Autocad 2016 does it support the classic workspace?

[JohnMcNamara4507]

Hi All

This is my first post here.....

I use Autocad mainly for 3D using solids. Being in Australia my building design suite upgrade is not yet available maybe this month, according to the distributor.

They do not know the answer to this question re the classic workspace!

I would like to know for certain the 2016 version of Autocad supports the classic workspace, If I had to use the ribbon it would slow my workflow terribly, Using the classic workspace I have almost every tool in position around my main screen (I use 4 monitors in total) this gives me a desktop showing other views of the object and my properties palletes for the pbject being drawn while keeping my main screen clear for editing.

My classic menu system is set up so that for almost all the operations I perform there is an Icon to click directly, (The ribbon makes you page through its various modes to find a simple command)...  Terribly slow and annoying

I sometimes use Autocad Architecture. With the ribbon unfortunately. when I do my drawing speed goes into slow motion. I hate it.

Can someone please confirm that the classic menu system is still available within Autocad 2016?

Thank You

Regards

John McNamara

[rkmcswain]

oblique747 wrote:

Autodesk please stop! LT 2015 is rubbish

There have been many glitches between drawings prepared by 2015 users which then when another person opens in previous version has stupid errors and parts that do not work as they should. This is not acceptible at all in a busy office.

My own license is for LT 2009 I was looking to upgrade to LT 2014 but this is no longer possible? (ridiculous?!!) No way will I upgrade to 2015 or above unless things change - nor will I do this rental nonsense!

Sounds like you're ready to make the move to BricsCAD or Ares then. Good luck.

[JohnMcNamara4507]

Hi

Well its that time of year again and I have just paid the anual maintenance support fee for the Building design suite I purchased some years ago.
I do hope that the classic interface is supported this year also. No I also will not be renting what I already own. However this thread I hope is focussed on workspace issues not accounting issues. I am sure there are other threads that cover accounting that will be a better forum than this one.

Most of my work is done with Autocad, mainly because it is so flexible. The design suite I own also comes with Revit, when I purchased it was my intention to move to Revit, the trouble is for me at least it got in the way of the design process I use. particularly the way it works with families for many design objects. windows and doors for example. Yes there is a selection of types that come pre packaged with the program, and yes you can make your own or get them off the net but it takes time; for me at least. Revit is a controlled environment. Ideal for large team base projects, my work is all bespoke, we have no stock joinery. we almost never use library components.

Autocad lets you control every line. I can sketch in 2 or 3d with Autocad at close to pencil and paper speed, yes it has a steep learning curve. but in the end you have the best Swiss army knife around.

In my free time I am involved in what in Australia is known as the men's shed movement. Almost free to use a Coffee contribution is requested if you can afford it community workshops that are equipped with metalworking and woodworking machines and tools. Now there are over 1000 of them in Australia where I live.

A mate and I designed and built a CNC router for a men's shed I used Autocad, he used another program we shared ideas via DXF files.

I have been testing another Autodesk product fusion 360. (Free for personal non profit use).

It has CAM functionality you can draw a 3d object and automatically generate the program code to drive a CNC machine that will shape a raw block of material into a complex curved or linear part. The simple router we built or a commercial high end machine can be driven.

As this thread is about interfaces, this time comparing Autocad to Fusion 360 I just want to touch on another very important need for the designer.

The ability to snap lines or 3D objects together; with ease is the key here. Comparing the "snapability" of Fusion to Autocad to me at this point in time is a no contest. Autocad is much faster and has many more tools. I guess the gap will narrow and Fusion is improved. I hope so.

Regards

John

[Anonymous]

Hi John,

I agree 100%.

Because the program developers at Auto CAD (who have never drafted a day in their life) have taken the 'Classic' away I am not efficient anymore. This is extremely frustrating because an action use to take me 1 click, now takes 3 clicks.

I can’t migrate the settings because it’s a new computer as the old one was wiped so there’s nothing to migrate from.

Also other posts suggest I follow boring self-help step-by-step to recreate the classic settings from scratch.

Dear Auto Desk if you read this, I don’t have time for all the stuffing around every year when I update the program. Just give me back the Classic and let me get on with my life!!!!

