ACADE 2009 user interface

[Anonymous]

New to ACADE. We are using ACADE 2009. Is there a huge difference in the user interface between 2009 and 2010?

Thanks

[dougmcalexander]

Big difference. 2010 has a ribbon style menu, which I hated at first but as an instructor I have fallen in love with it. It is much easier for newcomers to learn.

[Icemanau]

As far as I can recall, 2009 was the first version with the Ribbon. 2008 had the Dashboard, and the versions prior to that had the standard menus (still the best option in my opinion).

Regards Brad

[dougmcalexander]

I think he was referring to electrical commands Brad.  Maybe I misunderstood,  Version 2009 had a ribbon menu for plain AutoCAD commands but Electrical was still the toolbars, pulldowns, and the tool palettes.  Version 2010 introduced a ribbon style menu for the electrical commands.

I think old-timers like us prefer the old menus because, after so many years, we were very familiar with it.  But I found when training newcomers that they prefer the ribbon. So many students feel overwhelmed by the toolbar menu and of course would opt for the tool palette.  But neither the tool palette or the toolbar menu contained all commands.  Only the pull-down contained all commands.  There were three places to look for commands, and sub-menus to drill into, and so forth. 

I found as I showed 2010 more and more that new users preferred the ribbon menu.  They like how the most-used commands are the largest icon group, down to the least used being the smallest group of icons.  They also like how you can click a tab for the task at hand (Project, Schematic, Panel, Reports, etc.) and narrow down to only the commands that apply. There is also more room for drawing display with the ribbon interface.   I am an old-timer who became a believer in the ribbon menu.  I was teased by some within Autodesk because I was critical of it at first and then did a flip-flop, but I could not argue with the success of the ribbon interface.  I may be critical of Autodesk at times, but when they get it right I also want to sing their praises. 

The only modification I have made to the ribbon interface is adding an icon for Black Box Builder (wd_sym_build) and I added the Rebuild/.Refresh icon to the Project menu.  There are times when this command is still needed.