Matt Lombard Noted the following, with some justification, but I have a different take. Below Matt's note, I point out 2 institutions who have not done their job in helping their customers to do their best with the world's best PC based solids CAD.
"Message 1 in threadFrom: matt (m_lombard@frontier_net.net) Subject: Amateur Night View this article onlyNewsgroups: comp.cad.solidworks Date: 2004-03-05 21:01:07 PST "
"Congratulations to all the new users using SW, and welcome to the news group. There is a lot to know about the software, and this is a great place to learn some of the finer points."
"However, rather than asking basic questions here, you might consider reading the help or doing a couple tutorials or even searching google for your question. The main thing is that you'll get an answer faster by trying to help yourself."
matt
I just sent off some Enhancement requests last week to Solidworks about simple things which are not done right, especially for newer SWks users, those who are stuck/blocked on an issue or those looking for new information and can't easily find it:
I'll do a quick summary:
- Help (built-in): Without multiple word searches and booleans, it is very difficult to find some Help page you want sometimes. This is usually when you want to try some aspect of SolidWorks you haven't used before, in spite of using Solidworks for 5 years. (Not everyone is a compulsive SWCP)
Without a SWks user's ability to add his own comments to the Help file, the damn thing is as crippled as a 1st grade reader. I am decades past "See Spot Run". (Can MS say "Adobe Acrobat" without choking and pretending that they are irrelevant because they are so small?)
Help Searching may be a function of the limited ability of Windows, & if that is the case, then SWks ought to design their own functionality or simply use Acrobat. Why should the best PC based Solids CAD in the world be dragged down to the lowest form of functionality by the most generic OS capabilities in the world designed to fit "everyone"?
We SolidWorks users deserve better. Any ...nix OS: Unix, Linux, OSX...I don't care, but anyone who tells me that Windows is a "professional" OS software doesn't see it like a designer/engineer does (or the scientific world). I see so many flaws and inconsistencies, it continually makes me cringe. I keep wondering how much MS has to pay IT directors to smile and look straight into the camera an proclaim their fealty to the One. Given the recent report of some $80m to SCO, I think we have a clue.
- Outlines of key SWks Functionalities in 5-10 lines: An overview of the words and functionality at the top of each major heading or a list of such headings would help new users with familiarization. The SWks Help pages are obscure on some things.
Top Down Assembly work is not so clear and neither is Linking Properties of various types if you haven't seen it done. This makes me think a programmer integrally involved in interface & programming wrote much of the Help, but no one with a lower level of understanding takes a look at offering a form of Help organization for the user's level of understanding at the time he first sees a new piece of information.
Sometimes functionality you know exists, but you don't know the single term to allow you to find it in the Help file. Sometimes an obvious thing is NOT possible, and the outlines should be willing to note that (Circular References and other common or known issues).
- Sometimes the term changes (RapidDraft = Detached Drawing). Other times the Help file uses word wrong and it is confusing (Load vs Open with RapidDraft files in SWks 2003). If there was more checking of features against the Help file, some of these inconsistencies would get fixed early.
- "The Obvious" sometimes eludes even the brightest person when a mental block ocurrs. I broke out in a literal sweat in the 4th grade when in a spelling test, I was asked to spell the word "of". Uv, ouv, ov...damn.
Later - Bo