Autodesk and my bloodpressure

[jonpdrew]

Without going on too much of a rant, I just gotta say I am sick and tired of whomever it is at Autodesk that feels the need to constantly screw with this program. In my opinion the last decent version was R14. Ever since then things have gone down hill. I'm from the Generation X crowd so I love hi-tech and all that software/hardware stuff but this is crazy. I believe the plot dialog box changes it's interface more than Bin Laden changes caves, and whats with this quick zoom in feature?!?! Jesus, just let the damn program zoom to where a person wants in the blink of an eye. I don't want to feel like I'm on a 3D Disney ride. If you programmers like Mac software so much then please put in an application at Apple and leave this program alone! There is more but I don't have the rest of my life to spend griping. I'm using 2005 and 2006 currently and as I have stated before...I'm sure some of these Auotdesk programmers would be better off finding a top flight job in either the janitorial or food service industries. O.K. I'm done.

Jon

 

[tman72]

You said it. 2004 does work okay, but 2005 & 2006 are problem prone and actually have slowed producivity. The name of the game is to do things faster, not add alot of useless bells and whistles that make things look pretty, but hog resources and slow down your computer.

 

[jonpdrew]

Yep, I have a gig of ram on my 2 year old dell and 2006 definitely slows it down...looks like I'll have to stuff another gig in there and then wait for the miracle workers at Autodesk to screw up the next version...maybe it's time to switch.

 

[bErEsTh]

I have to put in my 2 cents. I think your assessment of Autocad 2006 is way off and here is why I belevei that.

1)Any program, games, Office, Autocad, 3d software, including the operating system has become incredibly more complicated since v14 was out. You have so many features that are running in the background that most people dont realize exactly what is going on. This isnt the day of Windows 98, NT or 2000 anymore. They were terrible OS's. Version 14 had several user issues as actually one of the worst version according to user groups. Things are much better now. Streamline the processes and be aware of what is running at the same time as CAD

2) Autocad 2006 has several new features that are incredibly useful to the user, but you have to take the time to learn them instead of blaming it on issues you obviously dont understand.
New features:
Tables- you basically dont need Excel anymore becasue you can create your own schedules and save them as templates
Dynamic Blocks-has several blocks in one that you can change via a pull down. Basically its a block with intelligence.
Fields-information that can be changed as the drawing changes and notify you, ie Scale, area, dwg name, user, date
Property & Group Filters-very easy to use, graphic interface, use drag & drop to organize dwg with lots of layers
Batchplot from the file pulldown menu-EASY batch plotting finally
Command Enhancements for: Offset, Rotate, Fillet, Chamfer, Area, Boundary, Region, Trim, Extend, Stretch, Mirror and many more.
Layer States MAnager -Easy to use and now even saves viewport settings
Sheet Set Manager- takes minutes to set up an entire project

Long story short not everthing this company has doe has been perfect, but this version, they really listened to their user base. Learn the program. I have done support for this product and have been a trainer for this product and most people's problem with is they make uninformed starements about it and blame it on the program. This version will save you an inordinate amount of time I promise you. Hope this didnt sound too harsh. I have done support for a long time and the issues disppear with the more one gets to know the system/program.

 

[jonpdrew]

Thanks for the 2 cents, it's always cool to have more input and no it's never too harsh...i saw one forum that was ungodly out of conotrol...but i digress.

I do realize these programs over the years have become more complicated...I prefer bloated simply because software companies can't seem to resist putting in features that I (and other people I converse with in my profession) don't really care about. I don't want to change my drawing style every 6 months...that wastes my time and costs me money. I will eventually work my way to the cool new features but i want things to operate seamlessly from one version to the next on a day to day basis. AutoCAD (and others) are merely tools for me to do my work. I don't need an F-18 to get to the grocery store, my mazda works fine. As far as streamling, that's the name of the game in my book, but when this software changes it's like taking one step forward and two steps back.

As far as the new features, I can appreciate that too, but in this world of get it done yesterday, finding the time to A) see what actually is new and B) putting those feature to use is a whole 'nother ballgame. This all sort of goes back to my first statement that i do not want to change my drawing style every 6 months. I do update my menu when I find a better way of doing things but otherwise i don't bother with a ton of these things. When I get a new version in, I pop open all the menus on screen and basically shut down 1/2 of them permanently. Of course my job is more along the lines of technical illustration so I can't say that all that stuff is useless.

As far as 2006 goes I just find a lot more things irritating than not. The list is long so I won't bother to bore everyone. Yes I find new features here and there that i do really like but I get pretty ticked when AutoCAD takes forever to load on a 1 gig machine...that is usually the first thing abot a new version that makes me roll my eyes. I'd say the second is when have a big 3d assembly up and it appears on the screen in the same way you would pull a shade down over a window...I hate that. Like I say though, I guess I'll just stuff some more RAM in the Dell and call it good. I still think some of those programmers should put their applications in at Apple though, I see things like how the zoom commands work now and having had to deal with Macs for a few years I just get deja vu and daggers fly out of my eyes. Well that's about it. Anybody else who agrees with me or doesn't go ahead and praise my name or nail me to the cross...it makes no difference to me. have a good week every one.

Jon

 

[tman72]

I do appreciate new features, however drastic changes that force me to run scripts, change system variables and settings each and every time I open a drawing seems a bit much if you ask me. I never had to do this before, now all of a sudden things have changed with no warning and I stumbled across this and was not expecting so much to be different. For example I inserted a block and to my surprise it did not come into the drawing where I had expected and at some other scale, so I did some searching and had to change a system variable setting that I never had to mess with before, and I need to do this for each and every drawing or else when I insert a block it will not work as I expect. Other settings that were held within each drawing now change everytime I open the drawing and I must run a script to reset them back to my settings that I require for my other programs to work.

New features are nice, but this new release is not what I was expecting or hoping for and is a big dissappointment in the productivity/cost savings area.