Sick of the macOS trackpad bug.

[adrian.carpenter]

Come on autodesk, you know there’s a bug, it’s even listed on your issues, the view cube stopping responding to trackpad clicks is so repeatable it’s unfathomable why this bug has persisted for so long without a fix.

I have a space mouse that I have to use because the bug makes 360 almost unusable under macOS.

it’s incredibly easy to repeat, just use fusion for a few minutes on macOS with the trackpad, it happens so often that I can’t begin to fathom why you haven’t fixed it.  

I have zero issues with the trackpad in any other application.

even with the space mouse I still use the view cube as it can sometimes be useful, unless of course when it stops responding.

There are loads of other UI issues, if you drag the window partially off the left hand side the browser shifts outside of the fusion window.  The browser window is also Modal, when you flip to another application the browser appears over the top of the other applications window.

I really have to ask, does anybody in either the dev team or QA team test fusion under macOS?

I really like fusion, but those bugs in particular drive me up the wall and can make it incredibly frustrating to use.

please, get one of the developers to do a design and debug these problems, we all love new features and they’re the selling point to new users, but the basics have to be right, and they’re currently not.

[TrippyLighting]

I recognize that there are areas for improvements and from time to time I come across these issues as well.

However, I've been using Fusion 360 since 2014 on macOS and only recently ( for the last year) regularly also work with in on Windows.  

I do use it daily, professionally and for personal projects and cannot relate to these being issues that make it so awfully difficult to work with. I wonder why our experiences differ so much?

[adrian.carpenter]

Do you use a trackpad?

Here's the knowledgeable article regarding these trackpad issues.

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/fusion-360/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/How...

Zooming is also hit and miss as is panning, all of a sudden you're mid operation and want to zoom out or pan around and you can't.

Don't write a knowledge base article explaining that it's buggy, fix the bug.  It happens so often that I am failing to understand how they haven't fixed it, as it's incredibly reproducible.

[TrippyLighting]

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@adrian.carpenter wrote:

Do you use a trackpad?

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I use the trackpad only very occasionally. For professional and efficient CAD work I find it to be lacking, regardless of howgood it might be. The implementation of the trackpad controls in Blender for example is much smoother than in Fusion 360 but I use Blender also exclusively with a mouse. For my CAD softwares (I use multiple)  I use a 3D connexion CAD mouse and a 3D connexion 3D mouse (both mobile, wireless versions) and that works perfectly for me.

A good number of the Fusion 360 team members use  Macbooks, so it isn't for lack of desire to get this improved. But just like any other software company often they are relying o 3rd party libraries. Then getting things fixed gets a littel more complicated 😉

Also, the zooming problems don't necessarily stem from the trackpad but from using perspective mode.  If you model in orthographic view, they don't happen. 

[Phil.E]

@TrippyLighting Thanks for mentioning the technical issues involved in fixing this issue. Many people think we don't test or use Fusion 360 because they don't understand that fixing bugs is not always simple. In this case we've been blocked for technical reasons because an entirely new experience is required, not a quick bug fix. 

@adrian.carpenter The good news is there will be improvements coming soon because things have finally changed to the point we are able to address this issue. When the new experience is available in the Insider build we'd love to hear your thoughts about it. 

https://feedback.autodesk.com/key/Fusion360Insider

Feel free to sign up, but the next Insider build is not yet ready. It will be soon, like days. Thanks for your patience and continued patience until you can try the new experience.

[adrian.carpenter]

I only ever use orthographic mode.

This is not me being difficult or unreasonable, I pay for fusion to use as a hobbyist because the project limitations in the free version just don't work for me, I'm happy to pay for it because I think it's a good piece of software, it has quirks, but it works well for the most part.

This is a bug, even worse it's an acknowledged bug that has have had efforts to resolve it, I encountered this bug on day 1 and I'm here a year later still encountering it in every single session I fire up fusion for.

If I'm hitting this problem as a "casual user" using it in my private time, with limited use, people using it in a commercial environment with the conditions that trigger it must just live with it or accept it.

Mashing the keyboard CMD, OPTION, SHIFT and CONTROL buttons while randomly doing different combinations of various different finger gestures for as long as it takes for it to start responding again is not a solution.

I spent 10+ years writing commercial PCB design software, if I had a bug in the software I developed like this, I'd find the cause and fix it.

This is a problem that makes the software incredibly frustrating to use on a laptop Mac with trackpad, there should be no free passes because it *might* be something in a third party library, if the problem is there, identify it and light a fire under the third party to fix it.

[adrian.carpenter]

I'll also add that I use lots of other software such as blender and the affinity tools, and well, every other application I use on macOS that don't have any trackpad issues, this is a problem that only manifests in Fusion 360.

[TrippyLighting]

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@adrian.carpenter wrote:

...

If I'm hitting this problem as a "casual user" using it in my private time, with limited use, people using it in a commercial environment with the conditions that trigger it must just live with it or accept it.

...

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The vast majority of professional users do not use the trackpad. It's really that simple!

I've worked with a variety of CAD and 3D modeling applications professionally for over 30 year by now and over 20 of those in 3D.

[adrian.carpenter]

In the interest of not appearing to be being argumentative, I’m just going to leave it here.

If there is light at the end of the tunnel on what are substantial user interface bugs, no matter how few people it may or may not affect, then my major gripe with Fusion will be gone.

I like fusion, I must like it because I pay for a license as a hobbyist and I think it’s a great product, but this is a huge source of frustration for me.

The space mouse limits the impact of this issue, but there are times when I go to use it for convenience,, so I still get hit with it.

None of this was intended as a dig at the product or the development team behind it or anybody at autodesk, but when you have a substantial use interface bug as a user that persists for a long time, then you end up where I am, frustrated and bewildered.

[RajkumarIlanchelian]

As @Phil.E indicated above, we are very close to hopefully addressing this issue for good. We will be exposing this to our Fusion 360 Insider community hopefully next week and to production sometime soon thereafter. If you are interested to try out the new trackpad experience and provide your feedback, you can join our insider https://feedback.autodesk.com/key/Fusion360Insider.

[RajkumarIlanchelian]

The new track pad experience is in a preview and available for early access via the Insider program. We plan to release this to production late march/early April. If you are part of the Insider program please do check this out and give us your feedback. 

[criznach]

March or April 2023?  The problem still exists.  I just learned about the preview feature and will be trying it.

[ltomuta]

The preview feature was released to production (i.e. accessible to everyone, not just insiders). When it will make it out of the preview that is another question.