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Community Tip - Help us improve the PTC Community by taking this short Community Survey! X

WF5 GUI.......Like? Love? Hate? Indifferent?

CM10
1-Newbie

WF5 GUI.......Like? Love? Hate? Indifferent?

I didn't see that there was a way to start a poll here, so here's an informal one. Here's scoring:

5 = Love

4 = Like

3 = Indifferent

2 = Dislike

1 = Hate

 

Please feel free to be specific if you want to describe things, good or bad

 

I'll wait to post my feelings.........

 

Post up!

127 REPLIES 127
Patriot_1776
22-Sapphire II
(To:CM10)

Ok, here goes KevinB:

The only one I've included that is newish, is the "coiled_spiral". These parts were ALL made from a single tragecctory, except for the very ends of "andys_coil. Perhaps you can tell me how I got the trajectory (itself) of the "coiled_spiral" to double back on itself 4 times without failing?

Have fun!

Remember: Age and treachery (aka: Knowledge) will always trump youth and exuberace.

Well, cratchedy Frank of 47 birthdays with 15 years of Pro/E, 10 years of AutoCAD, and some Wavefront, you've taken this completely off topic. This discussion has never been about my skill being greater than yours.

However, I would enjoy looking at these files. I'll give an honest try at explaining them or recreating them--I'm sure I'll learn something in the process--and then if I fail I hope that your ego has been massaged to the point that you feel better. This is where I'll insert a smiley face so that I can display my good humor .

Remember: Perspective defines reality. Despite age one can change their perspective.

Hey, that's crOtchety. Just bustin' yer ballz kiddo. But, as a point, don't quickly dismiss us "Olde Guys" so quickly. I always looked to my elders to learn. One guy I particularly admired (sadly no longer with us) was in his late 60's when I knew him in my early 30's. He was one of the sharpest Engineers I've ever worked with, and was always eager to learn new things (Ansys) at his age, yet had a wealth of skills, knowledge, and experience no younger Engineer could match. It's easy to dismiss "resistant to stupid changes" as "resistant to ALL change. After many years on the system, if I truly felt it was a step up, I'd say so. Sadly, not.

I'm challenging you to prove that the new way is better, and that these new ghastly interfaces "teach" you more.

Hey, I'll be the first to say new motorcycles, cars, and audio/video products are better, because they truly ARE better, not just new thus better.

Enjoy 'em with a caveat: Some of these techniques I will not divulge here, but via e-mail with the proviso that they stay with you. Some, well, I'm gonna keep as "trade secrets" as I one day plan to do more teahing and consulting.

Reality defines reality. Perspective is for Architectural dwgs!

Patriot_1776
22-Sapphire II
(To:CM10)

Fetid dingo's kidneys? After struggling with it more, I'd be more apt to say "rotting elephant's bollocks".

The ribbon tabs are KILLING me. I keep clicking on things and then having to remember, "Oh Gee, I wonder what tab THAT command is under?". Plus, the wasted real estate up at the top of the screen is absurd. Most of these tabs use less than HALF the space allocated for the ribbon, PLUS you still have the menu on the top. what a waste of space. And minimizing the ribbon simply means that the 3 or 4 line status bar is now covered up when the ribbon comes to the front.

And, one nice thing you USED to be able to do when editing a large set of dwg notes, was the ability to just click in the field of the dwg to have the notes on the dwg sheet update to what the editor had to check for clearance with views. This is now gone. You click in the field of the dwg, and it wipes out ALL your changes. So now, you have to keep hitting "Ok" and getting out of the editor, and back in. Before you could do it on the fly. Totally maddening.

I guarantee, if PTC hired any of us experienced users to redefine the GUI (Grotesque User Interface), almost EVERYONE would like it. New AND old users.

