13-Aquamarine

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Enhancement Requests for Creo - January 2014 TC Meetings

Forum|Forum|12 years ago
January 21, 2014
10 replies
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Hi Everyone...

Once again PTC/User is holding it's bi-annual "face to face" Technical Committee ("TC") meetings. These meetings are held twice a year and the Winter Session is being held this week. I realize I still owe an updated spreadsheet from the last meetings in August. However, I still have everyone's enhancements and I'll be raising as many topics as possible during the meetings.

Understanding that this is a bit late, if you have requests or nagging problems with Creo 2.0, now is the time to speak up. Please know that topics like the User Interface (ribbon), colors, the measuring tool, and assembly constraints are well-covered already. There's a special meeting for "pain points" and user annoyances with the Detailing module so that might be a good place to focus your comments.

It helps to remember that the most useful enhancement requests are very specific. Vague requests like "fix the measurement tool" are not as easy to fight for as a more focused request. Errors or problems should be described well. Because I'm very late in starting this topic, I do not have the time I usually have to go back and ask questions to clarify and understand each request. The better you can describe your issue, the easier it is for me to bring it to the attention of the PTC developers and Product Line Managers.

For those of you are not familiar with what the PTC/User Technical Committees do, here's a link back to the Summer TC Discussion which features a pretty good description.

As always, our goal is to make positive contributions so that we may influence future releases of the software. Reasonable requests supported by sound logic and a true business need have the best chance of being well received. These are professional meetings held at the pleasure of PTC and it's employees. I'm an invited guest at this event and I'm also representing my employer so I need to remain professional. While I'll do my best to make a case for incorporating your enhancements, please remember that I probably can't get to every request. Numerous meetings occur simultaneously and it's tough to hop around between rooms.

Add your comments, requests, pain points, and feedback to this thread. I'll do my best to get it in front of the developers. I'll catalog the requests and post a synopsis and a final report after the meetings. I'm working on one master spreadsheet to incorporate all the requests we've gathered since last year's meetings. I have a bit of time in the hotel room this week. I'll try to get the chart finished before I head home on Friday.

Remember to keep it positive if possible... but let's hear what you have to say!

Thanks!!

-Brian

PS: I am currently a member of the following Technical Committees so I can address topics in any of these areas:

Routed Systems - Cabling/Piping & Schematics
Core Modeling
Model Based Definition (ASME Y.14.41 Standards)
System Administration
Detailing
Creo View / Visualization
Windchill

PPS: If you're interested in joining a TC, go to the PTC/User Website, create a login, and sign up!

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2D Drawing

Best answer by BrianMartin

Hello Everyone...

The link to the completed document (spreadsheet) tracking all enhancement requests is UP! This has all of the requests I've gathered from January of 2013 (last year) through January 2014.

There's quite a bit going on in this chart... the color codes help explain what happened with each submission. The dots in the first column appear next to any item that has been updated for January 2014. As promised, I went back to the old lists. If I'd missed something from Jan '13 or June '13, I tried again in Jan '14.

Over 80 enhancements from your submissions did get in front of the PTC developers. Many of them were well received. Some of them were either already planned, already implemented, or so popular that I imagine we'll be seeing them very, very soon.

Everyone who submitted a request should check the chart for their name and add comments to the DOCUMENT thread so I can add keep track of everything. I'm only linking the document here for convenience. Please submit your comments and feedback to the document thread so I don't have to hunt through the longer discussion threads to see your responses.

Thanks!

-Brian

PS: I'm adding this same note to all 3 enhancement threads so please forgive the duplications!

D

dgschaefer

21-Topaz II

I believe you have this one already, but I'd love to have the measure dialog fully open when called upon.

Consistency is huge. I'd love to see a focus on consistency throughout the software, starting with consistent behavior for the middle mouse button. I know that's rather vague, but it's been a problem for years throughout Proe & now Creo. The middle mouse is a great example.

This isn't a software problem, but if they want our maintenance dollars they need to get back to somethign approaching annual releases. An 18-24 month release cycle means no value in paying maintenance every year.

B

BrianMartin

Author

13-Aquamarine

Hi Doug...

Done. Your request for the measure dialog to fully open (or an option to make this the default) has been logged by PTC. My feeling was that they didn't see this was a big deal meaning... it seemed like they could do it easily. Whenever you see them just shrug off the request as if it's a no-brainer, that's a good sign. They'll almost always try to work in the 'easy-to-accommodate' issues because they're the low hanging fruit.

I don't think we're getting back to a 12 month release cycle... but I am happy to push for more consistency across the product.

