SWX Documentation-Matt Lombard Nails It

For those of you who do not read Matt Lombard's blog (http://
www.dezignstuff.com/blog/) his latest entry covers a topic that has
upset me for years, the lack of documentation on the software that we
use. Our site has been using SWX since '97 and in that time we have
seen the quality of the documentation steadily decrease from a
complete manual to this last release, which came with a small pamphlet
and a pad of paper. We have 15 seats of SWX plus a few seats of Cosmos
so our yearly maintenance fee is quite considerable. Would it kill SWX
to at least create a .PDF file that would explain how to use SWX and
maybe some direction as to how to get the most out the software? Every
time I go to SWX World I ask for the same things when I fill out the
questionnaires (less bugs and a complete set of documentation) but
nobody seems to care. I do not need a new interface I just want to use
what is already there. I hope Matt does not mind me including an
excerpt from his blog but what he says needs to get out and hopefully
if enough people talk to their VAR's or anyone else that will listen
maybe the message will get back to SWX headquarters.

A quote from Matt's blog dated June 27th
"Selling productivity would mean that SW comes with a complete set of
documentation. I don't care at this point if it is printed or
electronic, I just want the information in whatever format I can get
it. Holding back information - essentially holding information hostage
- in practical terms means that SW users everywhere are frustrated
with the tool because they don't know that the power to do ______
already lies within the grasp of their mouse. There should be no
"hidden functionality". This is not some video game where a sense of
wonder at finding a secret room is reward enough, we are talking about
people's livelihoods here. Full disclosure. I bought something. What
is it that I bought? Oh, I have to figure it out for myself what I
bought? I have to in essence reverse engineer the software to figure
out how to work with it?
Paying customers are entitled to full documentation. "

Until SWX does come out with a user manual I recommend buying The
Solidworks Bible from Matt. A book like this shows how ineffective the
help files from SWX are.

Buddy Jim

 

Amen, nothing like searching the help file for a known command name and
have it return nothing, at the minimum command names and their function
should be included in Help files.

 

Or even worse it be there but be incorrect...oh wait a minute maybe that's
why it's so sparce!

 

The knowledgebase used to be pretty good, but it isn't what it used to
be.

TOP

 

Thanks, Buddy.

SolidWorks has been cutting the wrong corners (documentation) for too
long, and what finally sent me over the edge on this issue is the 2008
software. There is a lot of good stuff in there. I need to be fair in
this respect, because I think for assemblies and sketching there are
some really excellent improvements. But there is also a LOT of fluff
(pretty images), and frankly some of what I personally think are really
bad ideas being passed off as good ideas (again mostly in the
interface). To me, this reflects decision making that is out of step
with my priorities, and I would guess also the priorities of many
existing users.

Fewer options, lame documentation, and a negative effect on interface
usability and speed is what 08 is all about.

I don't want to start a flame war here, but we should be talking
rationally about concrete reasons *why* some of the changes are so bad.
Specifically *what* areas of the help are the lamest?

 

But with an electronic .pdf or .chm, it can be updated, corrected,
added to easliy. Just think how long it took Matt to write the first
version of his book, to publishing it, and making sure everything is
correct. I'm sure he used an electronic version before going to
print.

Searching an electronic version is way faster, and provides more links
to other topics. I used to like hard copy books, still have their
place, but in SW, to carry around Matt's bible is not feasible, or
just have one copy sitting on a shelf somewhere, or on someone else's
desk.

I do agree that the documentaion should be more elabroate, maybe
that's where SW should hand it over to people like Matt, to write the
electronic version to be included with SW. I wish they would put the
effort into expanding the Help in SW with the savings not going to
hardcopy.

The good thing about a book is they are hard to copy. But an ebook
can be bought/sold on ebay, emailed, etc. That's bad for Matt.

samurai.

 

My 2 Rants Of The Day are inadequate search methods in digital manuals
and help.

Searching only words it is still sometimes difficult to find what I am
looking for.

It would be nice to place limits by searching only the chapter you
need like "Surfaces" or "Loft", so you get rid of all the other
garbage results.

The human mind is set to recognize visual patterns. SolidWorks' Help
file list of Help Results search shows "Title" but has virtually NO
VISUAL CLUES. Even Acrobat pdf files have thumbnails of pages, and
those are often the clue needed to get to one of 15 or 50 pages I
need.

Ideally, the thumnail goes half or full size if I were to put my
cursor on the thumbnail for even faster searches.

Meanwhile, you can imagine why I still work happily mostly on SWks
2006 because I have so few slowdowns, and limited amount of learning I
must do to keep doing work.

Bo

 

Then....

If SolidWorks wants to really let the help file be usable particularly
in larger groups, then allow the user to put in new content or
corrections or warnings in the Help file.

Computers are supposed to do what WE WANT, for our benefit, not the
other way around.

Have some companies forgotten that?

Has Apple's capitalization exceeded Dell's recently because Apple HAS
NOT forgotten the user?

Bo

 

I keep hoping that someone who owns a kernel will do a knockoff of SWX, et
al, and bundle it with Linux, OSX, whatever.
I'm thinking CAD people would jump onto it in droves. Maybe the CAD
software itself could go open source to some extent?
You'd think with all the outsourcing, much of the software is available and
pretty much ready to go.

