Survey 2

[JMirisola]

SolidWorks is doing yet another survey. The only reason I'm posting the link is because I happen to know the person running it and believe that she'll actually do something with the results...

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/127546/quality-survey-ux

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP, Certified DriveWorks AE
CAD Administrator, Ultimate Survival Technologies
My Blog

 

[TheTick]

SW spends too much effort on inane bells and whistles aimed at enabling botom feeders. There are many more important core tools that need attention and improvement to make SW a more credible design tool.

 

[macduff]

Thanks Jeff,
I completed the survey, and made a similar comment as TheTick did.



Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2009 SP 3.0
Dell 490 XP Pro SP 2
Xeon CPU 3.00 GHz 3.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro FX 3450 512 MB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer

 

[ctopher]

Did survey. Not much comment. Don't use SW much anymore until I find a job.

Chris
SolidWorks 08, CATIA V5
ctopher's home (updated Aug 5, 2008)
ctopher's blog
SolidWorks Legion

 

[Theophilus]

Jeff, I'm interested to see if the current SolidWorks nose-dive ever corrects. I've participated in forums and surveys extensively in the past, but what the power users consistently say simply isn't being implemented, year after year. But they keep pulling out all sorts of development resources for things these same users DON'T ask for. I don't understand. The current users are the ones floating the boat, not the ACAD and Inventor users. This is simply not a good way to run a business. If you cannot keep your customers, you'll soon find you cannot gain customers. Anyone in business understands this.

Anyway, let's hope Ms. Cherny can alleviate reason for such cynicism from their customers.

After taking the survey, I realized I completely left out all comments about installation (WHY it's terrible) and Toolbox. DOH! Oh, well, a simple glimpse at any forum on this topic should supply ample feedback.



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

A people governed by fear cannot value freedom.

 

[rfus]

Maybe they let users like me, who is pretty happy with the software, inflate their company's sense of self gratification, therefore compelling them to reward me with some fluff. Let's give rfus a magnifying glass, the ability to push and pull unconstrained features with instant 3d, and lets put in a new background and lighting scheme in RealView. While we're at it, let's cut the development budget and give that money to marketing. We'll sell way more software that way. I bet rfus wants a sitcom series about three guys in a trailer using SolidWorks. Maybe he should fill out another survey while he's at it to stroke us again.

rfus

 

[JMirisola]

They have another one going in their forums..."Why do you want backwards compatibility?". Um, duh, so we can open older/newer files?
How many times do they need to be told?

</rant>

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP, Certified DriveWorks AE
CAD Administrator, Ultimate Survival Technologies
My Blog

 

[MikeHalloran]

My first attempt at the survey got farkled when I hit enter too soon, and tried going back. Lost a lot of valuable invective.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[MikeHalloran]

I complained bitterly about
"Solidworks is unable to obtain required memory."
... go get some more, or you're screwed.

Third time I've seen it today.

Dassault never heard of paging?



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[MadMango]

Let's hope that since they have reached that coveted 1,000,000 user base, they can stop going after converts and start listening to the people that helped spread the word to get them to that level.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of these Forums?

 

[MikeHalloran]

Why can't they even do simple things right?
Like sorting by filename in a pick list.

I.e.,
RE52722.sldprt ... comes before
RE508577-02.sldprt ... huh?

On what planet is that a correct sort order?




Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Mike ... What do you mean by 'pick list'?

Do you get the same result if the -02 is omitted?

 

[MikeHalloran]

For business reasons, some subdirectories containing components got moved around, so when I open a model that's not real new, I get a dialog about "Unable to locate the file xxxxx.sldprt. Would you like to find it yourself?" So I say yes, and am put in an analog of File Manager.

.... Hmmm. Upon further inspection, it must _be_ File Manager... which is expressing the same bizarre behavior.
The ...-02 sorts right after the ...-01, and right before the same number with no dash. Which is okay. But the filenames are not sorted in character order, left to right, and I'm not seeing the pattern.
... But it must be a behavior that's considered normal on whatever planet Redmond, WA is really on.
Not a SW bug; sorry.



Oh, but while I'm here, when I _do_ have to search for a component file, why do I have to do it twice? I.e. if I say, the file you want is in a different directory under a slightly different name, then I am asked the same question again and have to repeat the process. Which wouldn't be nearly so annoying if our products didn't have thousands of components.





Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

I don't understand why you are being asked to select the 'missing' file twice ... unless it's once for the assy model and once for the drawing.

 

[MikeHalloran]

No, there isn't a drawing yet.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

I just moved a file using Windows to force the message;

Open the assy and get the "Unable to locate the file..." message.
Select Yes.
Browse to and double-click the file.
Assy loads.
Save assy.

At which step are you being asked twice?

 

[MikeHalloran]

When I double- click the file.
I get the same dialog all over, but now the file manager window opens in the directory where the file already is... and showing the old file name.

Maybe moving _and_ renaming is getting things confused.

Not that I can do anything about it. The former principal user was in the middle of moving a lot of stuff around when he left.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[AnnaWood]

Mike,

If the missing reference file is in a sub-assembly you need to open and resolve the sub-assembly.

Start at the bottom of your assembly structure and work to resolve up to the top level asm.

Then you will not be asked again when you open the top level assembly.

The sort issue is more likely a Windows thing, SW is just making call to the Windows File System. Windows does not know how to sort very well.

Cheers,

Anna Wood
SW2008 SP5.0, Windows Vista SP1
IBM ThinkPad T61p, T7800, FX570M, 4 gigs of RAM

http://www.solidmuse.com

http://www.phxswug.com

 

[JMarv]

..."Why do you want backwards compatibility?".

Why does SolidWorks distribute a free utility (DWG Gateway) that adds this functionality to ACAD...

Joe
SW Office 2008 SP5.0
P4 3.0Ghz 3GB
ATI FireGL X1