CUI Editor Enhancements

[dcochran]

Hello,

We are looking at ways to improve and enhance the CUI Editor in AutoCAD. As a customer, what improvements would you like to see with CUI?

Thanks in advance for your input!

Doug Cochran
Autodesk, Inc.

[Anonymous]

Thanks.

--
R. Robert Bell


"Ted" wrote in message
news:5171061@discussion.autodesk.com...
slick....
very nice...


Ted


*R. Robert Bell* said the following:
> Perhaps the attached will help?

[Anonymous]

Hi Nicholas,

Yes we read this and all the messages here. There are some great
suggestions here that we are taking a look at.

Thanks

Bud


"Nicholas Iyadurai" wrote in message
news:5171633@discussion.autodesk.com...
Did Bud or Doug Cochran from Autodesk read this!!!!!!
This is what we need!
If I were in Autodesk, I will just hire Laurie!

--
Nicholas Iyadurai
St Louis, MO

"Laurie Comerford" wrote in message
news:5149514@discussion.autodesk.com...
Hi Bud,

I don't think 8 seconds is acceptable for opening any dialog box in a mass
market product such as AutoCAD. You should be aiming at under a second.

I'm on a seriously fast computer where the first opening took about 4
seconds and the second about 2 and those delays are annoying

Suggestions:

Provide in the normal interface that key/mouse combinations can:

Add a pop menu
Copy a pop menu inclusive of assigning a name to the copy
Delete a pop menu
Hide/show a pop menu
Change the column order of the pop menus by dragging a menu.
Convert a pop menu to a toolbar

Add a menu item (open a small dialog box to enter the command details)
Copy a menu item
Delete a menu item
Change the row order of commands by dragging the command.
Drag a menu item to a toolbar and visa versa
Copy a menu item
Change the location of a toolbar icon by dragging it to any visible toolbar

Add all of the above to the Undo command.

This would remove the need to have a CUI editor and as each of the commands
is handled as a single events the response times could have no observable
delay.

Assuming the CUI is to be kept then:
Clearly part of the slow speed of opening the CUI dialog box is populating a
large number of list boxes - many of which may not be needed is a given
session. Why not look at leaving these unpopulated till you get a Getfocus
event on the list box

--

Laurie Comerford
CADApps
www.cadapps.com.au

"Bud Schroeder [Autodesk Inc.]" wrote in message
news:5148242@discussion.autodesk.com...
Hi Laurie,

What version of AutoCAD are you running? 2006 or 2007? I did some testing
using my IBM T42 Laptop and the CUI opens up in under 8 seconds the first
time and around a second each time after. We made a lot of speed changes
specifically for AutoCAD 2007 so you should see a lot more speed that way.

Also besides speed do you have any suggestions for improving the Editor?

Thanks again for the feedback and we look forward to hearing back from you
about the editor.

Bud Schroeder
AutoCAD Test Development
Autodesk Inc.

"Laurie Comerford" wrote in message
news:5146492@discussion.autodesk.com...
Hi Mark,

It will never be acceptable until you can make it start instantly.

The 10 second average delay to respond to the command to open the dalog box
is a reflection of incompetant programming.

With my slightly modified MNU editing system I can make a change to the MNU
file and reload the modified menu in less time than it takes to open the CUI
editor.


Laurie Comerford
CADApps
www.cadapps.com.au

"mark" wrote in message
news:5146421@discussion.autodesk.com...
give me an option without goowee (GUI)
just plain old text editor option, so i can fine tune
and be in full control

thanks
mark


wrote in message news:5146408@discussion.autodesk.com...
Hello,

We are looking at ways to improve and enhance the CUI Editor in AutoCAD. As
a customer, what improvements would you like to see with CUI?

Thanks in advance for your input!

Doug Cochran
Autodesk, Inc.

[Anonymous]

Hello,

Did you take a look at the help in AutoCAD 2007? We added animations like
the one Bob is showing you that help teach how to do tasks in CUI.

Thanks.

Bud


wrote in message news:5170892@discussion.autodesk.com...
How about a more intuitive help for us newbies when using the cui first
time. Almost a Step A through Step Z (or Whatever) for the newbies.

I have some experience with the old MNUs and such. It very frustrating that
I can not simply have my From Osnap on my F1 key. I am jumping from ADT2005
to ADT2007. What is more frustrating that I am having a hard time finding
very CLEAR information in the help section.

Oh before anyone critizes me about using the F1 key for something other than
accessing help, lat me ask this. How many different ways do we need to
access help? IMHO; there is no need to tie up a very valuable keyboard
estate.

