[URL]http://www.deskeng.com[/URL]
Funny how people tout things that they don't have to work with. SWIFT is one of them. I wish it would go away as far as mates are concerned. I just spent time today fixing an assembly that SWIFT got its claws into. If I want to play with a Chinese puzzle box, I'll get one at the novelty store. TOP
Everyone thinks they want an "Easy Button" :^) Unfortunately, the marketing/sales department always seems to get flashy features added that look cool in a brief demo, but are pretty much unusable for production use.
Someday we may see reviews by people that actually use the software. This isn't one of them. When I read through the posts and when I work at helping people with SW usage, it is rarely a case of bad user interface that gets in the way. Performance, bugs and technique are far more important. Performance is SW responsibility as are bugs and technique is based on Software documentation either by SW or the user community. TOP Quoted with comments: The new heads-up user interface allows the user to concentrate on the part and assembly, rather than finding menus, toolbars and such to define geometry. Features are dynamically edited, in real time, with fully dynamic previews of the end result of the modification, rather than showing the part in a rolled-back state. When you start up SolidWorks 2008, the first thing that will hit you is the extensive overhaul of the user interface (UI). The new UI is in the style of Microsoft Office 2007, although not exactly the same. [I don't have Office 2007. I probably won't have Office 2007 for several years. I have never seen Office 2007. So right away the author has lost me. Mayby I should go surf the web and see what Office 2007 is supposed to be in order to understand what he is talking about. The Office that I have now is OK by me and I see no reason to get a newer version. Now if the UI is "extensively overhauled" that can only mean one thing. Seasoned users will have to relearn how to use SolidWorks. And this will take time away from design. When he says "features are edited real time" I get chills up and down my spine because this sounds to me like a recipe for another major hardware upgrade just to keep performance up to a level I find acceptable.]TOP What you gain is a method of interaction that hides away much of the clutter that is inevitable in such systems, but makes the whole system very task specific. So, in the Command Manager you now have single toolbar stripes for Sketching, Features, Assemblies, Drawings, etc. The PropertyManager, through which you access the Feature Tree as well as operation parameters and inputs, is automatically hidden on the left of the screen. [This sounds like SolidEdge, which for those that have never used it, has a user interface that hides functionality away until the time is right (task specific Ribbon Bar). Unfortunately, hiding things makes them hard to find and forces users to follow the software's work flow instead of their own. There are hotkeys in SW already to hide and show the feature manager. The current SW has problems with the Property manager obscuring the Feature manager. This sounds to me like they made the problem worse. Finally, I don't have a problem with clutter. I use the command manager now in 2007. Why fix what isn't broke and concentrate on fixing what is broke?] TOP Alongside this, there has been a rethinking of how you interact with data onscreen - this manifests itself in many areas, as we'll discover, but in general terms, there is a lot more interaction directly with the model. This extends to presentation of options and commands at the cursor, rather than resorting to menus or toolbars. For example, toolbars pop up at the cursor as they do in Office 2007, and hitting the S key brings up a fully customizable and context- sensitive strip of commands. [Is is customizable enough to allow reverting back to a 2007 user interface in a manner similar to XP which allows reverting to "classic Windows" in order to get better performance.] TOP DimXpert brings together a new set of tools that get you to a fully dimensioned part model in a fraction of the time - all of which conform to ASME Y14.41 standards for 3D documentation methods. [Now this is an interesting statement. It says that the tools conform to ASME Y14.41. It doesn't say that it can produce drawings that conform to this standard. If the set of tools isn't complete then you won't be able to actually produce a drawing to this standard. This is one area that I have traditionaly had problems with SW giving some of the tools but not all of the tools necessary to complete the job.] TOP