GrahameWard
5-Regular Member
(To:Patriot_1776)

Those tabs make we want to throw things. And for this reason in particular:

For example, right mouse button on a view brings up certain options, but those options are not always available if you are on the "wrong" tab. This would be ok if RMB brought different tab context options for different tabs, but it doesn't. See the attached PDFs. I can right click on a view and create a projected view off of it without going to the ribbon, but only if I am in the Layout tab. But .... it's not like there are other possible RMB functions that you might want while selecting a view with, say, the Sketch Tab selected. If I am in Sketch Tab, then I am not going to accidentally sketch a line by RMB on the view.

Similar things occur with other mouse selection functions. I can select and move a dimension, but only with the Annotate Tab on. If selecting that dimension produced a different and undesirable result with a different tab on then I could see why it should only be selectable in the Annotate Tab. But it doesn't!

Does what I'm saying make sense to anyone else? There are other situations where this is even more egregious, but I can't recall them off the top of my head. Next time I encounter one, I will post it here.

What infuriates me about this kind of stuff is the lack of logic inherent in it. I expect ProE to be an instrument. It should make sense. It's like if I had an old fashioned circle guide for the drawing board that had circles .25", .5", .75" etc, but the .625" circle guide was stuck between the 4 and 5 inch circles.

Hi Grahame...

Yes, yes... I feel your frustration! What PTC was trying to do was to give you "tab context" operations on your right mouse button. That's why when you're on the Annotate tab, you have things like "Custom Symbol" on your RMB. That would be the appropriate tab to be able to drop a new symbol, right?

I agree they missed the goal... wide and to the left ($&#%$^&**!@ Billy Cundiff !! ). Sorry, Ravens reference.

Anyway as I was saying... they missed the goal a little but that's what they were going for. However, there is a bit of hope for you. Read the response I sent to Frank below. AND remember the ALT trick!! You can move a view, dimensions, notes, or symbols from ANY TAB if you hold the ALT key. Hold ALT and you'll be able to pick a dimension and move it no matter what tab is active.

Also... notice when you hit ALT, letters will pop up underneath all the tabs. These are hotkeys. Try using some of them to regain lost speed. I know its a tough slog to get through the first week or so... but really if you push through it you should be able to recover.

Take care..

-Brian

ALT key is pretty good in drawing mode. Let's you select a xsec hatching without having to go to Layout tab.

Thanks Brian.

GrahameWard
5-Regular Member
(To:James62)

Jakub Fojtik wrote:

ALT key is pretty good in drawing mode. Let's you select a xsec hatching without having to go to Layout tab.

Thanks Brian.

This a good example of what I was trying to articulate before. I have a drawing open now. While in Annotate Tab + Alt I can pre-select either the x-hatching or the view. If I let go of the Alt key I can preselect the view only. It's not like I can pre-select something different to the hatching that pertains to the Annotate Tab. So the question this leads to for me is, why have the bloody Alt key in the first place? Why can't I just pick the damn x-hatching whatever tab I'm in? And yes Brian, I know they are trying to give me "Tab context" operations, but the problem is, I don't care about "Tab Context" operations. It might seem conceptually neater, but it has no real world use as far as I'm concerned. It's like my company sending a memo around that everyone must keep their coffee cups 6 inches to the right of their mouse pads. Does it help get the job done?

lol... I guess I'm going to have to cry "Uncle".

I don't think Dan M. would blame me for abandoning my post while you and Frank are storming the ramparts with salient points. I can only defend the thing and put a positive spin on it for so long.

Like I said, I don't really like the thing at all. I'm just trying to give you some small glimmer of hope that you can work around it. I don't know why things have been made so difficult. I don't know what was wrong with being able to select everything all the time. I don't even know why we can't add functions (or remove them) from the RMB. Other modern software products give you some of these capabilities. They also embrace user customization to a level unheard of in PTC products.

In ALIAS software (I think it's ALIAS /Wavefront), users came up with their own interface that became so popular, it overtook the default layout. Users did that. They reinvented the interface to make it easier for them to use. If PTC allowed us to do that, we could move things where we wanted... and they'd effectively blunt all criticisms.

