MathCAD Prime 1.0 is a step back

24-Ruby IV

 I see one but main difference between Mathcad and Mathcad Prime!
 Mathcad was created by a physicist.
 Mathcad Prime was created by an IT-specialist.

S

SteenGroðe

10-Marble

You are right and it should have been designed by a mathematician with great interest in communication and collaboration. A goal could have been to make it the google.docs of mathematics with options on concurrent sketching and modelling. But it wasn't to be this time around.

D

DonC

1-Visitor

Surface plots in Mathcad 15 and Prime don't work. Even on the help pages sample calculations are blank. Meanwhile Mathcad 14 has been uninstalled by Prime.

VladimirN

24-Ruby III

Well,
1. 3D plots are displayed in Mathcad 15.
2. Support 3D plots is planned for Prime in version 2.0
3. On one computer programs Mathcad 14 and Mathcad 15 cannot be simultaneously installed. Therefore at installation Mathcad 15, the setup deletes MC14.

1-Visitor

3. On one computer programs Mathcad 14 and Mathcad 15 cannot be simultaneously installed. Therefore at installation Mathcad 15, the setup deletes MC14.

As Vladimir states above, when installing Mathcad 15, 14 is uninstalled, but I'm sure Mathcad 14 can be re-installed after the installation.

Mike

24-Ruby IV

Have you seen this Mathcad road map?

1-Visitor

Valery Ochkov wrote:
Have you seen this Mathcad road map?

Where did you find this Valery?

Mike

L

Loris

1-Visitor

Used for just 2 hours, and then a small list of good reasons for DELTING it from my harddrive:

- crazy license mechanism (just to say.. matlab license installed in 5 minutes, mathcad installed in 2 hours, (1hour to understand WHAT to do, 1 hour to obrain the license from onloine server.. assistance ticket opened has been aswered the FOLLOWING DAY!) )

- very slow

- crashed at least twice per hour

- NO AUTOSAVE

- the same find-nothing menubar as last microsoft programs (ok, you can like it or no.. I don't like it at all)

- NO 3d plots !!!

- help non showing shortcuts

after that I decided to move my work in mathcad 15.. YOU CANNOT (or is not clear how to do, that is almost the same).

final rating:

nice to see, but AVOID it if you have to work.

Lori

R

RichardJ

19-Tanzanite

after that I decided to move my work in mathcad 15.. YOU CANNOT (or is not clear how to do, that is almost the same).

It's not possible. IMHO, a huge drawback to Prime.

24-Ruby IV

I probably worked most with Matcad Prime 1.0 - my team and I moved for Knovel (see here) more than 20,000 sheets (!!!) from Mathvad (6-11) into Mathcad Prime (see http://communities.ptc.com/docs/DOC-1964).
What can I say about Mathcad Prime?!

It is a Software as each software in FIRST release!

Do You remember FIRST releases Word, Excel (CuperCalc), Mathcad etc.

Many things are missing in Mathcad Prime, but we must view it evolving product!
I am most annoyed by the following:
- more slow work compared with Mathcad 15
- no text indexes, hyperlinks, areas
- lack of an insertion of the old file name when the I wand to do to save as command
The rest - it's teething problems!

PS

We do not need 3D-Plots! Why!?

20,000 sheets is REAL not education task!

1-Visitor

Well said Valery,

It is the first release of Prime and it is bound to have teething problems. That's why PTC offered a free copy of M15 with the software, to compensate.

Converting 20,000 worksheets is good going. However I am surprised to manage to achieve it though because of all the missing features.

Mike

24-Ruby IV

It will be good to have in Mathcad Prime *.0 a possibility to switch on/off calculations in areas not only commands help but by help a variables values.

See too http://communities.ptc.com/docs/DOC-1966

T

TheoGagner

1-Visitor

I am disappointed but not surprised at the general response to Mathcad Prime. In full disclosure, the first thing I thought when I saw this product was Hallelujah! I didn't think that because I thought the product was complete/finished/perfect, I thought it because the change represents something I need from the product to become more efficient.

I think I might differ from other users because I am a recent graduate of an engineering college and so we have different experiences with engineering software. I am a strong user of Excel, MATLAB, LabVIEW, Mathematica and MathCAD. I graduated from the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, where we have 0 seats to MathCAD. It is not a software package used frequently in Universities - the scene is dominated by MATLAB and simpler tools, like Excel. So my experience has been on-the-job (where we share floating licences) in 12 months of internships and now full-time employment. So my user experience is that I use a variety of tools for their various strengths, but I'm not at a superior level of proficiency in any. I didn't jump on the Mathcad horse a decade ago, I have no love for the current GUI (I use Mathcad 15).

