CREO - First Impression?

[SW]

Searching will get worse, depending on what release somebody is using, we will have to search for Creo, Elements, /Pro, /Direct, Wildfire, Pro/Engineer, Pro/E, Pro/EndlessNameOptions...

 

[tmay]

Decidedly mixed on this. As a very long time Mac user, I understand and evangelize the benefits of a consistent user interface. Still, I've been waiting for the manufacturing modules to transition fully to the WF interface, I have my doubts that the transition to the Creo UI for the more arcane modules will go as smoothly as portrayed nor as fast as users require.

Worst part of this is that I am at WF 4, off maintenance and on an old XP machine, and not inclined to get back on until the the modules are upgraded.

 

[dr_gallup]

Nobody wants to transition to that awful ribbon interface at all.

 

[moriarty]

Id prefer ribbon to Menu Manager - frankly if elements/pro
comes with any menu manager it will be time to move on.
Edited by: moriarty

 

[gristle]

Wasn't the interface meant to change completley away from the menu manager in WF1-2? Or am I dreaming? And now they have another offering?!?

 

[zpaolo]

Wasn't the interface meant to change completley away from the menu manager in WF1-2? Or am I dreaming? And now they have another offering?!?

Basically the ribbon is just another way to organize icons and commands, the new bit in wildfire interface was the dashboard, and I really hope they are gonna retain it. I'm afraid the menu manager will be retained at least for the first issues of Creo Elements/Pro, maybe only for not so common use commands...

Paolo

 

[gristle]

Ahh so they were going to dashboardise alll of the features. Did not happen huh.
I wonder what interface things like flatten quilt/toroidal bend will have.

 

[SW]

I think it what is referred to as an "eclectic mix". Ella Fitzgerald, Rolling Stones, Prodidgy, all thrown in together. Only in a CAD program.

Edited by: SW

 

[moriarty]

Elements/Pro or ProE doesn't have a future if the
interface isnt fixed - everyone will migrate to the
direct modeler especially anyone new. Only granddads will
use ProE.

Try explaining Menu Manager to a recent grad engineer -
that interface comes from a time when they werent even
born! Repeat Regions feels like youre punching a deck of
paper cards to get it to work.

Unfortunately I think Paolo will be correct - its
everywhere in the WF5 drawing module and thats new.



Edited by: moriarty

 

[Jacoolo]

don`t see introduction of new interface as major issue. Ribbon is good enough, and if that is a minimal requirement I am sure it will be accepted, it is just case of time.

PTC claimed some time ago to rethink its marketing plan regarding small buisness. SW did a lot of noise in this area and it is visible to PTC it can not be taken as minor income factor for next coming years.

Why is this a factor a t all - small buisness likes changes, more it requires often releases and updates, specialy regarding new funcionality and appearence.

This stay contrary to requirement of big fishes to have stable environment no matter the interface. Try to convince +300 users to abondon WF2 or WF4 environment. I wish a lot of luck

 

[zpaolo]

This stay contrary to requirement of big fishes to have stable environment no matter the interface. Try to convince +300 users to abondon WF2 or WF4 environment. I wish a lot of luck

Good point, the user world is split in two great groups, people that know one interface and want to stick with it, and people that want to change it because they don't know or don't like it. Menu manager is "old looking", but I learned Pro|E some years ago and it was not so difficult to master, although it was already considered old as Wildfire and the dashboard were already out. The ribbon is not evil "per se", but the implementation PTC made for the drawing environment is poor, slow, modal and reduces my speed of work because of continuous context switch just to enable the right click menu.

I really hope that Creo will be something good and new FIRST as far as features and interoperability are concerned, and ALSO because of a streamlined interface, but I won't cut my veins if a bit of menu manager will still be there... I've seen Creo presentation and I'm really impressed, I mean, from the press release I imagined Creo as a patchwork of ProE, Cocreate and perhaps Arbortext, but the result is, at least in the presentation, much much better than this. I'd really LOVE to have the 2D design environment they demo in the presentation

Paolo

Paolo

 

[SW]

The menu manager still appearing is a bit of a joke, but I'd rather PTC spent their rescource on robust, capable tools, rather than a totally seamless interface. That said, I think it would do them a lot of good if they sorted it out, as it give a bad impression and ammunition for critics.

Sam

 

[Jacoolo]

apart of general feeling in long term of considering the dashboard as prooved solution I apreciate its unique style - SW push its kinda dashboard into Model Tree area, Catia deals(V5 so far) with seperate windows which I do not find as pleasent, Autodesk risk a lot of with its fusion approach.

Among them dashboard does its job quite well as long it is taken regarding funcionality not appearance.

Personaly I am much more interested in developing common working area between basic modules - part modeling, assy, drawing. I would like to avoid switching between windows, having kinda funcionality as Activate Model in Assy Mode instead. Always one window, but with appropriate fit environment. That would be a big step forward.

 

[dgs]

My concern with the ribbon, here and in MS Office, is the amount of vertical space it consumes. With the ubiquitous wide screen monitors, vertical screen real estate is at a premium. For example, on my wife's laptop in a web browser the window frame and toolbars consume 1/3 of the vertical screen space.