Think about it... if everyone could have it their way (like Burger King ) this entire thread would be dead and we'd be talking about all the cool things the software can do... instead of drawing attention to the things it struggles with. If PTC managed to give us the equivalent of "skins" to change the interface as we saw fit, the planet could be at peace. Well, at least Planet PTC could be at peace!

Just a thought... as I said ... I'm running for the hills! Abandon ship! lol

Take care...

-Brian

GrahameWard
5-Regular Member
(To:BrianMartin)

Thanks Brian, I hope I didn't wear you down I'm just blowing off steam for the most part - I appreciate your efforts. I have already done some of the things you suggested re menus, but I will try the rest out in the next few days.

Trust me, I know how you feel. In a few days frustration will give way to a grudging sort of acceptance. I wish I were attending the Technical Committee meetings this week. I'd love to hear other TC members' opinions and measure it against my own experiences and those of my co-workers.

If you hit any snags, be sure to let us know!

GrahameWard
5-Regular Member
(To:BrianMartin)

A few days? We've been using Creo since last August

I will admit though to not using drawing mode very often. We don't do detail drawings, just 6-view assemblies with a BOM and overall dimensions.

Everytime when i try to select cross-hatching and forget to hit the ALT key before I think of it as a "damn x-hatching" too.

I am actually new to Creo.

Selecting table cells when not being in table tab also bugs me.

The rest of selection is ok in Creo. I can select dims, symbols and sketched lines without much trouble - Pro/E wise.

What really bugs me is that things keep being selected and most of the time its hard to find empty spot in the drawing just to click away to deselect them.

I tried WF5 like half year ago and it was so much pain compared to Creo.

Anyway lots of things said in this thread are pretty valid. Creo doesn't seem to be an engineering software. All these ribbon tabs and restrictions to use certain commands in certain modes are pain in the butt of the whole software.

I come from software where any command can be accessed at any time (while drawing, surfacing, modeling, etc.).

And actually I am pretty happy I can rely on that other software now cause if I would only have to rely on Creo I would totally end up on the street really soon lol

I am still too new to Creo with my 3 weeks of working experience. So I will reserve any comment related to this design technology for later.

GrahameWard
5-Regular Member
(To:BrianMartin)

I know about the Alt key, but I keep thinking "why don't I just jam a friggin' popsicle stick over it to hold it down?" I mean, if it can be permanently depressed and I lose no functionality, why require its use at all?

I tried the Alt key/letters thing, thanks, never saw that before. It takes several seconds for it to come up though, by which time I could have picked another tab with the mouse.

I have been saying for years that PTC has needed to update its drawing mode. The old way was definitely hopelessly out of date, so I'm not against change by any means. This so far ain't change I can believe in though.

Hi Grahame...

Yeah the Alt/Letters thing does take a moment to pop up which is a shame. It also gets hung as I mentioned before if you exit before completing the keystrokes.

Your best bet is going to be reconfiguring your screen menus with the icons you need to do your job. A very well constructed config.pro could really help you. I'd also make some custom mapkeys, assign them to icons, and add a new flyout with all of your custom functions.

If you have a mouse with extra buttons, I'd highly recommend pressing those into service, too. If you get slick with your mapkeys, you can work very fluidly in the new system.

I am a bit uncomfortable having to defend an interface I personally don't like... but overall the goal is to be productive. We can't undo the ribbon, so the best we have is some clever tricks to minimize the impact of the changes.

If you come across other limitations, post them... maybe we (collectively) have some ways to work around them?

Thanks... and good luck!

-Brian

Take a deep breath Frank. Breathe through the pain before you have an aneurism.

With the notes, I know what you're talking about. You could tweak a note and see the results without exiting the editor. I just tried this again on Wildfire 5 M090 and Wildfire 5 M120 and it still works for me in both places. I have to be on the Annotate tab, but it does still work for me.

As for the ribbon... you will get used to it although you still may never love it. The ribbon isn't my favorite... however I do love the Drawing Tree. Get familiar with it, you'll be needing it soon I'm sure.