Message was edited by: krushert

Message was edited by: krushert

[Anonymous]

Autodesk has once again outdone themselves. So I find an error with the CUI editor, which is that if the ACAD.cui is not your Main cui, but set to Enterprise, then when you open the editor, you'll never be able to see your toolbar/bitmaps. Quite an irritation. Autodesk's Subscription Tech Support had this to say:

The behavior that you are running into has been previously logged on our end as a problem. It is slated to be remedied in the next full release of AutoCAD. We apologize for the inconvenience that this is causing you with the current AutoCAD release.

What the hell are beta testers for? Service packs? Hot fixes? SOMETHING that could fix the problem without making your paying customers wait an entire year before we will supposedly get a decent working editor, which in all likelyhood will be as half-assed as this version. What really boggles my mind though, is that they managed to take a decent working CUI (I had no problems with the 2006 editor) and create more problems in the "improved" 2007 version.

You guys are about as reliable as a Florida weather man.

[Anonymous]

hey, now you're insulting Florida weather men....

[Anonymous]

Over the last year we have had several network changes causing me to rework the menus to point to the correct server name. Easy search and replace with a text editor, a real pain in the cui.

[Anonymous]

it does make editing a pain for network management it is unwieldly.
It should not do an update with every click but when I choose to update the file? I can understand if I switch the command I am working with needing cahced then, but not every line in the same command window.

[Anonymous]

Since this dooosie of a thread just won't quit, I have a suggestion too (even though everyone else already said better things than I can think of).

Whatever revamped utility is birthed out of this discussion (and hopefully scads of beta testing by various levels of customizers), I would love to see it as a service pack or separate utility that could be applied to 2006, 2007 and included in 200x. The best of both worlds would be something that can better interface with the cui file, but fluently speak bi-directionally in mns format also. Heck, I'd even vote to scrap cui and come up with a new format if a better interface and more intuitive scheme can't be carved out of the existing cui scrap heep. (My .02)

Ron Powell
CAD Manager
JDH Engineering
Grandville, Michigan

[Anonymous]

I'm at a loss.
what in a CUI would reference a server name?
and, after the first change, I would think that you would then make the wise decision to reference a mapped drive letter, rather than a server name. But even that, I'm still not seeing where there would be a path in a CUI. Any reference to a file should be resolved by the Support File Search Path, not by referenced paths, and certainly not by UNC paths.

--J

[Anonymous]

We have various macros pointing to various server locations that are not controlled by me. I'm not even the administrator of my own PC. Mapped drives cause problems during boot up if the server is not available so using the UNC path is more efficient. Also some of it is old habits I learned when computers weren't as fast and it was more efficient to manually point at files rather then let the computer search for them.

Besides I found a search and replace function in the CUI so I revise my request to make it easier to find and use these features. There is far too much pointing with the mouse to get simple things done.

[Anonymous]

Well,
Here's my 2 cents on the topic.
I've been customizing Acad since R2.4.
I've been a 'Developer' since 1995, and have
all the 'flavors' - R14,2000,2002,2004,2005,2006,2007.
----
Menu files: need them 'easy' to edit, save, and (read)
i.e. 'plain text' is fine.
CUI - ditch em'
Go back to R2002 vintage, mns, mnc, mnr
I haven't even loaded the R2007.. don't need the headache.

Why?
- Changes don't work / stick like they used to.
- Even seasoned developers have a hard time dealing with the 'new' CUI.
- Simple is better.
- Faster load / edits (secondary dialogs way too slow).
- Which files do I need to 'install' my app ?
- How do I get them 'registered' again ?
- How do I 'update' them, by just sending an E-Mail (with .mns).
- Blah.

Bob (-;

[Anonymous]

I've been an acad user and programmer for 17 years.

Please bring back the old mns system.
- It's easlier.
- no problems.
- it doesn't crash
- it works
- it doesn't have a huge learning curve
- most of us, even the real pro programmers prefer the old method.

It's seems from the questions that Autodesk is asking that they are hell bent on keeping the CUI. Too bad.

Admit you messed up, bring back the old and let's move on.

[Anonymous]

It's been a few months since I last posted to this thread, but a user has
just pointed out another issue to me (in 2006's cui/workspace "feature")...

For each workspace, there is a value called "START ON", which is misleading.
The name of the property would lead you to believe that AutoCAD can actually
_start_ in a space other than what the drawing was last saved in. Instead,
when opening a drawing, it will start in the last space that the drawing was
saved in, regen, and then, if applicable, it will _switch_ to the user's
preferred space and regen again. This doesn't affect me too much since most
of my users use "do not change," but it's just another example of this
entire featureset being extremely inefficient. If you can't actually make
it _start_ in the user-specified space, then perhaps the property should be
renamed to, "Switch to and regen after first opening and regenerating in the
last saved space."

--
Ralph Sanchez
http://www.texupport.net


wrote in message news:5146408@discussion.autodesk.com...
Hello,

We are looking at ways to improve and enhance the CUI Editor in AutoCAD. As
a customer, what improvements would you like to see with CUI?