 

They must be a wee bit upset about this 'press' at HQ
I think we can say this is probably the last advanced review Matt will
do for SW ;o)

Seriously though
The realview graphics stuff is ok in my book just a release or 2 too
early - nice to have but not something to rush out and buy a new top
line card for...
and I think reflections are a bit over the top but the shadows
definitely are nice..yeah so cheaper cards in another generation and
everyone will be happy enough to have it and not think too much of
it...doesnt mean everyone has to use it though..posssibly it interests
ID people more
The question is: Should it have been hung out front as a big feature
of 08?
and I think this is where they messed up. Really they should be
advertising new sketch tools or whatever as being of the most interest
to users.
Along with the conspicuous and controversial UI changes it just
reinforces views that things are going off road at SW

 

part 2

The manual isn't that hot on completeness but its format/style is ok
The reluctance to include how to use it stuff and surfacing
explanations is really not good enough though.
In my mind this is all to do with looking after VARS or at least
looking after them in the way the business model functions up to now.
I think we will see a redefinition of what VARS do , how many there
are locations etc and a pull back from this situation in the near
future.
In some ways this reminds me of the situation we had here in NZ where
just about every suburb had a Post Office.
Its an old way of functioning especially in the days of the internet.

 

You can rant and rave till the cows come home... you and everyone else
are wasting your time. SolidWorks isn't the only CADCAM vendor that
suffers from this problem and the problem isn't going to go away. In
FACT, it's going to get a lot worse!

The reality is that expert users are going to have to fill the gap
with independent videos or books. There is a tremendous opportunity
for expert users who can teach to make money filling the massive
documentation gap.

BTW, in addition to The SolidWorks Bible, SolidProfessor also does a
very good job. I definitely feel I'm getting my $600 bucks worth from
the SolidProfessor videos I just purchased. I would have rather given
the $600 to say Matt or Ed Eaton but I guess they don't need the
money.

Based on my recommendation a local company is going to buy 5 seats of
SolidProfessor so the real value from little old me is $3,600. I know
it's just chump change to all you rich expert SolidWorks users in this
group. ;>)

Jon Banquer
San Diego, CA

 

And you guys have it written in your native language.
Imagine translation of such a technical stuff is not all that easy, and we
got "pearls" here of error messages that mean the opposite of the intended.
(knock your head on the wall 'till you find that one out)
Even if the overall job is not that bad.

 

May I remind all of Anvil 4000 and the permutated index?
Or doing a nice ordered sort in Computervision on the verb-noun
table?

 

Well, you could have read the docs I suppose .... or called for a bit of
support (reserved for legal users that actually have & use the software, eh)?

You ALREADY left the new job where the real programmer(s)
& staff used Pro-E?
I gave you two months tops. How did I do?

Videos are pretty easy to copy, eh?

 

No need to remind SolidWorks of Computervision, as the early
programming group that formed SolidWorks used to work there.

Bo

 

Hello Everyone,

I just wanted to say that what Aron and Matt have put so well
into their comments hits the nail on the head. Solidworks is
loosing focus of what engineers really do and how they earn
their money to pay for software and subscription.
One can only hope that more people read these comments and
look beyond grafic gimmic and demand proper functionality.

P.S. If it was not for people here in this group, people like Matt,
Ed, Stefan
I would only know 10% of what I know now. Thanks to all of you.

Note to Solidworks, sit back for a moment and think about the complete
picture. Modeling 3D, pretty pictures etc is only the first couple
steps in
designing, you are missing the importance of drawings and reliability.

By the way, lets give the programers a heads up too, you guys do good
stuff,
you just want to do too much in too little time. Take a step back and
into the
right direction, quality will always trum pretty colours.

Eman

 

graphic gimmick
I'm not so sure it is gimmick.
Firstly graphics and graphic cards capabilities if an area of ongoing
development just like perpendicular recording to disks or parallel
processing ( anyone seen the review of the Intel V8?).
The realview stuff now in SW is just keeping up with the times...no
need to be worried about that..some day we will have real time
raytraced models on the screen...and renderers as we know them will
disappear.
If you saw my recent post with a video of accessing a large data set
of images you might realise that in the future how you interface with
assemblies and drawings might change quite a bit.
Is CAD a static tool or an evolving one? ...sliderules anyone? will
'drawings' still be important in the future?

In the matter of the appearance its a matter of product distinction I
think.
I complained as far back as SW2004 eDrawings that the icon style was
the wrong way to go but no one was listening then...so now we have
something that people dont particularly like and has the wrong
emphasis.
Well ok they made a wrong call and committed a lot of resource to it
and now we have it even if we didnt want it
Is there a better alternative to the command manager if they wanted to
change for productivity? dunno..maybe not maybe there is but it can
only come if other bits are in place first.

Reliability is really just a matter of management willing to commit
resource to it - not much sign of change in that area..all sorts of
beliefs and cultural factors in there...maybe an earthquake in
awareness could happen some day..hers hoping )

 

OK, then I think that with all the fancy graphics stuff, that the user
ought to have a menu slider or whatever device is good, and if the
user needs more speed, he slides it towards the word "Performance" or
if he needs graphic sophistication, the user slides it toward "Hi-Res"
or similar.

Give the user PERFORMANCE OPTIONS.

Bo

 

Hello Neils,

Please show me where this resource intensive graphic display helps
speed up projects. Maybe in the future resource hogs are no issue,
at the moment it just slows you down. What good is it if doesn't help.
If they need it for marketing & research reason, than I agree with Bo,
give me the option to turn it off.

Eman