Autodesk Inventor

[#1]

I've started using SolidWorks more and more as these Inventor revisions are consistently underwhelming.  I have to admit that both have their strengths and weaknesses; SW being less annoying to use overall, I feel.

This mini-toolbar is a perfect example of developer time wasted.  I disagree with the previous post that it was the developer's idea to leave it in; I expect there was some management droid that likes fancy-looking ("minimalist" to use a salesman's BS) transparent toolbar that looks great in brochures but sucks to use. It's like concept cars: they never have air vents because they look bad but you need them or it's misery in the car.  Same with the mini-toolbar, snazzy but completely unrealistic.  It always floats where it shouldn't or it has to be anchored far away and it doesn't even do the job it's supposed to.  I have come to the opinion that the managers of the software development do not use the product in any real capacity.  It seems like something from Dilbert.

...not that I have a strong opinion on this particular topic.

end rant

[#2]

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frumious_Bandersnatch wrote:

...

This mini-toolbar is a perfect example of developer time wasted.  I disagree with the previous post that it was the developer's idea to leave it in; I expect there was some management droid that likes fancy-looking ("minimalist" to use a salesman's BS) transparent toolbar that looks great in brochures but sucks to use. ...

You're probably right, I'm jumping to conclusions by assuming that it's a developer who came up with the idea of an eye candy tool for professionals. It probably is/was a management decision. Just wish that whovever made the decision realises that having two interfaces that does the same thing on one screen is, well, it's just plain stupid, isn't it? I mean, explain the benefit to me of having a perfectly usabe dialogue box, AND a half baked pain in the rear floating gimmick that hovers around your workspace.

Has nobody come up with a system registry hack yet?

[#3]

The only thing I can do is move the mini tool bar to a corner out of my main work area and pin it down.  I think you can also adjust the ime it takes to fade away but I havent tried yet.

[#4]

Dialog boxes suck!!! I can’t believe that there is not a setting to turn off the mini-toolbar or at least an option to toggle between dialog box and mini-toolbar, and that Inventor did not include all of the options in the mini-toolbar. SolidWorks did away dialog boxes as many years ago. Have dupped Inventor yet? Did you go back to Solid Edge or SolidWorks?

[#5]

I also dislike the mini-toolbar.  A lot. It has simply caused way too much wasted time and frustration, and that I don't need.  When designing, I need to fly at the speed of thought - I can't get bogged down in programmatic overhead.

[#6]

My point is different than if we need a mini toolbar or not. Simply, why that thing always jumps over the exact place where I need to use for example extrude feature, therefore I can't see the geometry needs to be extruded ? irksome...