I really disagree with the generalization that ribbon style formatting is not a significant improvement over nested menus. This is a common complaint with Excel 2007/2010 also. Here's the thing: I can teach a 14 year-old to use Excel 2007 as efficiently as any 50 year-old power user using Excel 2003. When I teach people how to use the more recent versions of Excel, all I do is train them how to think about what they are looking for and the ribbon catagory naturally follows. From a GUI programming mentality, Mathcad's/Excel 2003 historical nested menus always include the trivial and useless abstract menus such as "tools". "tools" is trivial, because unless modifying/saving/printing the file - you are always looking for a way to modify the environment. So then you tranverse from this trivially abstract programming level to the next mystery box menu item (you select "tools->whatever_submenu_item). In a new GUI element, a popup dialog box treats you to a multi-tab environment where perhaps the item you are looking for resides. Assuming you found what you were looking for, you encountered:

Minimum of 1 trivial menu
1 transient GUI element (popup)

So assuming you were correct in knowing where your necessary element resides you still have the above programming inefficencies. If you are wrong in finding the function you encounter (at minimum) x times 3 elements:

1 trivial menu
1 nontrivial menu
1 transient GUI element

IMO here is why ribbons are superior:

Initial menu is proper abstraction. Old: I'm looking to create a custom function in Excel - start with "tools"? New: Formula ribbon.
Tools reside in existing GUI. I love that the tool like "Margins" already resides in my existing space - I don't have a new popup invading my window.
Mistakes cost less. If you are not exactly sure where your desired function resides, searching through ribbons (1 element) is far faster then nested menus (3 elements)- no comparison.
Better graphical feedback. Ribbon subelements have icons associated with them to help you understand what they do - submenus don't.
Fast object modification. You paste an object (picture/graph) into Word 2007 and now a highlighted formatting ribbon shows up with all the modifications that can be made to that object. You paste an object into Word 2003 and try and think of what submenu item/s could possibly relate to your object.

Ribbons are a flexible and succient way to organize program functionality. It makes newcomers into users and humble users into power users.

L

Loris

1-Visitor

I am disappointed but not surprised at the general response to Mathcad Prime. In full disclosure, the first thing I thought when I saw this product was Hallelujah! I didn't think that because I thought the product was complete/finished/perfect, I thought it because the change represents something I need from the product to become more efficient.

To be clear, I've nothing against the rubber menu in general, and I understand that if you compare it with the standard menu it is faster. On the other hand, I prefer working in another way.

I just place my worksheet in the center of the monitor and detach tools windows on the right. That way you have ALL tools available with just one click, and you can see ALL command at once, without having to start moving between tabs to find the command you need when it is placed somewhere different from what you can guess. I think on every monitor over 17" you can do it. Avoiding rubberbar gives you also more space on the worksheet because it consumes a lot of space in vertical. Of course I don't say you must do that, just plese PTC, let us decide which way we prefer. I think rubberbar would be better for new users, but power users would prefer the old fashion.

However, what made me upset is not the rubberbar, I can deal with it, but the fact that after years of (in my opinion) poor development on Mathcad (still in my opinion, while PTC states every year a new M version, I see them as much as minor revision / bugfix of M2001), now, after 10 years, there is the new M', but when you try it you discover that lacks so much stuff that is almost unuseful for huge part of users, and I have to wait for M'2.0 (or maybe 3) to have again all the features of M15.

Loris.

1-Visitor

and I have to wait for M'2.0 (or maybe 3) to have again all the features of M15.
Loris.

Or maybe 4!!!!

Mike

D

DonP

1-Visitor

Mathcad has been stepping backwards longer than this. The ability to open old worksheets has been, in my view, cavalierly neglected. It wouldn't take much doing and even if it is not going to happen as a patch, there should be at least a stand-alone translator that could be downloaded. I'm pretty sure that isn't beyond the wit of man.

Another thing is the no-longer functioning function packs. I expect an update free - not a huge demand for more cash.

My 2p

F

Fred_Kohlhepp

23-Emerald I

Donald Pearce wrote:
Mathcad has been stepping backwards longer than this. The ability to open old worksheets has been, in my view, cavalierly neglected. It wouldn't take much doing and even if it is not going to happen as a patch, there should be at least a stand-alone translator that could be downloaded. I'm pretty sure that isn't beyond the wit of man.
Another thing is the no-longer functioning function packs. I expect an update free - not a huge demand for more cash.
My 2p

I have been assured (by a PTC representative pushing Prime 2.0) that version 15 (as the official translator of mathcad) will open any version of mathcad (*.mcd) back to and including Macintosh Mathcad. There have always been examples of "the new mathcad won't execute the old sheet," the most glaring example being Mathcad 12.

My understanding of the function packs is that they are being dragged in their entirity into the basic version.

If you have examples of exceptions, please post!!

D

DonP

1-Visitor

It stopped advancing materially about version 7. From there on the process has been largely adding bloat. All the "project management" stuff is, as far as I am concerned, dead weight. I would never use this kind of software for project management - its use is strictly task-oriented.

24-Ruby IV

Sorry!

But Mathcad Prime is Mathcad Prime and no more.

24-Ruby IV

There was an old soviet (Iron curtain) times joke.
A soviet car is very good car if... you have not seen a german (west) car, BMW for example

There is a new joke.
Mathcad Prime is very good program if... you have not worked with regular Mathcad, Mathcad 11-15 for example