Thanks in advance for your input!

Doug Cochran
Autodesk, Inc.

[Anonymous]

adding insult to injury, I'm pretty sure the entire workspace feature is completely broken in 2007. You know how in 2006 whenever you change workspaces, you lose some of your partial menus? In 2007 this happens with much regularity, so much so that I had to revert back to 2006 to show off our software, 2007 is not stable enough.

As long as we're beta testing Autodesk software until the first service pack, how about we get the software for free until said service pack ships?

--J

[Anonymous]

On Mon, 10 Jul 2006 13:45:45 +0000, fredtal <> wrote:

>We have various macros pointing to various server locations that are not controlled by me. I'm not even the administrator of my own PC. Mapped drives cause problems during boot up if the server is not available so using the UNC path is more efficient.

Well, if your server is offline for any amount of time, you have more problems
that just losing mapped drives 🙂

The point is, mapped drives are efficient because they (albeit primitively)
separate the physical machine from the reference to that machine at the client
PC. Your IT admin can easily move a share/data store to another server, set up a
global script to remap drive letters on login, and you - and AutoCAD - would
never be the wiser.

If you outgrow your server, you are up a creek because all of your data is
"hardcoded" to point back to the old server - there's no logical separation.

If you server dies, you can't install a new server with the same name and keep
the old one alive simultaneously. You have to bring the old one down, get all
the data off of it, remove it completely from the network security model
(domain), build a new one, name it to the old name, and add it to the domain,
and add the data back on. It's not trivial.

Whereas, if you used mapped drives or DFS, none of this is a problem.

Matt
mstachoni@comcast.net
mstachoni@bhhtait.com

[Anonymous]

I miss the toolbars command pretty badly.
It lets the user handle menus displayed with relative ease and efficiency in a batch style instead of wait, search click, wait search click....

Handling these over a network and managing them really isn't gaining any efficiency with the CUI. Just trying to conduct a simple training seminar was embarrassing waiting for it to open, I lost the attention of the audience and the rithm of the session was dissappointing. I'm having to redesign the interface to a local install which is not going to be easy to manage with the amount of variations people have to wreck their configurations.

[Anonymous]

ohhhh!!!!! i know, you should be alble to have the cui interface open but still be able to do commands and hit buttons and stuff without having to close the cui and then test and then reopen to make changes if need be. that's just off the top of my head, but if you did that i think the anti-cui's out there might come around a little easier. real-time editing and testing!!! beat that with your stupid mnu files!!

[Anonymous]

Doug,

At first I did not like the CUI, I thought it was hard to navigate and wanted to revert back to the old text based menu system. After sticking with it I can see that it is a valuable tool and with a few improvements Autodesk can maybe persuade some of the others in this thread.

Some Improvements I would like to see are as follows:
1. Add tool palette path to worksapces. This way if you change from Architectural to Electrical the palettes can change automatically.

2. Be able to add vba and arx like lisp

3. Add functionality to make menus or buttons available only in certain spaces (paper or model). I know you can already do this but it is a pain in the rear.

4. Add functionality to make layers current or settings when command are selected from buttons or pull downs. Similar to tool palettes, but default everything to bylayer.

5. Incorporate palettes into the CUI similar to toolbars. It would be nice to be able to have the CUI hold everything.

-Jason

[Anonymous]

Quality Over Quantity

CUI Editor sucks because its designed around what 800x600? screen size, i guess this comment goes toward the whole autocad line.

I run @ 1600x1200, not because I want more realestate.
I hate small teeny icons and text.

I run with 1600x1200& BIG toolbars on a 20" viewable screen because everything is @ a higher DPI than 800x600.

Basically the cui screen are hard to view @ 1600x1200
Maybe i need some enlightening, what exactly does big/small/both button image size do in the CUI.


Thanks for letting me vent 🙂

PS Actually Im testing running @ 1600x1200 x2 screens

[Anonymous]

>I run @ 1600x1200, not because I want more realestate.
I hate small teeny icons and text.

Exactly backwards.

The higher the screen resolution on a given monitor, the smaller any given pixel size of text or buttons will be, and the thinner lines will apppear to be.

If you had a 400x300 pixel image, at a 800x600 monitor setting, it would be 1/2 the width and height of the screen. Look at the same image with a 1600x1200 setting, and it will be 1/4 of the screen dimensions. So the same image is half the size if you double the screen setting.

If things are hard to see, lower the screen resolution temporarily. Likewise if the icons and text are hard to read. You don't gain anything by picking a monitor setting that is uncomfortable to you.

I like 1280 better than 1600 on that size monitor, because it takes a lot less tweaking of button and text size to get something that's comfortable to me.