Thanks!

-Brian

R

ryankelley

1-Visitor

This may also be a good time to have everyone review the enhancements submitted to the Creo Product Ideas and make sure they have voted on the ones they'd like brought up to our Product Management team.

I've got a seperate task to review the highest voted ideas with the team next month and to have their team report back on which ideas will remain open for voting, moved to under consideration, for future consideration, or if there are no plans to implement.

B

BrianMartin

Author

13-Aquamarine

Hi Ryan...

Would it be possible for the user community (perhaps here on PTC Community) to get a list of which ideas are getting considered and which are not being implemented. Up until now we've heard that PTC looks at those Product Ideas but there's really no proof per se.

What I mean is... as of the Summer 2013 TC meeting, there were over 1000 ideas. Some are very, very stale. The whole system ends up clogged with these old requests. Other times there are fantastic requests that aren't getting voted on. I'm not sure what we have now (in terms of gathering product ideas) is the right solution. We're sort of on the right track but the sheer volume of requests makes it so that a great many of them are never seen and therefore never voted on.

Perhaps if we could see which ones were being considered, that would help. Also, if we could clear out the ones not being considered, that might help reduce the overall number of items making it easier for people to vote on the remaining ones.

It might be helpful to see a "top 50" list of enhancement requests on a grid or table. Not that we expect that many to be implemented... but having a chart and seeing the ideas you're considering might go a long way toward smoothing the feathers of users who are sometimes uncertain if PTC is really considering their input.

Best regards,

-Brian

R

ryankelley

1-Visitor

Hey Brian -

This is one of the bigger tasks I've been assigned with since taking over the helm at PTC Community. We are going through the analysis next month, so while I don't have a finite list of ideas under consideration right now I will hopefully have more clarity and an update next month. As of right now it's safe to assume that all Product Ideas that remain 'Open For Voting' are going to be reviewed and processed over the coming months.

It's simple to filter the Product Ideas by popularity and status within PTC Community, here is a list of the Top 50 Product Ideas still 'Open For Voting'. You can also adjust the filters to see what ideas have been processed.

Moving forward, my goal is to work with the Product Management team to review Product Ideas on a more regular basis and for them to report back on which ideas are moving into their process. Lastly, I just wanted to assure you that your input is important and that I, among many others, am here to make sure you're listened to.

- R

P.S. All that aside, I don't want to distract from the importance of Brain's original post. All of our members should be encouraged to review and submit new ideas so that we can take the very best of what the community has to offer.

J

James62

1-Visitor

Hello there Brian,

I'll try to expand on the Consistency matter. Some of the things I might not remember off the top of my head, but let me try.

About the Esc key:

Esc key in Creo cancels out I guess all of the features, or at least the ones that use the so called dashboard menu with green checkmark and red x-mark.

It also works to cancel a sketch command (for instance line) on the first press, and cancel the whole sketch on the second press of the Esc key. Ouch....

Also it works to cancel any changes made in IDD. There is no history tree that would get stored so one hit of an Esc key can be pretty devastating there.

Imagine getting a pretty trashed model, and having to spend like 2 hours in IDD to fix it. On the top of that there is a high probability that you could be a multi-CAD user, using CADs where the Esc key works to cancel just the active command within that particular mode, and not the whole feature.

The command can be then repeated with RMB if that happens so it's np to keep jumping on Esc key just so you can quickly access other commands. Now you tend to hit Esc alot while not thinking much about it. That all means, while in Creo, you may just have do the work in IDD repeatedly.

Would it be possible to make the Esc work such that pressing it does not result as a loss of a work?

I know how to disable Esc key just for Creo, and leave it functioning for other apps, but think about all the other users, that have experience with another CAD, how long it takes till they figure out or get used to it? So much wasted time there.

About the Deselect feature:

This command is not in the ribbon, but can be added to it, or mapkey can be made. It does not work in sketcher and in IDD as well. In IDD it would be pretty handy if it would work, since the whole imported feature tends to get highlighted alot of times, and to deselect it one has to zoom out to find a free space to click onto.

Deselect works for drawing views, which is pretty good. I'm just mentioning that, cause I'm worried it could stop working all of the sudden in one of the future releases.

In the last three months I've had to use WF4, and I have to say there are some functions that have been lost, and are no longer available in Creo 2. Which seems way too strange.

You know if PTC at least said, hey we are redoing the whole thing, and we start with adding a ribbon, all the functionalities that have been lost will be added back later on, cause we know you want for example a custom menu on the side, but this new menu system is something totally new that we can build up on, the old stuff was just a bunch of spaghetti code... ... ... but they have no words at all for all of this mess. Sorry, I just had to type it out.