I agree. This review is an insult to thinking users everywhere. If we want to go read a marketing blurb, we can go to the SW site and read a marketing blurb. This is just parroted from someone at SW corporate who showed him stuff, then told him what he was seeing. I agree. Same situation here. I had to go see it for myself at the MS site. Just because MS does something is no reason to copy it. 100% correct. If you take the interface right out of the box, experienced users will be figuring this one out for months. Fortunately this is simply unbelievable marketing spin. They have slightly expanded functionality that already exists (Move/Size Features), turned it on by default, given it a face lift and called it a new way of doing things. The worst part of it is that this was tried back in like 97, 98 or 99, and the results were disaster back then. It will be the same now. You will have to turn this functionality off by default, if you do anything except demos. 2008 will cure you of using the CommandManager. They have removed too many options, and are locking you into one way of using it. I'm still very unclear about what the advantage is other than they were able to waste a vast swath of area in your interface and put a DS logo there. Then they had the audacity to show how you could put your own image there in place of the DS, as if losing all of that space was an advantage. No. 2008 is the release where they take away options without giving options back. In the initial betas, they had made huge changes to the interface without offering a way to customize, and removed old ways of customizing existing interface elements. I'm not against new ways of doing things, but I do want to be able to customize the interface to the way that I like to work. Options are valuable, locking users into a certain way of working is not. Gradually, they have added some options, but there are still things that you will not be able to do in 08 that you are able to do in 07. Through the betas and pre-release, they have done a lot of backpedalling because of all of the valid complaints on top of all of the very obvious bugs. I am experimenting with a new way of working with 08 to compensate for the loss of a usable CommandManager. In as much as options have been removed or new interface elements have no customization options, the 2008 interface is a disaster. It can be set up to work like 2007 as long as you don't use the CommandManager. The RMB menu can be put back together so that it is usable again, and you can get rid of the little toolbar that obscures something everytime you click. You don't have to use the S toolbar which just brings up a toolbar button that you probably already have on your screen somewhere else. You can remove all of the icons from the semi-transparent View toolbar which is placed in the graphics area and overlaps with other things that don't belong there such as the minimize-restore-close buttons, the ConfirmationCorner, and whatever else is there now. In 2008, SolidWorks makes a lot of assumptions as to which tools are the most frequently used, and for me anyway, got it completely wrong. Toolbars which are supposed to contain the most frequently use tools, have stuff I never use, and don't have stuff I do use. No doubt their assumptions are based on statistics rather than common sense. Remember the disaster with the shortened menus? Same thing. New crop of people making the same old mistakes at SW. Fortunately they relented and removed some utterly disastrous sketch workflow changes that were in the original betas. They were again, stuff that sounds great unless you actually use the software. One would start a sketch in the location where you picked the sketch plane. The problem was that if you wanted to sketch from the origin, you had to do it some other way. Another brilliant idea that didn't work out so well was the ability to edit multiple sketches at the same time. (SolidWorks is trying hard to change the history-based rules, I think.) The problem was that the new editing rules weren't very clear, the display seemed to get buggered easily, and the extra icons added to the upper right corner of the graphics window laid right on top of all the other new junk up there. And then I haven't even mentioned that SW08 obsoletes graphics cards more than a few months old. Why? For reflections on the floor, better shadows and reflective backgrounds. Wha???? This isn't a "My Pretty Pony" game for 8 year old girls, this an engineering application! Most of us are middle aged, overweight, balding, tinker with the car on weekends, and like to take things apart. We are not drag queens, graphic arts types. SolidWorks is losing touch with the demographic that put them where they are. SolidWorks says they listen to users. If you read any of the Beta forums on the SW site, the ONE thing that all of the users seem to be saying with a unified and clear voice is: SLOW DOWN DEVELOPMENT - WORK THE KINKS OUT OF THE CODE - IMPROVE PERFORMANCE Ok, that's three things, but it's really all the same. Have some pride in workmanship. You could deliver half of the new features which work solidly. In the initial beta contest, I spent more time documenting bugs than I did looking for them. It was like fishing in a barrel. The beta contest was FAR too short. There are still some nasty surprises in pre-release. There were installation problems with every beta and pre-release version. Is there anyone in charge? Who is responsible for what is happening? You don't need an MBA and 20 years of industry experience to know that the rate of development is out of control. Documentation can't keep up. This has been admitted. We also see that the new features are added with too little forethought because of all of the backpedalling done in this release. In this release I would have sacrificed the interface fiasco and the RealView coup, and just taken some of the other improvements which are actually highly useful, but get far less attention because of the long list of profligacies. The one problem with that is that 14.41 is a 3D drafting standard, not a 2D standard. I haven't really used this area much, but it looks interesting. The next hurdle is to get design to use it, and also to get mfg to accept it.
"... technique is based on Software documentation either by SW or the user community" I've given up hope that SolidWorks Corp. will produce quality documentation and make it available at a reasonable cost. It's interesting to note how many people crave decent documentation for SolidWorks and don't want to pay outrageous prices to their VAR. All you have to do to see this demand is hit ebay and check out all the official SolidWorks training manuals that SolidWorks only sells to their VAR's being sold and the big demand for them. Mark Biasotti posted here and made it clear he's never even seen the SolidWorks Bible. How fucked up is that? When Mark Biassoti makes an effort to document how to use SolidWorks advanced surfacing functions he sees no priority to include the starting Photoshop files or any files for that matter! How fucked up is that? The job of teaching how to best use SolidWorks is going to come down to SolidWorks users who wish to make money teaching what they have learned. This guy deserves more credit than he gets in this newsgroup. He's got the only comprehensive modeling tutorials for SolidWorks that I know of. I've already written him and asked for much more advanced surfacing tutorials. http://cgi.ebay.com/SOLIDWORKS-STEP...oryZ3786QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
"Unfortunately, the marketing/sales department always seems to get flashy features added that look cool in a brief demo, but are pretty much unusable for production use." I see this as a good enhancement in SolidWorks 2008: http://labs.solidworks.com/Blog/Blog.aspx?post=5
"SolidWorks says they listen to users. If you read any of the Beta forums on the SW site, the ONE thing that all of the users seem to be saying with a unified and clear voice is:" Your a total hypocrite, Matt. It's not like you listen to those who have posted on Amazon in regards to what improvements your SolidWorks Bible needs! (Note I have not posted to Amazon yet what I think of Matt's book.) Instead you chastise and insult those who have very legitimate criticisms of your book. Your such a chicken shit little pussy, Matt that you won't even post most of the comments I have had to say on your blog in regards to covering Multibodies sooner than page 727. Here is what I wrote and you refuse to put on your blog. "Suggest you start reading your own book and see how many times you are forced to tell the reader the topic of multiple bodies is covered later in chapter 26. The amount of times you have had already had to say this should tell you there is a problem with not covering Multibodies earlier! Your thinking is still tied to what SolidWorks marketing made you believe. Suggest you Google comp.cad.solidworks and see what Ed Eaton had to say to me in regards to me being right all along about disjoint solids. Ed Eaton was honest about his mistake and gave me credit for being correct all along. Compare this to what you do. (Note: Matt attempts to rewrite history in the SolidWorks Bible in regards to his inability to come to grips with disjoint solids.... it's Matt who really bought into SolidWorks marketing nonsense about why they did not support disjoint solids. Google shows how true this is!) There is no doubt in my mind that anyone coming from a better modeler than SolidWorks, which supported disjoint solids all along, will be annoyed by your approach. Another problem: Mirroring and symmetry in sketches should have been fully covered in chapter 6 Getting More From Your Sketches and should not just be appearing in Chapter 8."
Maybe he chastises and insults you because you're a clueless lunatic who can't understand even the most basic, intuitive functions of a software program, let alone understand his book and figure out how to use the software that you don't even own, or use.
"my copy of SolidWorks 2007 Bible showed up today." - Jon Banquer - May 31, 2007 SolidWorks 2007 Bible "the content is just superb!" - Jon Banquer- Aug 8, 2007 Tom
[ On Fri, 13 Jul 2007 10:26:55 -0700, matt < wrote: I'm looking for practical, viable suggestions, and maybe identifying what you think the problems are. (insane rants will be removed) "Example of something that will get removed: My name is Jon Banquer or cliff or neil or any one of their aliases." Matt Lombard Author: SolidWorks 2007 Bible ]
Your a total hypocrite, Matt. It's not like you listen to those who I'm sorry that's the way you see things. Believe me, I am making note of things that people don't like about the book. But when you live in the real world and are trying to create something out of your own head, you cannot be perfect and will not please everybody all the time. Some comments about the book I fully plan to ignore when it comes to editing time such as "it's too long" or "it's too detailed" or "it doesn't explain how to use SolidWorks like AutoCAD". Sorry, I don't see those as valid complaints or constructive in any way. When you write your own book, you can make your own decisions. The truth is that I started to allow your comments to go through. ALL of them, even when they contained language that I don't use on my blog. When you saw that I was allowing you to post, your comments got wilder and more ridiculous as you whipped yourself into a frenzy. I didn't want what happened to the Novedge blog to be repeated on mine, so I put all of your posts that I would allow into a single comment, and removed the rest. If any of your little friends start posting, I'll block the whole lot. You bring destruction, not constructive commentary, where ever you go, regardless of how you view things. I prefer a rational discussion between people who really use the software. You prove on a regular basis that you can't be rational, and you have never said anything that makes me believe you have more than a passing familiarity with SolidWorks. As for the multibodies stuff, users need to understand what assemblies are before they are thrust into multibodies. Again, if you don't agree, well, that's your choice. When you write a blog and a book, you can determine the order in which things are included and who gets to make comments. Plus, the book is not really written in any sort of chronological order, except by complexity of topic. You notice there are several places where the reader is either referred forward or backward in the book. It is, after all, a desk reference, not a novel. If a dictionary were written in chronological order, it could never define anything at all. Multibody solids leave the door wide open for a ton of poor modeling practice. The implementation in SolidWorks isn't perfect. If you turn novice users loose on multibodies, you are going to have a mess. I strongly recommend that you actually do something of your own which is original, so you can show the rest of us how it "should" be done. All you do is criticize, and you never do anything constructive. I will never take anyone like that seriously. You mentioned once that you wanted to start a blog. I strongly recommend that you do that. Then I recommend that you do something other than what the original poster of this thread is complaining about - parroting press releases. It would be a great advantage for me to have all of your ranting insanity in one easy to ignore location. You and the lot that follows you around have completely ruined this newsgroup. The amount of useful technical content found here has greatly diminished, most of it moving to the moderated SolidWorks forums and the uber-moderated eng-tips. I don't like moderation, I like personal responsibility and the ability to behave like adults. I don't believe you understand either concept. Freedom is not anarchy. You misbehave simply every time you *can*.
You didn't buy from Amazon so why threaten to post a negative review there? "I'm the kind of person who doesn't learn very well reading" - Jon Banquer - July 22, 2007 "SolidWorks has changed so much since I've been away from it and I feel like I'm really far behind." - Jon Banquer - Aug. 8, 2007 Tom
Jon says he used SolidWorks 98 and is just now learning SolidWorks 2007 which really makes him a beginner, but Jon in his own mind believes he is an advanced or expert user. "SolidWorks has changed so much since I've been away from it and I feel like I'm really far behind." - Jon Banquer - Aug. 8, 2007 Tom
"But when you live in the real world and are trying to create something out of your own head, you cannot be perfect and will not please everybody all the time." Nobody said you have to. The FACT is that you don't take constructive criticism from others very well and you choose to take off their heads when they give it. An example of this is you criticizing newbies to SolidWorks on Amazon saying your SolidWorks Bible is not for newbies. Lets take a look at what it says on the back cover of your SolidWorks Bible: "Whether you're a new, intermediate, or professional user, you will find the in-depth coverage you need to succeed with SolidWorks 2007..." Think the guy had a right to be upset what he wrote what he wrote in his review of your SolidWorks Bible on Amazon? I sure as **** do. "Some comments about the book I fully plan to ignore when it comes to editing time such as "it's too long" or "it's too detailed" or "it doesn't explain how to use SolidWorks like AutoCAD". Sorry, I don't see those as valid complaints or constructive in any way" Neither do I but the FACT is I'm not talking about this type of complaint. This is beyond lame on your part. "The truth is that I started to allow your comments to go through. ALL of them, even when they contained language that I don't use on my blog." You're full of shit, Matt. I saved most of my comments off to later refer to and I can publish all of them here if need be. What you can't handle is a dialog with someone who really has taken the time to read your boring ass book. (I'm at page 500... I needed a break for a week because it's often so fucking boring because of how it's laid out and because you refuse to make it more tutorial based.) I should knock down 200 or so pages this week. Which still won't get me to Multibodies! Just fucking ridiculous, Matt. "I didn't want what happened to the Novedge blog to be repeated on mine..." Franco Folini deleted your comments for a reason, Matt. Ask him why he deleted your comments. Franco Folini caused the mess by allowing any comments to be posted uncensored. He's an idiot. He knew going in I have a ton of people that I piss off on a regular basis. Your blog doesn't allow comments to be posted without being reviewed. Ralph's blog doesn't either... for damn good reason. "As for the multibodies stuff, users need to understand what assemblies are before they are thrust into multibodies." As anyone coming from a Cadkey background knows this is total bullshit. Multibodies need to be dealt with before assemblies. You don't have the broad based CADCAM background I have and so you're ignorant on how other CADCAM modelers work. Cadkey allowed multibodies years before they had an assembly type of environment. It's your limited background that often causes you to make mistakes. This is especially true when you make machining references in your Solidworks Bible and on this newsgroup that are wrong and make you look very foolish. "Plus, the book is not really written in any sort of chronological order, except by complexity of topic." Your book is a massive project and it needs a lot of editing to make it readable. It's beyond poorly organized in many areas. You excuses for why it's poorly organized and isn't enjoyable to read from cover to cover don't fucking cut it. "The amount of useful technical content found here has greatly diminished, most of it moving to the moderated SolidWorks forums and the uber-moderated eng-tips." Suggest you read my interview on Novedge again. Usenet isn't prefect but it's far better than the Forums that have been started so far. As far as content is concerned, content is returning to this group but it will still struggle because it's Usenet and most SolidWorks users are not savvy enough to understand why Usenet is valuable compared to the overly moderated Eng-Tips. Consider that each has it's place. Eng- Tips has a very narrow window for what gets posted there. That has it's good and it's bad. Your blog is as "uber-moderated" as Eng-Tips. Did Eng-Tips throw you out or censor your posts? If so why do you really care? **** em. Even though your a complete asshole of a person you should be commended frequently for your book.... The SolidWorks Bible. It's too bad your such an asshole that you won't encourage better dialog on your blog to make you SolidWorks Bible into the standard it could be rather than the boring unorganized mess it is now. There is no reason The SolidWorks Bible can't be more enjoyable and easier to read with better organization and a more hands on tutorial approach. What stops this from happening is that you can't take constructive criticism designed to make your book great. It should be your goal to make the SolidWorks Bible great for almost every SolidWorks user, rather than great because a total vacuum exists in documenting SolidWorks. The SolidWorks Bible should be a well written and enjoyable to read book period. Instead all you want to do is make lame excuses for why your books isn't enjoyable to read cover to cover.
Jon, you can't even select a chain in Mastercam (or hold a job), and you're here trying to critique this guy's book about a software system you don't even own? Why don't you write your own book? Judging by the way you're speaking, it's obviously not that hard.
Good grief now thats hilarious, I'm glad I just shut the machines down for the day, I could of made a silly mistake if I'd carried on while almost pissing myself laughing. I think there's a requirement for a new catagory of lunacy. Wayne...
"I think there's a requirement for a new catagory of lunacy." Congradulations you qualified by claiming that OneCNC properly supported multiple fixture offsets. Can you do a video showing us how you back up when chaining in OneCNC XR2 when the user hits an intersection and OneCNC makes a choice the user doesn't want? ROTFLMFAO You're a clueless idiot stuck with a cadcam system that's a piece of shit.
"I'm the kind of person who doesn't learn very well reading" - Jon Banquer - posted July 22, 2007 "It takes a lot of effort to really understand SolidWorks." - Jon Banquer - Aug 8, 2007 "make the video interesting like you did for the razor. Without a practical real world example like the razor I find myself losing interest quickly." - Jon Banquer- Aug 3, 2006 " I dropped out of high school to pursue my dream of making a lot of money and never went back" - Jon Banquer - Dec 28, 2002 Wisdom of Jon-the-Banquer, machine operator, San Diego, Aug, 2007
As I said many times "works for me" You couldn't fathom it. I just love that "properly supported multiple fixture offsets" statement. Avoiding the specifics again Jon? Like you always do yet accuse others of the same. Hypocrite. No time for videos these days. But admit almost see your point, except never a problem for me. Really! I'm laughing all the way to the Bank Jon, you on the other hand can't hold down a job for more than a few months. For fucks sake my longest time working for one employer was longer than your whole pathetic career. (Beat 20 yrs 3months sunshine) So clueless someone couldn't let me go for over 2 decades eh! The last 12 years of it allowing me to buid my own *competing* business up. So clueless I can run a business with 70-80% net margins. So clueless I owe nothing. I think you're really looking at yourself jon except you don't see it. You told so many lies you can't even believe yourself anymore. You deserve no respect and seem to not get it either. Others in this group on the otherhand I do respect. Hey I even I know a few shops in San Diego, I'll just have to ask around a bit see what I can find out. Thats if you are really there at all. Wayne....
