Solidworks wants our top 10 suggestions

this was posted in Eng-Tips.....

Greg Jankowski, customer satisfaction manager for SolidWorks posted
this survey for your top ten wants. He mentioned that he would followup
with a summary of the results.

So fill it out with your needed enhancements and/or bug fixes.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=711482492767

 

I couldn't find it. Did he get red flagged?

I did fill out the survey but only could think of four things.

 

It was posted under Gildashard, Jason Capriotti.

I like this kind of thing, and I wish that SWW wasn't the only time it
got a lot of attention. Users keep asking for fixes to existing stuff
and sw keeps putting in new stuff that almost works. Disconnect somewhere.

If anyone is having difficulty thinking of things to submit, here are
the ones I submitted:

#1

Interface conventions. Things like
- Tab to move focus from box to box
- focus remains on entire cell for number entry (for entering say a
radius value, now you have to swipe with the mouse or delete the
existing number instead of just typing over it)
- alphabetization of lists (look at the first page of Help, or the Save
As list and try to find something)
- Esc gets you out of a command or dialog or warning
- spin boxes on callouts (variable rad fillets for example have callouts
that are really awful to use - the focus doesn't allow you to just type,
you have to select and type. and there are no spin arrows...)

#2

Put more effort into fixing details, less effort into new half-baked
features

#3

Sketch relations (and assembly mates) are really terrible. These need to
be absolutely rock solid. Sketching with splines is better than it was,
but still very quirky.

#4

dragging underdefined arcs with tangent relations is extremely
unpredictable. You can't tell if dragging this or that will change
radius, center position or both.

#5

a non-hierarchical list of features. the ability to show the tree in
straight history based progression, without the indented relationships,
along with the ability to reorder without being constrained by
relationships - relations go dangling if they have to to allow it

#6

When you have a sweep which uses a composite curve made of a projected
curve made from two sketches, I want two things:
1) The ability to rollback to the projected sketches in 1 step, not 4.
2) The ability to redefine the pierce relation to the sweep path without
deleting and recreating the sweep feature. (selecting the path from the
FM doesn't count as a workaround because if it pierces the sketch plane
more than once, you cannot specify which location will be chosen by
selecting from the FM)

#7

Speed.

- why does it take time to delete or reorder a suppressed feature?
- why does it take any time at all to enter or exit a sketch at the
bottom of the tree?
- why does changing settings which don't change geometry require
rebuilding a preview? for example, the Fill surface. if you change the
switch to "Apply to all", but they are all already the same, it still
rebuilds the preview.
- why does the interface stall so long when trying to display an error
message?

#8

3D planes and 3D sketch relations in general are unpredictable and
nearly unusable (still)

#9

allow 0 and negative values, allow expressions in the dimension box and
remember the expression, allow variable names and dimension names to be
typed directly into the dimension box, allow link values to be created
or assigned immediately when the dimension is created

#10

do something to allow control of plane normals. this becomes a problem
when SW just decides that after a number of changes it is now going to
flip the plane, and the sketches and features on it.

 

How about improving the sluggishness of large mult- sheet drawings,
That is my #1 gripe.

 

Nice list,. Matt! I find it especially interesting that only one of the 10,
#6, is at all exotic. The rest are things that almost all of us run into on
a nearly daily basis.

Jerry Steiger
Tripod Data Systems
"take the garbage out, dear"

 

More tolerant industry friendly software licensing practices by the
SolidWorks company. Believe me, this is a usability issue! (The
current direction being taken with 2007 is a move in the wrong
direction). This can be done while reducing piracy if you realize the
true size of your customer base.

Make the Feature Tree area detachable (fly-out) from the Part Viewing
Window (so I can open up more area on my monitor for viewing the part
by moving the Feature Tree to my second monitor).

A function that creates customized Custom Property Editors on-the-fly
(without API). The edit Properities window is fine for general work,
but often offers to much info at once.

A function that allows on-the-fly copying of Custom Property Values
from one visiable document to another (visiable or not), without API.

Smarter Mate Reference fuctions

Improved system performance. Perhaps create a utility that fines items
slowing down a computer system which is geared towards S/W useage.

Built in utility to quickly control the resolved/hidden status of all
parts in an assembly from one window. Maybe employ old XtreeGold check
marks functionality to the utility.

Make the conversation between Inch and meter more acturate (to 8
places). It really isn't just 25.4, and since S/W keeps track to 8
places, it should have the correct conversation factor to that level as
well. (I know this is a hella personal preference, but it's like, HEY,
that really doesn't equal that at 8 places!)

dragging underdefined arcs with tangent elations is extremely
unpredictable. You can't tell if dragging this or that will change
radius, center position or both. (ok, I borrowed this one. lol)

Yes, I know that's nine, but it's enough for now.

 

I eventually found it. I thought that Greg posted it.

Performance was my #1.
Stability was my #2

Those two would improve delivery on complex and large assembly work by
days or weeks for me.

Bug fixes was #3
Stop changing the user interface was #4

Again for obvious bottom line reasons. The time wasted on each bug
report and retraining time is another bottom line item.

 

fcsuper - Make the Feature Tree area detachable (fly-out) from the Part
Viewing
Window (so I can open up more area on my monitor for viewing the part
by moving the Feature Tree to my second monitor).

2007 doesn't allow you to remove it, but you can collapse it down like
the Task Pane on the right.

1 fix down and how many to go?

