Mathcad Prime is Useless

[vroberts]

I know we have discussed what needs to be added to Mathcad prime to make is usable in other threads, but I still can't get over how primitive the program is. How can the designers not care about basic features and functions. For example, I have been trying to wean myself off MC 15 and use Prime instead and ran into a brick wall with regards to plots. Even for simple X-Y plot I cannot set the scale on the two axis, cannot label the axis and cannot label the plot. If these features are there they are well hidden. I don't need anything fancy, just the same level of functionality that is in MC15.

Other simple things in MC15 that are missing from Prime include a SPELL CHECKER. Plus, in Units, nF is mysteriously not included even though it is in MC15. (This at least I can fix!)

Will any of these be in Prime 3.0? (License renewal time is coming .....)

Vic Roberts

[RichardJ]

Will any of these be in Prime 3.0?

Or 4.0, or 5.0, or ...?

[jsheehan]

Spell Checker will not make Prime 3.0

For axis titles use text boxes with greater formatting ability for now.

Prime runs parallel, multi threaded

Prime is true 64bit implementatoin

Prime supports mixed unit matrices

Prime has spec tables

Prime links with LinPack libraries

Prime uses Knitro libraries for solvers

Prime has easiet equation editor ever

Prime has better inline programming

Prime has next gen UI

Prime is a code base upon which new development is possible. Hang in there with us

Spell Checker will make 4.0

[ThomasBarr]

Yes Prime 2 is useless. Sad but true, almost impossible to make a graph and copy paste to a report. Can not change size of lables...the list is long. I purchased Prime 2, unable to use so back to MC 15. I don't think the MC guys have any intention to fix. Unless they find a new owner it will be gone soon. Try "Engineering with Excel" by Ronald Larsen.

Tom Barr

[jsheehan]

copying and pasting comes in 2 weeks in Prime 3.

Engineering with Excel .. really? No units, not natural math notation, no symbolics, no systems of equations, not really a calculus platform, no documentation .. is that really your solution?? What about electricity .. going to recommend users give that up too? Engineers have evolved, yes Prime is missing some bells & whistles, but really Excel? That is the worst advice I have heard since my perm.

Better to try Engineering with Mathcad by Ron Larsen

[Werner_E]

Prime supports mixed unit matrices

Point for Prime, buts its not fully flawlessly implemented yet.

Prime has easiet equation editor ever

Disagree! Needs much more keystrokes and mouse movements in Prime compared to what we had in Mathcad.

Prime has next gen UI

Which is much more awkward. Bad visability of highlighted expressions, urging the user to go to the menu ribbon all the time using mouse. Much more action necessary to get what you want - it a real nightmare to use. From an useabilty point of view its a clear flop.

Prime is a code base upon which new development is possible. Hang in there with us

I understand the reasons for giving the program a more up to date codebase, but this resulted in extremely slow loading and much deferred reaction on user input, sometimes with more complex documents even the attempt of simple scrolling would make the program unusable. And while I heard some rumours about this an that feature being implemented in Prime 3 (all or most of them not new - we already had them in good old Mathcad for quite a long time), I never heard that these performance and user interaction issues would be addressed.

So I can only agree - back to or stay with MC15! And let me say that I feel really sad being forced to give that advice!

[Werner_E]

Engineering with Excel .. really?

I agree that "back to Excel" is a not a good advice, nearly as bad as "stay with Prime" (see my post above for details).

[vroberts]

"Spell Checker will make 4.0"

When is 4.0 due out?

"For axis titles use text boxes with greater formatting ability for now."

You really think this is OK for a program that costs as much as MC? How about the ability to change the scale on the axis?

What is a "next gen UI" and why is it so hard to use? Prime requires many more keystrokes and mouse clicks to do the same tasks as MC15, when it can even do them.

Why is there no keyboard shortcut for subscripts as in MC15?

Why is nF not a built-in unit?