Give us the option of docking the ribbon to the side and I think it would be a much better solution. I bet that's not an option, however.

 

[zpaolo]

My concern with the ribbon, here and in MS Office, is the amount of vertical space it consumes.

I agree, but we should blame monitor and laptop manufacturer first, for pushing on the market laptop with 16:9 displays, and also blame USERS who bought them in the first place, when you still had the choice between 16:9 and 16:10.

That said, I'm not a fan of vertical docked toolbars, but it the ribbon is customizable enough it could be "shrinked" to the dimension of a toolbar avoiding the use of large icons...

Paolo

 

[dgs]

I agree, but we should blame monitor and laptop manufacturer first, for pushing on the market laptop with 16:9 displays, and also blame USERS who bought them in the first place, when you still had the choice between 16:9 and 16:10.

Did you mean 16:9 and 4:3? My wife's laptop is 16:9, I think, maybe not quite but it is wide screen. Vertical resolution is ~800px. I have an older, high resolution laptop with a 4:3 screen at 1600x1200. That's 50% more vertical screen space and it's amazing to work with.

Wide screen is great for movies, but not so good for general computing tasks unless you have enough vertical resolution. (Try to buy a mainstream laptop with more than the default 768 px vertical resolution, though.)

I'm not a fan of vertical docked toolbars, but it the
ribbon is customizable enough it could be "shrinked" to the dimension of
a toolbar avoiding the use of large icons...

On my new Windows7 machine, I've docked the taskbar on the right and it's great. The Windows 7 taskbar icons are more like square-ish tiles than the XP or Vista tabs, so it works well in a vertical format. I gain ~3/4" of vertical space on my 14" monitor.

 

[dr_gallup]

I love wide screen monitors, I can view two pages at once or two docs side by side. I hate user interfaces that hog the monitor and resist customization. But even worse is the constant switching back & forth among the tabs of the ribbon interface. I don't do just one thing repetitively, I tend to work in one view & do everything necessary in that view which means jumping back & forth constantly between the tabs. It's like the old menu manager in drawing mode where you had to go up 3 levels of menus, down 3 levels, back up 3 levels, down again. Over & over & over. The ribbon interface is a huge step backwards.

But back to Crapo. I think the underlying logic behind the rebranding is PTC get a justification to dump their Unix support. It's a "new" product so they don't have to worry about supporting legacy systems. This will take a stone from around their neck if they don't mind pissing off some long time customers.

 

[moriarty]

Index to the presentation

http://events.cramerwebcast.com/ptc/20101028/video/defaul
t.htm

Start 30:00

29:25 AnyRole Apps
30:50 design Mngr- Design Review
32:00 ID - Conceptual Design
33:45 Analyst -Mechanica
35:00 Service Planning -Work Procedures
37:00 2D Drawings
38:00 NC Machining
38:45 Rendering
39:30 Parametric Modelling
41:00 Partner Apps

41:45 AnyMode Modelling
45:00 2D Conceptual Tool
47:45 Direct Modelling
51:00 Parametric Model - transfer between two
53:30 direct modelling features in parametrics
54:00 Kernel

56:30 AnyData
60:30 Data from different CAD systems
61:00 Assembly App
61:54 Changing parts designs
64:25 Legacy data

65:00 AnyBOM Assembly
66:00 Configurations
68:40 not Windchill, new tool, linkage tool
70:40 demo Config Modelling App
73:15 App Shifter

76:00 Summary
77:00 Rollout
78:00 Release 1 mid 2011
79:30 Release 2 late 2011
80:00 No disconnect
87:52 Product Names

Edited by: moriarty

 

[moriarty]

Frankly PTC have plenty to sort out with just the Windows
Products - they should forget UNIX and MAC.

AnyData should go a long way to sort the legacy issues.

Im not sure they'll ever get rid of Menu Manager - they
must have started writing Wildfire in 2000 - WF1 2002 - so
theyve had 10yrs to sort it and its still everywhere - the
prognosis isnt good.
Edited by: moriarty

 

[zpaolo]

I love wide screen monitors, I can view two pages at once or two docs side by side.

But this is just an urban legend, the best screen ratio to view two A4 pages side by side is 4:3, leaving you some room for toolbars on the top. Widescreen monitors in 16:10 are an acceptable tradeoff between user screen estate and manufacturers cost reduction. A laptop with 16:9 monitor is not much more than an overpriced DVD player!

Marketing and manufacturers are boosting 16:9 monitors because at the same diagonal size they have less area, so the (dumb) user is happy to have a XXinch monitor, and the manufacturer saves money...

This is barely acceptable for desktop monitors (my IBM is 22" at a resolution of 1600x1200, look if you can find a 16:9 monitor with that vertical resolution and check for its "inch" diagonal dimension...), but it's almost CRIMINAL for laptops, 15" at 1366x768 is just unusable, that is the vertical resolution of a NETBOOK!

Paolo