Describing Autodesk Product Versions

[BeKirra]

Currently I read threads from several sub-forums.

I have seen that people in the forums actually want to say "Inventor 2010" when they mentioned it as "Inventor 10".

It confuses the others who are trying to give help and they often respond: "Do you mean 'XXXXX 2010' or 'XXXXX 10'?"

Can we write the program version acculately when seeking or giving helps?

Hope this helps.

[mcgyvr]

Sure would be nice wouldn't it..

Same could be said about people putting their computer/version information in the signature file on this board so we don't have to keep asking about their computer setups..

[sam_m]

many moons ago the forum was separated into versions, with the present and previous versions having specific areas, and then a legacy for older releases (e.g. we would have an "Inventor 2014, 2013 and legacy" today).  This was fantastic, but the forums were "streamlined" to allow quicker reading of all Inventor posts instead of needing to jump from 1 section to the next...

mcgyvr - putting your Inventor release in your signature isn't the solution you think it is, as old posts will have your present signature, not your signature at the time of your post (unless this forum has been specifically tweaked to snapshot the sig each post, which I'm unaware of).  e.g. say it's back in the days of Iv2012 and your signature says that, you're posting and answering topics about 2012, all well and good...  years have passed and you're now of 2014, and your signature has been updated accordinly.  But someone still using 2012 is trying to find advice about that exact problem from a couple years ago, finds your posts, but they've all got your present 2014 details in the signature, so none the wiser what release you're talking about...  Bottom line - the version needs to be specified in the post, or have sub-forums for each release...

[cwhetten]

Sam, you're exactly right.  This is the very reason I use a macro for my signature info, instead of the signature feature of the forum.  A macro just inserts text, and it won't change over time if I decide to upgrade to a newer version or change the look of my sig.  I do the same thing for hardware specs.  It would be very confusing for someone to read one of my posts from 2008, but see upgraded hardware from 2013, especially if the thread involves hardware-related issues.

Cameron Whetten
Inventor 2014

[gsmith9810]

The problem with the multi-forum approach was two-fold. Peer-to-peer help becomes strained as anyone who had a question on a version not being used by the most-frequent contributors was likely never going to get an answer. That and the fact that it was hard enough getting anyone at ADESK to look at a single forum let alone multiple forums. Their time in the forums is appreciated and asking them to monitor three versions wasn't going to get results.

[mcgyvr]

yes I'm obviously aware its not the solution you were looking for BUT it helps a lot at the time the question is asked..

[blair]

The subject of splitting the forums into version dependant has risen a number of times and been rejected as many feel that older versions would not see much support or traffic from people that are on newer versions.

Myself, I would like to see a "Read-Only" on topics that the last post is "+18-24" months since the last post. It's great that some people are using the seach, but to reopen a thread/post that was started 3 years ago on version 2010 with a PC on XP should not happen.

At some point people have to take some responsibility for their actions and do a bit of reading of the posts to realize they are looking at very old threads.