Moving on...

About Ctrl+A

It's supposted to work only to activate the currently selected window. Sometimes when only one window is opened, and Creo just hangs, so for example assembly components can't be selected, Ctrl+A gets pretty handy then. It can put you back into the game without having to kill the xtop.exe process.

It also works to reset selection filter back to the default (Smart, General, etc.)

The trouble with Ctrl+A is again that it also cancels the currently defined feature, and also without any warning, which can again result as a loss of work.

It would be really nice if someone at PTC could think about these things for a while, they should not be too hard to fix or make more user friendly.

Regards,

~Jakub

B

BrianMartin

Author

13-Aquamarine

Hi Jakub,

Check on the ESC key and the Deselect. I'll see if I can raise those issues.

About the Ctrl+A, in Creo 3, all; you have to do to activate a window is click in it. Whichever window has focus is automatically Activated. This actually satisfies another community member's suggestion from Summer so thagt's a plus. Hopefully it resolves or eliminates the need for Ctrl + A to re-actovate and rescue a hung window.

Thanks!

-Brian

B

BillChapman

13-Aquamarine

Brian,

Is there a list available detailing the enhancements expected in Creo 3.0?

L

LawrenceS

18-Opal

Give back the tab functionality for open Creo windows (like in ProE WF4, IE, foxit, Chrome, etc)

Core Modeling
- All areas of Creo: Make undo work (i.e. ctrl+Z).
- Making components flexible is a great assembly feature but it needs a lot of refining to make it robust because the flexible feature conflicts with BOM, not displaying in its flexible state if read only in the WS, and causes regeneration issues in top level asms.
Model Based Definition (ASME Y.14.41 Standards)
System Administration
Detailing
- Undo undo undo!
- Also allow for easier sketching as is the case with the model sketcher (which is really good). More tools for the BOM repeat region relations editor (such as a compiler that colors/highlights if/endif statements, comments, other definitions, aids in finding where problems are, and a comprehensive help on ProE/Creo's language that it created for this...alternatively using a modern programing language might be nice)
Creo View / Visualization
- Allow single click closing of the windo to be the default when clicking on the red X (it doesn't need to ask if I am sure I want to close unless I actually changed something)
- Make Creo view as robust as actual pdfs. For those who can view, Creo View is awesome but it seems too dependent on computer settings and too challanging to troubleshoot why they are not opening, or printing on one computer, but are from another. It is just not a reliable viewable...
Windchill
- Please fix those tables that are too small then after I adjust them they reset on me either when I am scrolling or if I refresh the page.
- Get rid of the floating tool tips for input boxes (as in the edit attributes in the CAD Workspace)

Encourage PTC to keep paying attention to the Product Ideas as I think that has been very good at increasing visability to both PTC and the customer. Keep up the online tutorials as well. Those have been very good for people to get their footing in Creo and learn new features. And that search bar in Creo for finding features by the name is outstanding. Hats off to PTC for implementing all these features well!

Brian, thanks for bringing topics to the PTC TCs.

B

BrianMartin

Author

13-Aquamarine

Thanks Lawrence...

I've added your requests to the list. The idea for color-coding relations statements is very similar to how the SciTe editor works. In fact, we can probably make our own SciTe definition file and use it in replacement of the PTC editor. That might give a solution to your issue faster than waiting/hoping for an official enhancement. I like your idea... I'm just thinking it might fall off the plate because it'll be seen as a "nice to have" not a "have to have".

Best regards,

-Brian

L

LawrenceS

18-Opal

If it is as straight forward as you make it sound, then this sounds like it could be in the low hanging fruit category and PTC could implement with minimal effort...

Untill then...Can you give any more information as to how to create a custom definition file for PTC language. I am not familiar even where to start on that one (even ater doing several google searches). I am not a programer.

D

danderson-3

1-Visitor

Brian,

Have 2 requests,

1. Reduce time it takes to do distance measure between 2 large assemblies in a mechanism analysis where both bodies are moving thru a range of motion.

2. Need the following enhancement request implemented:

Mechanism Clearance Check with Spatial Field Point Reporting (highlight in individual parts where clearance needs to be added)

http://communities.ptc.com/ideas/3640

http://communities.ptc.com/docs/DOC-4727

This type of clearance check can be automated in Ansys and ABQUS by doing a report merge.

