Xerox's AccXES Client Tools question

We received some info from Xerox that raised some questions. Here's a copy
of my email reply.
Can anyone help answer these questions?

I would like to verify that if we use, say, 17" or 18" wide roll paper for
small scale plots, it would be possible to send a plot job that would scale
each file to fit. Is this handled by some sort of user selectable scale
factor?

While it matters little overall, I must say I am disappointed in AccXES
Client Tools. It is clunky and not very user friendly at all.
Correct me if I'm wrong in the following observations:
- There is no way to order the list of files to be printed other than
choosing them one at a time from a dialog box that must be opened and
re-opened for each file chosen.
- We use 3 fields for billing; Project Number, User Name and whether the job
is billable.
It looks like we can make this work for our needs by mapping Job Name to
Project Number, User ID to a User Name and then we will need to use the
Account ID field for whether the print job is billable.
It looks like we can make User ID and Account ID fields required, but can we
make the Job Name field required also?
Are these fields required to numerical, or can we use alphanumeric names?

Thank you for the offer to ask one of your clients for a sample report
output (csv ascii), but if you could verify that the following fields are
included in the accounting report that's all we'll need:
Job Name
User ID
Account ID (we'll use this for billable)
Some sort of area calculation (sq ft) for the job
How many sets (copies) printed

Thanks!
- Jim Mims

 

See below for my answers...

I would like to verify that if we use, say, 17" or 18" wide roll paper for
small scale plots, it would be possible to send a plot job that would scale
each file to fit. Is this handled by some sort of user selectable scale
factor?tell AccXES to scale it down by >>>65%.

While it matters little overall, I must say I am disappointed in AccXES
Client Tools. It is clunky and not very user friendly at all. Correct me if
I'm wrong in the following observations:
- There is no way to order the list of files to be printed other than
choosing them one at a time from a dialog box that must be opened and
re-opened for each file chosen.

David K.

 

Thanks David.
Here's an email exchange and response from Xerox:

Jim,
Very good input! If you don't mind, I'd like to forward your comments
to our product development team. I have worked extensively with this
product (and several previous versions) since 1997 and know it inside
out and am therefore axiomatically too deep in the forest to see the
size of the trees. This makes concise input like yours very helpful.
Thank you for taking the time to provide this level of commentary. I'm
sure- with your approval of course- that once the product development
team reads this, they will feel the same.

rjlee
-----Original Message-----
From: Panhandle Engineering [mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 10:01 AM
To: Hein, William J
Cc: Lee, Robert J; Conn, William
Subject: RE: Xerox questions
Thanks for taking my comments to task and some great answers.
It might be helpful to understand where my users are coming from.
We have been using another plotting system that is very user friendly,
with a user interface that presents all the options on one screen, has
the familiar look and feel of the Windows Explorer file manager and
allows you to check mark your plots in the order you wish them plotted.
AccXES Client Tools is like a step backwards for us. It's a programmer's
interface, not a user's interface.
When using either add or insert document(s), a separate dialog box comes
up and does not allow me to drag-n-drop. Cutting and pasting does seem
to work well, though and offers a viable alternative.
So, the steps involved are to open a separate dialog box, select the
files to be plotted, insert them into the Document list, then cut and
paste them into the correct order. Rather involved.
scale-to-fit was a poor choice of words on my part. We do NOT want scale
to fit. If we want a half-size plot, we want it to be exactly 50%, not
fitted to another size paper. Is this allowed?
Once again, where we are coming from is our field inspectors take
half-size plots into the field, plotted on 12"x18" paper (half of
24"x36" D-size). We have found that being able to provide them with a
true 50% scaleable plot is a valuable tool.
Ah, I believe I just answered my own question. Using your suggestion to
double-click the file(s), I think percentage scaling can be done by:
1 - double click the file(s)
2 - set the media size on the Media Tab (18" roll)
3 - set the scaling on the Transformation Tab (50%)
Does that sound right?
Once again, many mouse clicks and 2 different dialog boxes.
A small nit-pik is that it seems that every time we start the program it
opens into a small window and does not remember the last window setting.
Therefore it must be resized every time it's opened.
It does appear that account reporting functions can be massaged by using
the Account ID for marking a plot job as billable. We can manage that.
- Jim