×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Clicks clicks clicks

Clicks clicks clicks

Clicks clicks clicks

(OP)
We are going to aggressively attack the issue of wasted icon clicking time.

We have done some benchmarks and we can clearly see that clicking on icons on a ribbon bar, menu bar or even right click menu is slowing us down drastically.

We have found that direct keyboard, single click commands are the fastest way to activate a function. The radial buttons are also excellent.

So.... in order of slowest to fastest (taking MEASURE DISTANCE function as an example)
1) choose from drop down menu
2) choose icon from top tool bar
3) Short-cut using keyboard then choose type
4) Radial button, then choose type
5) Short-cut using keyboard with type pre-chosen
6) Radial button with the type pre-chosen

by FAR the absolute quickest way is #4 and #5. There is a problem though. In order to pre-choose a type, you must make a separate user-command and tie it to a key-stroke. This means that since there are 10 options, you could have potentially 10 needed keyboard short-cuts. Obviously that is too many. (Okay, so we pare it down to the 3 most used options....that still is 3 keyboard short cuts.) Consider the multitude of other commands that could be streamlined. WAY WAY too many keyboard commands
This same problem exists if we try to use radial bar. (which are actually "Gestures") WAY to many too many.

Still....

Two questions:
1) I saw someone say in SOME post in this forum that it would be good to have some kind of "tracking" program that will track which commands are most used over a time period. This way we can say "hey, these are the top 20 functions we use the most." (I know....they change depending on task)
2) Is there a way to create a toolbar that pops up by the cursor when a keyboard short-cut is pressed. This would work just like the right-click of the mouse button..except of the right click it would be Crtl+D (for example).

Any suggestions?

Mauricio Haliska
Eng. Mgr.
www.Metrican.com

RE: Clicks clicks clicks

2) Have you tried using full screen mode and pressing the alt key?

NX9 Win8.1 64bit i7-3770K 16GB Quadro2000

RE: Clicks clicks clicks

(OP)
CNSZU,

Woah!!!! hmmmm....gotta think on that one! thanks!

Mauricio Haliska
Eng. Mgr.
www.Metrican.com

RE: Clicks clicks clicks

And starting with NX 9.0 we've also added a sort of middle-ground between 'Full-Screen' and the normal mode. If you go to the top right of top border bar, above the ribbon, you'll notice an up-pointing chevron ('^') which if you select it, it will change the UI into what we call a 'minimized' mode where you've still got the Border Bars, but no Ribbon, freeing up some additional graphics space, albeit not as much as when in 'Full-Screen' mode, but still more usable real-estate. Toggling the now down-ward pointing chevron will return NX back to the normal UI mode. Note that the 'F12' key will also toggle this mode ON/OFF.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources