So, what IS new in WF5?

Geesaman! got a review? Anything at all to say about it? Did they finally get rid of "part" accuracy, everything would be real, i.e. "absolute", accuracry as they promised with the release of WF4? I can't see any verification in the "what's new" document. There never seems to be a link between documents that predicted/promised changes in certain revs and the "what's new" reports, so this is still in the realm of rumor. Closed loop processes may be unknown at PTC.

David Janes

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JANES
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I still haven't begun with it. My IT dept has not updated the license (I provided the new license pack) so at the moment I just have the list of interesting things I want to check out.

David

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David Geesaman

You still have relative and absolute accuracy, they just did what they normally do, moved its location so it's a hunting game to find it. It now resides under "File > Properties".

Paul

Reply to
Paul Gress

I'm not surprised about the accuracy question. After all, it was some PTC genius that got us this in the first place. Hard to give up those early "marks of distinction". But thanks, in your graphic, for showing the variety of things that have been moved into the Properties interface, something akin to actual part properties in a single interface. They're slowly catching up, in useability, to Solidworks. I think they're about half way there, just another decade, kids, and they might make it unless they buy another five companies, in the mean time. I wonder what their next target will be~ANYONE FOR SAP?

Now, when I'm in the part/assembly can I right click over the part name, get 'Properties' and have easy access to the list? You could never do this with 'Edit>Setup>etc'. That information was available nowhere but from the 'Edit>Setup' menu. BTW, what's left of it?

David Janes

Reply to
JANES

One thing I noticed, I had a job interview with a company that uses Autodesk Inventor. I was able to utilize the program never before touching it. Even though the user interface utilized the "Ribbon", it was intuitive and made sense. Pro-E is still light years behind in the user interface. Even though they used the "Ribbon" for drawing, it was not the same. It has nothing to do with "Unix" as I see some people complain. It has to do with they keep changing direction. First the Wildfire GUI, they never finished it, now the Ribbon, only partiality complete and non-intuitive. You also know what I noticed, the "Dashboard" was still on the bottom.

Now they've made WF6 and/or Lightning a secret. At first they had a plan for WF6, now it's gone, and you can't find any information on Lightning. That scares me, because now PTC is saying everything will be an add on module, not one program can satisfy everyone. What scares me is do they plan on draining more money from their customers via selling individual modules? They state they have the resources, the resources are their customers and their draining us, how much longer can they do that?

Any way, I still use WF5 even though I feel I'm less productive using it because once you use it you can't open up files with WF4, and yes I've used the Granette (however you spell it) extension. Also another thing that scares me is my OS is Opensolaris right now which is a preview release of Solaris 11, PTC may not port WF6 or Lightning to it. I've been using Solaris for 15 years and appreciate the stability of it and the fact I don't need anti-virus software. So be it, I'll see on October 28th for sure.

Paul

Reply to
Paul Gress

What's the 'Ribbon'? What's the significance of 'October 28'?

David Janes

PS, add on mods has been their business model for decades! If anything, it was always too "customizable" and you never really knew what you were getting.... and way too many "packages", add ons up the wazoo which kept their reps in business.

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JANES

The "Ribbon" is PTC's attempt to duplicate the same interface you get now with Microsoft Office 2010 or an attempt to copy Autodesk Inventer

2011 interface, but only for Drawings in WF5.

Since this is a newsgroup and text only, I've uploaded a screenshot of the "Ribbon" interface for WF5 Drawings to my website:

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Notice how much space it takes. It also screws up the location of icons and menu nomenclature. Also you use to be able to double click on dimensions and change them, then click on a view and right-click for a pop-up menu on the view, not anymore. You need to be in the correct tab on top (in the ribbon), so more mouse movements just to edit. PTC really messed this up.

October 28 is when PTC is suppose to announce Lightning officially. Supposedly this is now WF6 renamed.

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Paul

Reply to
Paul Gress

I loaded WF5 once for grins, noticed what I called the "Dashboardizing" of Detailing. And, yes, they copied (quite artfully, I might add) the Vista/Windows 7 interface. But, mostly what I noticed is that there were tabs for pages of your drawing. things that had been buried in esoteric layers of Menu Manager style commands were, now, right up front. And, of course, any "form" of organization falls into the canundrum of prison/fortress, everything that helps you also harms you in some way. But GIVEN that, I prefer (so far) the ribbon over the 20 year long standing obscenity.

All I see is the greatly dimmed "Wildfire" attempted to be restarted by a strike of "Lightening". The somewhat jaded among us are skeptical, to say the least. And a scam to soak the users has already been suggested. I asked, with the advent of WF2, if anyone was willing to bet on how far they could drag out the "transition" to the "Dashboard" interface. PTC's skill in the art of calling coal diamonds means they can drag it out till death do us part. If you can't wow them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit!

David Janes

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JANES

It is beyond pitiful that we're onto yet another interface/menu structure that will not be applied to all parts of the software.

David

Reply to
David Geesaman

They, PTC didn't even finish the Wildfire GUI series. I have lost all my faith in them now. If Lightning is also a failure, I think I may start looking for alternatives.

Paul

Reply to
Paul Gress

"Ligntening"? How about CREO ELEMENTS!?! WTF, "Re-branding"!?! How about finishing just ONE freakin' thing ya started, PTC!?! All with fanfare, hoopla, words aplenty... but like the ADD victims you are, followed quickly by boredom, abandoment, and on to something else new, glittering and full of fantastical "promise".

Every once in a while, in a moment of weakness, I hanker for whatever these addlepates are smoking. BTW, a few years back, I offered to start a betting pool on how long these guys could drag out the "transition" to the "Desktop" interface. Now we know: these inveterate MS haters are on to the "ribbon" interface. (Check out the WF5 drawing/detailing interface. Remind you of Windows Office 2010?). Better? Worse? All we know for absolute certain: IT WON'T LAST AND THEY WON'T FINISH IT!!!! So, Paul, yes, I agree with you 100%!

David Janes

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JANES

Well, now that I have the SE installed, I can try out some stuff.

One of the things I tried again is the sketcher "palette". Double click on an icon and the section is ready to place; place the section and you can move it by clicking on the snapping reference to activate, then drag to your sketch reference. Seemed more cumbersome before, less reliable. Worth taking another look at. I think you can even add your own sections to a Custom tab. Obviously, this is a PTC product, so not easy or straight forward, just another one of those things for which they pay the SYSADMINS big bucks (or used to, before UNIX went away). Now, just more esoterica that no one's responsible to know. And one of its known side benefits, also at the heart of the cult of the ACRONYM, familiar to those who work in a militarized engineering environment.

David Janes

David Janes

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JANES

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