Steve O

 

SteveO,

I do that sometimes, even on 2005. I want to be able to see the work
and open up as much area for the model view as possible, at the same
time. Several engineers at my company complain (nice word) about this
from time to time about this, so it's not just me. Even AutoCAD
allowed a user to move the line command to a second monitor starting
WAY back in 1990. It just seems strange to me that S/W locks the
Feature Tree in place in the same window at the model view.

Matt

 

Isn't the international inch defined as being equal to 25.4 mm

 

Thinking about it a bit more, I would like to add two more items to your
list. To keep it down to 10, I have to (very reluctantly) replace two items

I would replace this one with fixing multi-body parts and the feature scope.
I would guess that about half of the serious problems we have are due to
multi-body problems, particularly when the feature scope changes on its own
which body a feature operates on.

I would replace this one with making cuts with surfaces more robust. In
particular, the direction of a cut often changes for no apparent reason.

Both of these could be placed under your #2, "Put more effort into fixing
details, less effort into new half-baked features", but so could most of the
list. They cause an awful lot of wheel-spinning and cursing here.

Jerry Steiger
Tripod Data Systems
"take the garbage out, dear"

 

Couple I'd like to see:
-Editing a sketch and making no changes, or cancelling out, should not
require a rebuild no matter where in the tree it is, nothing changed!

-Printing a drawing should not flag it as having been changed ( ie. in need
of saving ). This is a real pain when you have several drawings open, some
changed, some not, and need to check into PDM or similar.

-Having the "display arc centerpoints" option checked sometimes results in
"zoom to fit" zooming waaaay out ( large radius 3d sketches ) to include
displaying the centerpoint, and sometimes not. I'd like it to be
consistant, and a settable option.

-The inferred relationships of sketches is ambiguous at best. Some
relationships display the icon indicating that it will be set, yet do not
actually set the relationship ( midpoint of arc comes to mind ). Often more
than one relationship exists within the mouse area ( ie. tangent to arc,
horizontal, coincident, and quadrent can all be displayed at once although
only one relationship is automatically placed ). Allow the user to chose
which he wants ( maybe tab through them? ). This would also help when
trying to place a line tangent to an arc at an angle of 89.5 degrees, its a
crapshoot whether you'll get the tangent relationship, or you'll get a
vertical one.

-This may go with Matt's planar conventions. How vertical/horizontal axis
of sketches get set is bizarre, at best. Two planes, one of which is an
offset of the other, can have vertical axis that are 90 degrees from each
other. Maybe that makes sense to someone, not me.

-"Three point arc" has never worked as convention, and common logic, would
dictate. You can select points for beginning and end, but the point
defining radius must be clicked into the workspace then relationships added.
It takes three points to define and arc.... everywhere but SW.

-When exporting a dxf. Its origin should be definable. Using the paper
space to define a dxfs origin is rarely useful to me. Most times I'd much
rather have the parts origin be used as the dxfs origion ( 95% of the time
or better ).

-Twist control of loft sections simply sucks. It should be inferred that no
twist is desired, operator intervention should be require to cause twist.
Not several extra steps being taken to prevent twist.

 

I hope you guys are filling out the survey as well as listing your items
here.

Bill

 

geez, how could I have forgotten that? good call, Jer.

oh, yeah. and the cut with surface initially points the wrong way 100%
of the time.

 

Catia, a division of Dassault does this with a hot key. The Feature
Manager is an overlay on the working area. Very slick because they have
a superiour feature tree in many ways.

 

SW07 uses F9 to hide the FeatureManager, F10 to hide the toolbars and
F11 to make the graphics window go full screen. Nice improvements.

It would be nice to see things more multiscreen friendly. The FM and
the Task Pane would go to the other screen. Although with a 24"
widescreen, it all works out pretty well on a single screen.

 

That's what I was saying to myself as I read through your list. So you're
still ahead, Matt, 10 to 1.

I get so used to working around the problems in the software that I find it
hard to tell someone what is wrong with it. It helps a lot to have a beer in
my hand and a bunch of like minded people around me, so we can feed off of
one another's stories. Kind of like this group, but with beer!

Jerry Steiger
Tripod Data Systems
"take the garbage out, dear"

 

Yes, I guess you could call us your "beer" group, as in a group of your
beers.

Going to Nawlins this year?

 

F10 is my hotkey for screen captures.

I have little use for the F keys for additional hot key functionality.
I use F5 and F6 alot and that is it.

The bottom line for me is that I don't care for these things if the
major items like performance and stability are not fixed. What is the
use in replacing a mouse drag that takes a fraction of a second with a
hot key that might be a fraction of a fraction of a second quicker when
compared to a 15 minute load of a drawing or redoing an hours work due
to a crash. Just the time it takes SW to come back from a crash will
replace many mouse drags on the feature tree.

SW07 will stay on the shelf until it is proven stable. I have already
been burned by 2006.

 

Can't give up your F10 screen capture? There's a new toolbar button for
screen captures too. Hotkeys are far easier to manager with 07.

I've been using 2007 for months, and the crashes have been few. I did
have one part get bad on me, but that has been it in terms of stability.
2 different computers, running well. Stability is not a problem with
this release, at least in the corners of it that I've been banging on,
which I know are different from the corners you've been banging on.

Some of the new functionality in toolbox, spline sketching, assembly
mates, Xperts, boundary surface and freeform are varyingly
disappointing, but I have noticed some speed improvements particularly
in opening files, and some things like the assembly isolate command, the
new hotkey interface, the amazing difference in the Fill surface, undo
improvements, equal relations in 3D sketch, new copy dims and relations
functions, and some of the new error messages that stay out of your way
have been the highpoints for me.

I don't have any need to convince you of anything, but I'd hate to see
you waiting for some perception which may never exist.