Regards, James 

[Anonymous]

If users want to use the classic settings, they should be able to!
We are not asking you to agree with us, we just want to be able to choose our preferred settings with a few clicks NOT having to do spending hours and hours setting up settings to make settings!!!

[Anonymous]

I am a classic menu user also.  I love this discussion and hope that Autodesk watches these posts.  The classic menu should remain available for the people who want it without having to worry if the next version will allow it!

[JohnMcNamara4507]

 wishes to all in the coming year.

Recently I have been embracing Fusion 360, I use Autocad for custom architectural design my day job.
I also have a home shop set up for metalworking, not for profit just fun, many enjoyable hours are spent there .....

Fusion is great for designing mechanisms, analyzing the motions, even doing finite element analysis. After a fair while I have learned the basics, and can get around the editor. Fusion 360 is parametric, changing a dimension will change the length of a line.

So what has this got to do with Autocad and its interface?

Well, Autocad is faster for certain operations! It has better tools for 3D solid model sketching, in particular rectilinear objects that have many features. If you have been using it for a while you will have disciplined yourself to work accurately anyway.

OK I know my comments will no doubt rile a few forum members! Anyway this has been my experience so far.

Once I have created a 3D solid model in Autocad it is a simple matter to import it into fusion 360 where it is fully editable, Thank you Autodesk.

Regards
John

[rkmcswain]

nmcook1 wrote:

I am a classic menu user also.  I love this discussion and hope that Autodesk watches these posts.  The classic menu should remain available for the people who want it without having to worry if the next version will allow it!

Posting it here isn't going to help any.  The product managers are not trolling the support forums looking for ideas.

When you say "classic menu", do you actually mean the workspace? There is no such thing as classic "menu".

Go here to leave Autodesk feedback on this, or any other subject.

Meanwhile... you can do this.

[Anonymous]

I guess it is a workspace.  It used to be called a menu in earlier versions.

The leave Autodesk feedback was not accepting messages.  Is there a newer link for that?

[Anonymous]

Workspaces have always been workspaces, never menus.  Menus are entirely different beasties.

The link works fine for me.

[rkmcswain]

F5 after you go to that link. I've seen on occasion where some of those Adsk pages do not render for some reason, but a refresh (or two) will bring it up.

[nrz13]

@Anonymous

rculp's comment above is correct, although I'm guessing it doesn't actually explain to you why that is the case.

Workspaces are preconfigured arrangements of Menus (File, Edit, View, etc.), Toolbars/Ribbon (the buttons you push for commands), Palettes (Properties, Layers, etc.), and other interface elements.

The Classic Workspace uses Menus and Toolbars setup in a traditional way before the introduction of the Ribbon (I believe in 2009 – don't quote me on that).  In contemporary AutoCAD versions, there are a number of different preset workspaces to choose from, depending on the task at hand, but the newest versions omit the Classic Workspace option.  However, for now at least, you are still able to manually turn off the Ribbon and turn the old toolbars on and configure them as you like; there's just no preset configuration for it anymore.

[Anonymous]

For anyone using the tool longer than a year or two, they have developed habits that are fast for them as they interface with the application.  That doesn't mean those methods are bad or good, just that they work for them.  That also doesn't mean those methods are the fastest possible methods (or slowest) for them or anyone else.

I learned AutoCAD before there were ribbons and workspaces and pretty little buttons on toolbars ... heck there wasn't even UNDO.  So I became a keyboard junkie using lisp and PGP mods in association with sidebar (yes sidebar) menu hotkeys.  32 years later, I'm still a keyboard junkie, no toolbars, ribbon minimized, mouse in LEFT hand, RIGHT hand over numeric keypad, HEAVILY customized 2 or 3 key lisp functions, MBUTTON set to popup osnap with hotkeys.  Eyes never leave drafting area and, more importantly, the mouse never leaves the drafting area.  While that may not be fast for someone else, it is extremely efficient for me.

We don't need no stinkin' toolbars .... 🙂

[Anonymous]

It is difficult to change.  I started with Autocad Version 2.1 in 1986 using a digitizer and my college instructor was Don Voisinet who was one of the original authors of cad books.  It was difficult to give up the digitizer also.

