 MENUBAR=1... looking tempting.

I'm trying to refrain, to give it a fair chance.

What I have done is toggled on the Quick View Drawings function whenever I need to change to another drawing... of course this is only when I have too many drawings open to make CTRL+TAB worth the effort.

I am not too keen on it.

I would like it if it automatically appeared if you hovered your mouse over a specific area, instead of having to find the icon and click it, and hope you get your mouse to it before it disappears... *grumbles*  Then again, picking an area to trigger that event that wouldn't be intrusive could be a problem.  Accidental triggering would tick me off even more, so the lesser of evils may just be too evil.

I sure as heck am not going to use the menu browser for switching drawings though.

Used to be:

Windows > Select Drawing (done)  2 clicks.

Now it's

Menu Browser > (wait for it to load... takes a couple seconds) hover mouse down to window, having to deal with all the loads of the other menus as you move your mouse down the list... then getting the mouse over "Windows" then moving over to the right, and clicking the drawing.

2 clicks with a dang mouse-through-the-maze + delays in between scenario.

Not fun.

[Josh Nieman]

I came into this release with optimism.  I was not bothered by the Ribbon.  I was curious to see what I could it could offer.  I was not afraid of the new appearance and colors... sure it'll take a bit to get used to the buttons, but hey, it looks a little fresher, I can appreciate that, plus in doing so, we have some new tools to go with the bottom buttons and such.

I hate the menu browser.  Worst "function" ever.  Ever.  Ever.... ever.

Another thing I am having continuing problems with, is the lack of effect when hitting traditional keyboard functions such as CTRL+TAB, CTRL+O etc.

Opening and closing the application takes longer than ever.

This biggest thing I am extremely aggravated at... you'll see in the attached screenshot.  Pick some objects... hit the Properties palette set to fly out... no selection set     This is happening way too often... which by too often... I mean ALWAYS!  There is no solution.  I have closed Autocad... reopened Autocad... it still happens.  I cannot figure this out. 

Quick properties does not work either.   I have QuickProperties ON, and QPMODE set to 1.

So not only can I not use the traditional method, but I can't even use the new method of viewing and changing properties.

[Krushert]

Josh, You are beginning to scare me. 

[Josh Nieman]

The Cardinals are winning at least.

I'm hoping I'm a fluke, but I found someone else on the Adesk NGroups who is having a SIMILAR problem, that I'm trying to get more details out of... it appears we both used the packaged Migration Utility to transfer settings from ACAD2008... normally I would say 'coincidence' but some Autodesk employee asked for that information specifically.

I'm... frustrated... to say the least.

I was looking forward to this release too   Not as much as 08, but... let's just say I haven't uninstalled 2008 yet... and I don't foresee doing so.  I already told the other guys who I normally have to FORCE or TRICK into upgrading when necessary... that I don't care if they stick with 08 this year. 

AFAIK there're no new OBJECTS (like MLeaders, Multiline Attributes, etc) that will not show in previous versions despite the same file type... so I don't care if they continue using 08, even if I create drawings in 09.

[Krushert]

Well I am cranking the Black In Black Album.    and trying to stay focus on enlarged plans, not going very good.  Too much air drums

We have not received our ACA 09 yet.  Like you I will install it and check it out before I install on the others.  I have never used the migration utility.  Something about wanting to start with clean slate and not drag any evil gremlins from the previous release.  Call me superstitious I guess.

I am the only one that does not uninstall the previous releases.   For testing purposes and converting files when I need to. I can only think of one instance that I had two versions running at the same time and that was testing fields in block with 2005.

[Josh Nieman]

I typically keep that last years release on until I am sufficiently satisfied with the stability, coexistence, and function of the new one.... just keep the old one around as a safety net, I guess.

I'm sorry, but I am starting, more and more, each day, to slide towards the negative-neds that hate the idea of the subscription system... I used to be pretty impartial... but sheesh... they had two hotfixes out before I ever got the shipment!!  That says something...

I don't even want to count the number of times I've seen an Adesk employee on the NGrounds say "Ah, yes, I see this issue, and we'll look into it"

THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE BEFORE YOU SEND ME THIS FLAMING TURD PILE!! :realmad: :realmad:

*breathe in.... breathe out... breathe in.... breathe out...*

I have yet to play with some 3D models with this thing.  I'm keeping an optimistic attitude there.  I've seen one user claim it got slower, and many claim it got faster, more efficient, smoother, and a couple old quirks weren't happening anymore (one user mentioned multi-surface corner filleting... not a problem here, but nice to know something happened... maybe)  as well as a new material type "Procedural Gradient Ramps" was introduced... something worth playing with I guess.  Not all that much that I care about... would have been nice to be able to drape a texture over a multifaced object, rather than the texture resetting for each face, to enable texture mapping the RIGHT way, instead of the quarter-butt method they use now... instead they give us a tool that will only make a fresh-out-of-school modern-contemporary-architect-dreamer say "COOOOOL!" *drools*

....ok maybe I should try harder to be optimistic.

[sinc]

Well, with C3D, they've pretty much guaranteed that I won't be able to do a whole lot of beta testing.  Opening a drawing in C3D 2009 renders it unusable in C3D 2008, which means I cannot use 2009 for any of our active jobs.  That makes it difficult to do any sort of comprehensive testing, and forget about testing it in a production environment.  I wonder how many other beta testers are in the same situation.

Also, because of past (bad) experiences with Autodesk, I've basically given up trying to install a beta product on a production machine.  I have the C3D beta installed in a VM.  If the majority of beta testers are doing similar things, then it's no surprise that so many problems fail to appear during beta.