The best way through the ribbon is to use the following tips:

  • First learn where everything has been moved. Use the tabs for a few days until you're really familiar with the commands you need most often.
  • Start using some of the hotkeys like Alt+S to switch to the Annotate tab and Alt+L to pop back to Layout. Sometimes these get "hung" if you exit in the middle of the key sequence so that's a hassle... but mostly it works
  • Once you've got a feel for your commonly used commands, move your Drawing Toolbar to the right-hand side. Start adding all of your commonly used commands there. This gets them out of the clutter of the top area of the screen.
  • Right-click in the ribbon area and select Minimize the Ribbon. This will hide it and keep it hidden until you explicitly select a tab (at which point it will temporarily pop up again). This gets you some of your viewable modeling area back.
  • Right-click in the top menu area and select Commands. On the Toolbars tab, set the very top drop down for Menu Bar to be LEFT. This will help save some of your sanity.
  • Feel free to heavily edit the commands available from the top bar to minimize your need for the ribbon.
  • If all else fails, add a couple of new mapkeys or, if you're lucky, button mappings for a SpaceBall or other device. Some people have a mouse with 5 buttons and some of those buttons can be tapped for doing special functions in Pro/E... like switching to Annotate and editing text, etc.

I realize you probably feel you shouldn't HAVE to go through such a headache to get back to productive work speeds. I can tell you from experience, you CAN speed yourself back up and work around the ribbon most of the time. With a combination of carefully selected icons, mouse button mappings, mapkeys, and "ALT" shortcuts, you can get there.

I'll help any way I can. If you have questions, just ask. I may not know the answer but I'll give you whatever information I have. Hehe... you haven't even hit the Rounded Dimension Value thing, yet... but you will I'm sure!

Thanks!

-Brian

Patriot_1776
22-Sapphire II
(To:CM10)

Now that I finished the dwgs of the models that another did in Creo, I've switched back to WF4 to get my work done. Things that should have taken maybe a day or 2 at most, took a week. This is not what I call progress or an "enhancement".

Thanks Brian for you advice, and I tried the "ALT trick, but it only works on maybe 1/2 the functions. This ribbon is completely maddening, frustrating, and is costing me time. I think the "dingoes kidneys" or "elephant bollocks" references are pretty apt. Oh, and where the he77 is the "break dimension extension line" command? Oh, wait, there it is, "intuitively" (sarcasm intended) buried NOT in the annotation tab, but in the sketch tab......... Nice.

I'm going to do as much as I can in WF4 from now on, completely eschewing Creo, and hopefully, things will get better in the next release. As I've mentioned, if I was an independent company, and it was my money, I'd stick with WF4 and Intralink and actually increase productivity.

Arghh!!!!!!!!

"BREAK" tool is circled in red.

break_dims.PNG

What did you find in the Sketch tab that would break extension lines?

Ok, I see it now. Thanks. Makes it a little easier, but icons still suck. I'm still going to stay on WF4 since in my professional opinion it's much better.

Patriot_1776
22-Sapphire II
(To:CM10)

Icons are pretty much completely meaningless to me. Words can only be interpreted one way, and with as much real estate as the stupid ribbon wastes, there's room for a dictionary full of buttons with real words.

Nobod

I know you want the ribbon gone, but if you have to use it then would you like it more if there were no icons?

no_icons.PNG

That would be better, but the tabs are still a complete disaster. As I said, I'm going to stick with WF4 until they fix this or I'm FORCED to switch.

One thing nobody mentioned, is that I'm sure a huge driver for icons as opposed to words is that they don't have to write the code for every language, making threm more $$.

There are a few options for custimizing of the ribbon. Click the link.

http://communities.ptc.com/docs/DOC-2480

Alright enough of this nonsense... this topic has been beaten to death.

It's hard to find good screen shots of the old Pro/E... but I found a couple. The slides below pretty much lay out the argument in black and white... if you think the new menus are better, then so be it. Let's just agree to disagree. I believe Frank's point that the easiest "glyphs" to understand are words themselves carries weight. This is merely my humble opinion.