Uses for this would be Checking clearance to a suspension (wheel) on a vehicle, engine moving inside an enclosure, 2 robots moving an object thru space in the same area, etc.

Thanks for any assistance you can provide on this,
Don Anderson

J

James62

1-Visitor

I remember this was said somewhere before, but it's worth mentioning again. There may even be a product idea.

When it's necessary to delete a component or feature from an assembly that has many childern, it's always very time consuming to get Creo to delete just that component, because the status of all the childern objects is set to "Delete" as a default option in the Childern Handling window.

In case of a large assembly switching to Suspend option on each local childern feature could take about 10 secs because Creo tends to hang on this kind of operation.

It would be a good enhancement to have config option such as local_childern_handling_status suspend that could switch all of the statuses at once.

D

dschenken

1-Visitor

You can click the first item, scroll and shift-click the last item, then under the Status menu, pick Suspend or whatever.

Notice that in Windchill each line gets its own check box, with a master checkbox to select/deselect all of them and a separate place to chose the action, so that it is obvious this can happen. The difference between the products is because there is no UI group to look over common functions, like selecting items on lists, to make the same functions work the same way; preferably an obvious way.

J

James62

1-Visitor

Ah geez, there are drop down menus on that tab. I've never noticed those.

Thanks for pointing that out, David.

J

jwaffensmith

1-Visitor

brian it would be a huge thing if you guys could finally refine the ordinate dimesioning scheme so that when dimensions pile up on top of each other they can be cleaned up,,, or that they just automatically stack up so they can be read. we dimension large plates with lots of holes and we spend tons of time manually adding jogs so they can be read.

Cadkey back in the 80s could do it and solid works does it now....just saying.

B

BrianMartin

Author

13-Aquamarine

Hi Jeff...

We're in one of the last detailing-related meetings right now. I'll see if I can get this into the discussion. If not, I'll definitely add this to the master list and suggest it for the next meeting in June.

Thanks for your idea!

-Brian

D

danderson-3

1-Visitor

Brian,

I'm a little late with this request, but this one should be on the top of everyones list that uses mechanism snapshots in drawing views.

Please urge PTC to redesign the snapshot functionality so it's no longer dependent on the explode state software code. The way the snapshot funtionality is designed if a component is changed, any snapshot that references the part becomes out of date and you have to update the snapshots. Let's say you modify a edge radius, but the position of the components do not move related to the change you made. You still have to update the snapshots and if you open a previously saved drawing you can't even see the assembly because the part is scaled in the drawing to show you something has changed. Pleae have PTC fix this. example image attached of a drawing where the cylinder is scaled up 100 times in size hiding an assembly that is 20 times the size of the cylinder.

Current software as designed is causing everyone to do unneccary work on drawings do to a simple dimension change.

Sorry for the rant,
Don Anderson

A

auijttewaal

1-Visitor

Hi Brian and Ryan,

I just want to say thanks for listening!

Although the meeting is probably over now, one enhancement about detailing I would like to add is; Get rid of the menu manager for making notes. I would really like more feedback while making notes.

B

BrianMartin

Author

13-Aquamarine

Hi Agnes...

That is definitely on the way, Creo 3.0 has given the note creation features an overhaul. There's still room for improvement but the new tool for notes is a much needed step in the right direction. I'm not going to add that to the spreadsheet because I know it's fixed. I've seen that one with my own eyes several times.

If you have any other ideas though, please let us know!

Thanks again...

-Brian

B

BrianMartin

AuthorAnswer

13-Aquamarine

Hello Everyone...

The link to the completed document (spreadsheet) tracking all enhancement requests is UP! This has all of the requests I've gathered from January of 2013 (last year) through January 2014.

There's quite a bit going on in this chart... the color codes help explain what happened with each submission. The dots in the first column appear next to any item that has been updated for January 2014. As promised, I went back to the old lists. If I'd missed something from Jan '13 or June '13, I tried again in Jan '14.

Over 80 enhancements from your submissions did get in front of the PTC developers. Many of them were well received. Some of them were either already planned, already implemented, or so popular that I imagine we'll be seeing them very, very soon.

Everyone who submitted a request should check the chart for their name and add comments to the DOCUMENT thread so I can add keep track of everything. I'm only linking the document here for convenience. Please submit your comments and feedback to the document thread so I don't have to hunt through the longer discussion threads to see your responses.

Thanks!

-Brian

PS: I'm adding this same note to all 3 enhancement threads so please forgive the duplications!

P

ptc-5044466

1-Visitor

thankyou so much Brian for your hardwork and also for the spreadsheet.

thankyou.

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