Boquet & brickbats

[jggerth]

First off, I love the Doodle command. Finally, a freehand sketch in that looks decent! Hopefully this will make it into Acad sometime soon!

Now that the nice comment is made, here are some disappointments.

The claim that Project Cooper uses the DWG file format is (IMHO) much less than honest. Since PC cannot open perfectly valid dwg files created by other applications, whether Autodesk core CAD application, their verticals, or a competitors, it's not a DWG compatible application. And actually, given the apparent target market, DWG is really not needed. What would be necessary is a direct path to AutoCAD, so that Acad can instantly open Cooper files.

Might I humbly suggest a three part strategy for Cooper files. 1) DXFIN. DXF is the documented and published drawing exchange format. It's not convenient for everyone, or possibly anyone, but it gets the job done. And there's a ton of raw material for sketchers in DXF on the web.

2) Use SVG as the 'native' format for Project Cooper. It's a public standard, well documented, and would be well suited for the lightweight vector graphics that can be created using Project Cooper. IT's also usable on the web, or as a source for non-CAD graphic designers using higher end graphics applications, Illustrator, Corel, etc.

3) For that critical design migration path to CAD, add SVG import (and hopefully export) to AutoCAD.

Second brickbat: speed. or lack of. good lord people, for the little bit of stuff Project Cooper can do, it's incredibly slow. How can it be easy to use if people forget what they wanted to do by the time the program opens?

Third brickbat: Ease of use is not defined by cartoonish looking icons. It's better served with a simple interface, using logical names in a menu system. About 12000 years ago, we as a species communicated either by speaking, or drawing pictures on cave walls. Eventually we discovered pictograms, hieroglyphs, ideograms, and finally, an alphabet. It seems insane that the current bleeding edge of high technology design thinks that pictogtrams are an advanced way to communicate. I think that just about anyone can learn quickly and easily that the word "Doodle" on a pulldown menu runs a doodling command. That seems a much more intuitive and advanced input system than the concept that a wavy line on an icon will tell you its a doodle button if you hover over it long enough.

finally, i've already ranted about the file association hijacking, so I won't belabor that point.

[yschober]

Hi,

Thanks for the honest feedback and I'm glad that you like the Doodle tool!

As far as opening DWG files from other applications is concerned, we are working on it as we speak. We know that this is very important and we will post an updated version of Project Cooper soon that should open most (if not all) DWG files, so stay tuned on this one.

We are also working on performance. Did you run into performance problems with Project Cooper? If so, would you mind sending us the file that you experienced the performance issues with so we can do some testing with it?

As far the icons are concerned - we just tried to keep things simple and fun. Do you have any specific ideas on what to change or how to make things even simpler/easier to use?

Thank you very much!

Yan

[nvanlaar]

I actually prefer the icon-toolbars over a bunch of menus. No click, click, click required just a single click or for more speed a simple keystroke. Besides pictures are quicker to distinguish between than a group of words. That's the point behind icons on toolbars instead of buttons with words.

From the way you are describing the icons/toolbars I would guess you don't use or like the ribbon in ACAD either. To each his own...

[jggerth]

Put a pull down menu in as an option Please. I can see myself all to easily trying to walk somebody how to do something over the phone, and have nothing to distinctly tell him what to do.

"Ok, to draw a curvy kind of line that goes however you like click on the curvy icon. No, not that one -- that's an arc and draws part of a circle. What? well, maybe someday you'll only want part of a circle. The other curvy thing that looks something like a lazy tornado. or maybe it looks like smoke, or crashing bumblebee. Now to get rid of stuff you've got on the screen, click on the other thingie that looks like an eraser. No, that's a line. Yes, I know erasers come on the end of a pencil, and pencils look like k things. Click on the pink thingie -- yes, the suppository."

Sounds like a fun conversation doesn't it?

[jggerth]

I do have a use for the ribbon -- but park it on the second monitor as a "dashboard". To group series of commands for tasks that i don't use very often, but occasionally need to get at. I'm not a fan of it, and its performance seems ill-suited to most drawing work, but there are worse command interfaces running around.

It just seems more than a little backwards to ignore the last 12,000 years of human experience in communication and drop back to pictograms. Especially arbitrary ones that change at someone else's behest. Really, what does a splotchy handprint have to do with looking at a different area on screen? It may be second nature to us, but it's learned behavior, not intuitive.

Different strokes, and I'll happily go along with unobtrusive toolbars in the interface. But please, let me have a pulldown. L is faster than poking around for an icon.