Panels, Toolpalettes, Tabs, Windows or whatever

[Kay_Rethmeier]

Hi Autodesk,

Autodesk is developing better and nicer UIs - if they would work… The best development here, which took nearly 20 years 😐, was the tab-functionality inside Inventor. But the most effective and most uncritical behaviour can be found inside Navisworks. The dockable windows are the best to work with those windows/panes/palettes,…

Why:

In AutoCAD the standard palettes are working nice and pretty. The Factory palette Asset-Browser doesn’t collapse after it was expanded. The Style-Browser inside AutoCAD Architecture is a mess, after a while and dragging the style browser around, is can happen, that is will be as large as the AutoCAD window it self and cannot be resized afterwards.

But big plus: most of the palettes can fly in and out.

In Inventor the tabs, if they will be aligned above each other, are resizing itself on their own, especially the Factory-Properties is enlarged to 99% height after opening a next file. Inside Inventor there is no fly in and out behaviour.

Navisworks as the only tool has the most effective dockable windows/panes/palettes,… management. They can be stacked together like the tabs in Inventor, they can be aligned beside or above and their fly in and out behaviour is robust and perfect!

So dear Mr Autodesk: Look at Navisworks, throw away all your trials inside AutoCAD and Inventor and use exactly the same behaviour like in Navisworks regarding the windows/panes/palettes, or however you like to name them.

Best regards,

Kay

[Kay_Rethmeier]

Again, this is also a perfect example, that Autodesks left hand does not know about it's right hand.  Different behaviour, different naming, different quality, ...

[DRoam]

Hi @Kay_Rethmeier, this sounds interesting. I'm not familiar with Navisworks. Can you post some screenshots or a Screencast demonstrating what it does that you like?

[jason_hetu]

Hi @Kay_Rethmeier,

I don't know if this is the current behavior but I was able to find an older video going over the UI panel Auto Hide feature. https://youtu.be/ncy5ewpXiYs This should be the same basic Microsoft docking solution provided in AutoCAD. We also use the same in Inventor however it has been modified. I have had autohide on our list to implement for quite a while but it keeps getting pushed back. It would be great to here from others if the autohide feature is important so we can get it done. 

[Kay_Rethmeier]

Hi,

@jason_hetu 

Well, I checked out the silly behaviour of the Inventor Factory-Properties and it seems, that the resize-problem is maybe solved in 2021. But as you wrote, the autohide-stuff would be cool. But keep AUTOCAD in mind! This topic is also for the redesign and idea of harmonization of all 3 products - but taking the best of it :-)!

@DRoam 

Attached you will see some screenshots of Navisworks. The programming libraries for these panels are something well known. You will find them as well inside other software products.

Bye

Kay

[DRoam]

@Discussion_Admin  any idea why I can't see the comments on this idea? It says 4 comments but I can't see any of them. In Chrome or Edge.