Topic: AutoCAD 2006 command prompting ...

[MP]

Honestly?

To me it's fluff, window dressing.

About 1995 I/we sent in a long list of practical wants to Autodesk. Some of the wants included things like the ability to apply true radiased fillets to 3DPOLYs, real time stretchable solids, the ability to have layer colors / linetypes unique per viewport, a hidden line algorythm that worked in high precision with an exposed interface for programmers, yada ...

... Practical suggestions that would truly make AutoCAD more powerful, flexible, extensible. They responded by sending two deskers to our office. "Oh these are truly great ideas Michael, we're so greatful you folks took the time to detail them ..."

<cough>

It's been 10 years. What I've observed in that time is that they spend the majority of their development efforts on dazzle factor features that constitute nothing more than the streamers on a child's tricycle.

[Kerry]

t

... nothing more than the streamers on a child's tricycle.

 from what I've been reading, it appears they've made a mess of the menu/CUI issue as well.  Considering that this is the major customization interface for most users, it is inexcusable. If I issued software that had the defects that these guys seem to take for granted I'd probably be sued, and definitely wouldn't be paid. I usually refrain from being a basher 'cause the negativity upsets me, but this seems to be going a bit far.

From my perusal of the AutoDesk user groups, this seems to be the single most difficult 'feature' for developers and Users to come to grips with.

Perhaps if decent documentation was provided there may not be hundreds [who knows] of people wasting untold manhours playing guessing games trying to sort the mess out.

The thing that really pisses me off though, was that all the 'bloggers/reviewers' lauded the release. In quieter moments, I wonder if any of them really did any serious testing on the product.

[/personalOpinion]
kwb

[Darryl]

CADTutor wrote:

The beauty of AutoCAD is that it does contain all of these choices so that users can choose to work with a legacy interface if they want or they can choose to experiment with new tools.

Good Comment

I've been using AutoCAD since the mid 80's, and when I first saw the dynamic input/prompt I wasn't so sure about it.  But now that I have been using it a couple weeks, I really like it!  It's not always in the way to see your screen - just when you're using your keyboard.  And I like not having to look down at the bottom of the screen for the command line.

Here's another thing I really like about it: occasionally I check the location of holes in a part using the ID command (with the CEN osnap).  I would have to issue the command (hit the spacebar) for each hole checked, but now I only have to issue the command once, then hover the cursor near a hole and the coords are breifly displayed right there, then move the cursor to another hole for the same!

As for me, I'll use dynamic input - if you don't like it just turn it off.  The beauty of AutoCAD!

[CADTutor]

Honestly?

To me it's fluff, window dressing.

Ah, but there is another agenda here. It's true that Autodesk have really focussed on usability and interface issues in the last few iterations of AutoCAD - well, OK tables and stuff are useful but as you pointed out, there's lots of more useful stuff they could have done. Why is that? Well, we all know that AutoCAD has a diminishing lifespan. Autodesk really want to move everyone to a more modern application where development isn't hampered by legacy functionality and where some of the things you suggest could easily be implemented. Some parts of AutoCAD haven't been updated in well over 10 years - render engine and materials for example. The reason for that is that Autodesk want us to have VIZ as well. As time goes by, the limited functionality of AutoCAD will become more obvious as other applications forge ahead. By that time we'll all be only too willing to move to Revit or whatever Autodesk decides will the the successor to AutoCAD. In the meantime we're kept happy (they hope) by small improvements to functionality and experiments in usability.

[SMadsen]

Kerry, the mess of menu/CUI, what's that about? Can you link to some discussions?
Just being curious cos' I think CUI is way superior to the old mnu/mns/mnc scheme and I haven't heard anything different.

Of course, I could just go look but if you have some links at hand .. ?

[Kerry]

Hi Stig ,

I just did a search on my newsreader and got 728 hits on CUI

Most recent is
From: "R. Robert Bell"
Newsgroups: autodesk.autocad.customization
Sent: Sunday, May 08, 2005 6:07 AM
Subject: Notes on the philosophy of CUI

Quite a few of the subject lines are less flattering.

I do not have 2006 yet, so cant comment from personal experience .... yet.

[SMadsen]

Thanks Kerry. I'll check it out (and leave my *comfy chair* to search some more )

[Kerry]

What are you doing in a comfy chair at this time of day. You should be outside in the sunshine having lunch.

It's almost midnight here, so I at least have an excuse to be sitting back with a small port.


added :
That post time will be GMT+10, so you do the math

[SMadsen]

Why, sitting comfy'ly of course.

I haven't located Robert's post yet but most other topics seems to be about trouble with conversions. However frustating it might be, I don't think anyone would expect the transition to go smoothly - especially not from a programmers point of view! - but I don't see it as an argument against the concept itself. I'll keep looking, though.

[Kerry]

Stig ; I think the concept was great when I first read about the change. The implementation however seems to fall shy of perfect in several areas, causing some consternation.

[hyposmurf]

It appears you have to wait for two releases, to get a newly developed feature to perform correctly.Just look at the tool palettes,came out in 2004 but many of the usefull features were left off until 2005.