Stop with the *Bling*

[Mark_Richards]

Please stop changing the user interface for no apparent reason. It's a huge PITA.

As long as I can remember, the properties pallet icon was a sheet with a finger pointing at it. Now it looks like a commodore 64 computer. Why? Same with explode, It's been a stick of dynamite forever. Ditto for dozens of others.

Does anyone realize how huge of a productivity killer it is to upgrade to new releases? at least 20 hours for me to get things back the way they were, bugs worked out, pallets the way I like them, templates re-pathed, learn the new features, Etc.

Now I have to re-learn goofy new icons that I've known for ever? I welcome new functionality and don't mind investing the effort to learn new features but Icons should not be one of them. Seriously.

I can't believe Autodesk didn't have something better to spend coding hours on in MEP.

Yes I'm ranting, but I just had to turn tool tips on to find the properties palette button.

My $.02

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Ditto!

style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">

<Mark_Richards> wrote in message
href="news:6112118@discussion.autodesk.com">news:6112118@discussion.autodesk.com...

Please
stop changing the user interface for no apparent reason. It's a huge PITA. As
long as I can remember, the properties pallet icon was a sheet with a finger
pointing at it. Now it looks like a commodore 64 computer. Why? Same with
explode, It's been a stick of dynamite forever. Ditto for dozens of others.
Does anyone realize how huge of a productivity killer it is to upgrade to new
releases? at least 20 hours for me to get things back the way they were, bugs
worked out, pallets the way I like them, templates re-pathed, learn the new
features, Etc. Now I have to re-learn goofy new icons that I've known for
ever? I welcome new functionality and don't mind investing the effort to learn
new features but Icons should not be one of them. Seriously. I can't believe
Autodesk didn't have something better to spend coding hours on in MEP. Yes I'm
ranting, but I just had to turn tool tips on to find the properties palette
button. My $.02 Thanks.

[rikkicarey]

Double Ditto... I'll even though in a buck!

[Anonymous]

I completely concur! I have to configure for approx. 50 people...many of which are, shall we say, "stubborn veterans" that balk at the slightest change. I try to make the transition as easy as possible for them, but the way that Autodesk makes unneccessary graphical changes to tried and true components is simply stupid! I am tired of wasting my time on fixing things that Autodesk thought were broken!

[mario]

Im with ya! don't fix it if it ins't broken. But please by all means DO fix what IS broken.

[Anonymous]

I think Autodesk needs to adhere in the K.I.S.S. method of programing and GUI development.......

K.I.S.S. = Keep It Simple, Stupid!

[Anonymous]

Well done AutoDesk I think it is safe to say that you have succeded in pissing off your users yet again.

[rdswords]

I have been in a continual state of being pissed off at the MEP development path for years now. It just feels like they keep putting new bodywork on the same low-performance car internals and passing it off as a better car. Despite all of the time and effort wasted on GUI bling, there continues to be a massive list of critical program limitations and bugs that are just blatantly ignored.

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately this is the way fo AutoDESK & Microsoft folks.

Agree its a pain in the preverbiales but; Deal with it!

[Anonymous]

My guess is that the hrs you spend "dealing with it" do not come out of your bank account. Every release cost me an average of 40 hrs per seat. This last release 2010 totaled up to well over $15.000..... Try this, go to the bank today and withdraw $15,000 and bring it home and flush it down the toilet. The feeling you get will be the same one I get when I count up the lost hrs from stupid changes in the software. i am all for change but just make them piratical....

[Mark_Richards]

I shouldn't have to "deal with it". This is just arrogance on the part of the software vendors. We are talking real lost money and man hours here for no benefit other than a spiffy user interface. Autodesk doesn't care about the wishes of it's target audience. The people writing the BIG checks for this software couldn't care less about a new aesthetic for the UI, they care about value and productivity, changing the UI constantly torpedoes both. We only run one seat here, I am the user and the one who pays the bills, I hate it from both perspectives.

I have no love for Microsoft, but I usually can expect to install a new version of Word, Excel, whatever and expect all my settings, file mappings, etc. to remain intact with just a brief period of orientation/learning new features. Not so with Autocad. I lose, at a minimum, a solid day getting a new release installed and working. I have yet to be able to port my toolbar customizations over smoothly without rebuilding everything from the ground up. These are real things that should be dealt with before dumping thousands of coding hours into re-designing every button in the system.

I hooked my wagon to the Autodesk horse back in the DOS days and couldn't realistically change now. I generally like the product, but I would like to think that the many thousands of dollars I and all of you have thrown at them would buy a tiny voice in the decision making process for new releases, I just don't feel that anyone is ever listening. If anyone out there actually wants development resources to be squandered on this type of stuff, speak up and I'll stand corrected, but I haven't met that person yet. This isn't software for the "ooohh-pretty" AOL crowd, this is production software for technically savvy (mostly) professionals, who generally value function over form. It's about a lack of understanding your target audience.

-mark

[Anonymous]

Yes my company has to pay for training as well, for all of the software we use, not just MEP. But myself being CAD Manager would not hire anybody that could not quickly get used to a new version of the software they have ben using for many years, after all the command alises dont change through the versions, basic commands never change.

The ribbon thingie has not went down too well, but we did not pay for training, as all the commands work the same, they are just in a different place. I actually like it now, as I forced myself to use it. Without too much disruption to my workload.

I just think there is a bad attitude in the world today of lazy folk (not the guys on here), but I have had employees who want spoon fed with every new release, Im like come on guys, have a play about with the new veriosn during lunch times, evenings before going home, read the manual. It is at the end of the day the software that keeps the bread on the table by way of wage packets.

Maybe Im too much of a geek, I dunno. 🙂

I do agree with you guys about the pointless changes, but I would not dream to tell a programmer how to do his job. We are always trying to make our drawings look better, so why should they not try & make each version look & work better.