Even utilizing the buttom customizations as Kevin suggested, the screen real estate consumed by the new menus is unacceptable in my view. Even with the icons removed, there are very large gaps around the command labels... this is wasted space.

What would help? If I could put the ribbon VERTICALLY along the left hand edge of the screen, remove the icons, and eliminate the large gaps then that would help some. But if I were to be able to do this... what would my screen look like???

Answer? MY SCREEN WOULD LOOK LIKE A &*#$%^%!@# CASCADING MENU!

Slide2.PNG

: Deeeeep Breath : Ahhhh.... now I feel better.

Regards,

-Brian

KevinBradberry
5-Regular Member
(To:BrianMartin)

I realized that when I entered this thread I did not answer the question.

WF5 GUI.......Like? Love? Hate? Indifferent?

I like it.

I like the option of having an icon for each command. For me, images are recognized quicker than text. I wish none of the icons required the old style Pro/E menus, but some still do. I wish is were possible to provide all sub-options for a command in flyout menus. I dislike having to locate and click multiple levels of Done/Return or the middle mouse button to exit out of a command.

With the ribbon, any command is two clicks away: one to select the tab, another to pick the command. After that, they have varying options that must be selected (this can't be avoided in any version). If any of it seems too cumbersome then I make a mapkey. I would be awesome if Pro/e provided command aliases like AutoCAD does.

If my drawing is very busy and I need more space then I minimize the ribbon, but having it minimized creates the need for an extra click so I rarely do it.

Thanks,

Kevin

Hi Kevin...

I find the words easier than the icons. PTC famously changes the icons for commands (Windchill 6, 7, and 8 anyone?) and functions. The words never change. Clicking two times rather than three doesn't really matter to me. I've heard that metric before and it's irrelevant to my work speed. Regeneration times mean more to me than a click. For example, Wildfire 2 represented a huge drop in regeneration speed over Pro/E 2001... saving a fraction of a second on a mouse click meant nothing compared to 20-30 minutes lost each day due to software bloat within WF2.

Somewhere out there (maybe Olaf Corten's site) there are metrics for regeneration and performance for each release of the software. You'll see that, as of WF4, we still haven't come back to the speed and performance of Pro/E 2001. This begs the question, what is more important... menus or performance?

For my money... PERFORMANCE wins 100 times out of 100. As for mapkeys... I felt it was easier to create mapkeys without the icons and screen menus. A mapkey used to be something you could read and understand. Now they're frequently a dozen or more lines long and so convoluted you can barely decipher them.

This is a system that needs an overhaul and, instead, is getting a patchwork of bandages added to it. This jalopy needs to be completely stripped and optimized for speed and performance. Again, just my opinion.

Thanks!

-Brian

Allright, it's probably about time to chime in on this thread...

It is almost a year to the day when I provided some resonses to another thread about the drawing ribbon in Creo Elements/Pro 5.0 (Wildfire 5.0).

See that thread here:

http://communities.ptc.com/message/159016#159016

So, I wanted to say a few things on this thread:

1) I am well aware of the complaints and have been listening to them since the summer of 2009 when we released Wildfire 5.0

2) We have addressed most of these complaints (specifically regarding the ribbon) in Creo 1.0, which was released last summer

I don't want to be insensitive to the struggles that people are having with Creo Elements/Pro 5.0. I appreciate that they are real and if you consider the changes we made in Creo 1.0 I guess you could say that we are essentially admitting that our initial attempt at a ribbon UI wasn't perfect and there were a number of issues that needed to be fixed.

However, as a product manager, my perspective is that I don't feel like continued discussions about the problems in Creo Elements/Pro 5.0 is adding any value to me at this point. I say that based soley on the notion that I feel like we have already addressed those concerns in Creo 1.0. Feel free to vent, but I would personally find it more useful if you vented about the things you don't like about the current release (Creo 1.0).