[rkmcswain]

1995, R13 for DOS here. Digitizer tablet and pull downs. Started experimenting with R13 for Win3.11 early. Few things measure up to how poor that performance was, but, hey, they had to start somewhere.

Once we moved on to R14 on Win95, I transitioned off the tablet to the toolbars and I still operate today primarily from the command line and toolbars, but I do appreciate the contextual Ribbon tabs in Civil 3D.

[Anonymous]

"Posting it here isn't going to help any.  The product managers are not trolling the support forums looking for ideas.

When you say "classic menu", do you actually mean the workspace? There is no such thing as classic "menu".

Go here to leave Autodesk feedback on this, or any other subject.

Meanwhile... you can do this."

Thanks Rkmcswain for the link to unscrambling the Autocad interface. I too learned on ancient releases (r12, r14) and am 

completely baffled why Autcad has made it so difficult to operate what is essentially the same software. For me Acad2015's sole

redeeming feature is being able to insert jpegs as a background image. 

If the code guys have so much time on their hands why don't they make some improvements to the Pline command or the Spline 

command?

Slowly but surely I am tweaking 2015 so that I can draw as fast as when I am using r14.

---

[drusselle]

Best Link EVER!!  If you knew how many times I have had to create or import the classic menu you would know how much of a God send the link to Create a menu from Scratch!!

Thank you

[DransEnergie]

Maybe instead of passing time to keep your habits, and redo all these tricky things at each version, you can just try to change your habits and get the modern working. You already know that most of the time the problem is between the screen and the chair...

In facts the ribbon doesn't make less efficient, you're just less efficient because you're against it and refuse to invest some time to use it efficiently without searching where is the buttons. This is because you learned the old interface, I was myself a little on the old but I switched quickly and now I'm really satisfied, I don't see people using the old interface being more quick than me.

That just make me sick like people making every/anything to resist, even this is stupids things, like to keep their Windows XP after more than 10 years. Then they complain they not have the last updates/functionnalities or complains about performance or support from other softwares.

Humans don't like changes, but we deserve to... Just keep your mind open 😉

[Anonymous]

Maybe YOU should keep your mind open and and try out some of the ideas some of the generous contributors made to this thread. I tried most of them and am now able to work much more efficiently - without constant windows,popups and messages distracting me from work. 

I tried the ribbon briefly and it was just as much of an impediment as the old menus. I don't search and pick every command, as I and others have mentioned, it is much easier to program the commands I use most often to one and two letter aliases that can be used with the left hand. I can keep my left hand on the keyboard and my right hand on the mouse. 

To make transparent commands easy to access I bought a program called "Autohook" which lets me implement those commands by pressing an extra button on the mouse while simultaneously pressing a letter on the keyboard. With this program I don't have to stop in the middle of a command to zoom, pan or use osnaps. Here is the link to the website...you might learn something.    http://command-digital.com/portfolio/autohook/

It makes me sick that software programs will change the interface without making any improvements, either intuitive or efficiency especially when some of those "improvements" require two clicks to initiate instead of one. 

Autocad has a long history of making bona-fide improvements ....and a long history of needlessly changing the interface,presumably to help out the new guys. I have empathy for the new guys but the interface changes aren't much help, besides, Autocad is a complex program. If a person is going to master it they are going to have to invest some time in learning. 

[Anonymous]

if the new interface was more efficient, I'd use it.  I spent quite some time trying to make it so.  It wasn't.  It was merely passable and then only if you want to draw with one hand. ... I guess they want you to have the other hand free to "scratch" or "pick" as needed.

As for the ribbon .. it eats screen space.  The interface should never reduce the area in which we build and that is all the ribbon accomplishes.  They could have just as easily incorporated the ribbon interfaces in dialog boxes that go away when you're done with them.  Instead they chose to eat valuable screen space and do very little with it.

[Anonymous]

Thank you wilmath and rculp!  I forgot that I posted this it was so long ago.  I am on 2017 mechanical and still using my customized classic workspace.  I love it!  I hope Autodesk continues to support it.