So, I'm really curious to hear from people who have used Creo Elements/Pro 5.0 (Wildfire 5.0) AND who have also used Creo 1.0. I'd like to know a few things from these people:

1) How do you like the drawing mode in Creo 1.0 in general?

2) Do you feel that we addressed your complaints regarding Creo Elements/Pro 5.0?

3) What specific things did we miss in Creo 1.0 regarding the ribbon UI? (What things would you have liked us to change but we didn't change?)

4) What things in drawing mode (not just the ribbon, but anything) in Creo 1.0 do you think we should still work on?

Thanks for your feedback,

Raphael Nascimento

PTC Product Manager

Hi Raphael...

Thanks for chiming in on the topic. I try to remain as positive and peaceful as possible on Planet PTC so I hope you will take the two statements below in the constructive, "tough-love" spirit in which I am writing them.

Raphael, the biggest problems PTC has are both mentioned in your reply... and neither of them have a blessed thing to do with the ribbon:

  1. PTC often appears insensitive to the struggles of it's customers.
  2. PTC never admits they've flubbed anything. Therefore, your statement that PTC is "essentially admitting" that the first cut of the ribbon wasn't "perfect" because changes were made in Creo 1.0 rings hollow. If PTC came to its customers in a spirit of working collaboratively to make the product superior, legions of us would rush to the table to lend our voices and expertise.

To address your questions:

The latest version of Creo 1.0 has a better ribbon interface than the one in Creo Elements Pro/5. Some of the criticisms of the WF5 interface were, indeed, addressed (as I've said this multiple times in this thread.) The quick access toolbar is a big help. The changes to context sensitivity are welcome. However, in general, I still do not like the drawing mode in Creo 1.0 as much as I did in Wildfire 2, 3, and 4.

In my opinion, the users need a simple, easy way to customize the interface, RMB, and other menus to put the commands where we want them. We should be able to dock the ribbon in different locations and/or undock it as with menus in MS Office. Most of the commands should be provided with a hotkey "alt sequence" which can be recorded in a mapkey if desired.

Above all SPEED is the biggest problem in Creo 1.0. Some of the menus don't "pop" very quickly. The interface looks very modern but doesn't always respond quickly. The menus should pop instantaneously. For example, the color chooser window always seems to lag. I need to sit down and do a comprehensive review. For now most of my work is in Creo Elements Pro/5 but I'll be glad to provide any other feedback I can to help improve the product.

Thank you...

-Brian

Awesome reply as usual Brian....and, also as usual, far more polite than mine. but then, I've never been accused of that.

As another long-time advanced customer, I also feel to the 2 numbered points Brian mentions. I've spend hours of my personal time showing a guy the issues with windchill......only to be left in a vacuum.

If PTC knew the ribbon was a total pain, why didn't they catch that in Beta-testing? Or are WE the Beta-testers (a la Microsoft)? PTC could have had any of us come in and look at it, and tell them before release it was garbage.

I, for one, WANT my cascading menus back. I TOTALLY agree they are faster and easier to understand. I've been a loyal user and defender of Pro/E for many years over the alternatives, and these GUI's make it near impossible.

As for "why isn't everyone on the latest and greatest" comment. I don't make those decisions, CORPORATE execs and IT guys do, and that's common in ALL companies in the real world.

P.S. How do I get the "no icons" view? I set: "iconify_entire_pro" to "no", and the ribbon still has some icons, and some icons and words. weird.

Thanks!

 

 

The iconify_entire_pro should only control whether all of the Pro/E windows collapse when you minimize one window... not whether or not icons will appear on the ribbon.

 

With iconify set to yes, if you have 6 parts open and you minimize ONE of them, ALL of them will minimize into one item in your Windows menu. If set to no, only the one window would minimize and the other 5 would stay open.

 

To remove the icons from the ribbon, use the technique KevinBradberry suggested. Right-click in the ribbon and select Commands. With the command window OPEN, right-click on any icon/command in the ribbon and change to Small no icon. You have to do this for each command but once it's done, it'll stick that way.

 

Regards,

-Brian

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