But what really scares me is the feeling that the development team really thinks Prime is better than MC15. If they do convince themselves that Prime is better than MC15, and are not just giving us some marketing hype, then these issues will never be fixed.

[jsheehan]

1.) Mathcad is under priced in mind my and you won't convince me otherwise.

2.) 4.0 is Septish 2014

3.) How many keystrokes in Mathcad 15 to add a row or column to a matrix?

How about taking a row from a matrix .. how about simply changing + to - in 2+2

PTC spent 3 calendar years in userability labs around the world. We have a tremendous

pile of data which disagrees with you .. not just me but thousands of users, many Mathcad 15 users.

There is keyboard shotcuts for literal subscripts "Cntrl-"

Issues in Prime will be fixed, but the development and I stand firm that Mathcad Prime 2.0 is the best release of Mathcad ever.

Vague statements like mixed units matrices are "not fully flawlessly implemented yet" doesn;t help us get better though. We need specifics, exmaples .. how about submitting to customer support? You can tell the world but you won't tell support?

[jkucan]

nF (nanofard) is a built in unit in Prime 2.0.

The keyboard shortcut for subscript is Ctrl+-. All keyboard shortcuts are indicated in the tooltips.

We have done a number of usability tests and Prime 2.0 gets good marks on the usability, especially for the equation editor. The ribbon seems to be something users either love or hate. It is, however becoming de facto standard for desktop apps. Nevertheless, we do recognize that for someone that has been using Mathcad 15.0 (and older) for years, it will take some getting used to the new UI.

We hear the comments on X-Y plots and this will be one of the major items addressed in Prime 4.0.

Prime 3.0 will be available in few weeks, and Prime 4.0 should be out roughly a year from now.

[vroberts]

Jakov

Thanks for the reply. I found nF but wonder why I could not find it yesterday and the day before. I had first tried to enter nF directly but that had not worked.

Thank you also for the CTRL+- for subscripts. But what is Tool Tips? I cannot find anything like that in my copy of Prime 2.0.

None of my complaints are about the ribbon. I couldn't care less one way or the other about the ribbon. I'm pissed about the fundamental things such as plots and the spell checker. How can these wait until 4.0? What are you smoking?

Then there is the problem with parentheses. If I create an equation, and then want to add parentheses to make sure the calculation is done in the right order I almost always have to start over because Prime insists on putting in the second parentheses as soon as I add the first one, and it puts the second in the wrong place and will not let me moove it. Forf example, if I have A = B + C /D and I want A + (B+C)/D as soon as I add the first paren I get A = (B) + C / D and there is not way to fix this. I have to delete the equation and start over. Is there some trick I have missed?

[Werner_E]

3.) How many keystrokes in Mathcad 15 to add a row or column to a matrix?

How about taking a row from a matrix ..

I agree there are some improvements, especially concerning matrices. But then, scrolling through a larger table/matrix is awkward with that slider and enlarging is a matter of fumbling around finding the right spot to click on.

Prime may have intendend to be the better Mathcad, but in my opinion its far away from that goal (yet, I hope).

I did a lecture for one year for a group of about 30 students with heavy use of technolgy and had chosen Mathcad. I offered and explained the use of both Mathcad 15 and Prime and after the first two hours of sniffing in both programs 5 or 6 students decided that MC15 would be the program the want to use for the rest of the year and all the others had the feeling the Prime2 is better and modern looking and thought it would be easier for them to find commands and functions with the ribbon menu.

At the end of year just 7 students still would use Prime and all the others found that Mathcad would do the job better for them. Thats my experience and from what I read here I'm not alone either.

Vague statements like mixed units matrices are "not fully flawlessly implemented yet" doesn;t help us get better though. We need specifics, exmaples .. how about submitting to customer support? You can tell the world but you won't tell support?

Concerning this, you may want to look at call 11524852 which was done approx. a month ago and resulted in SPR 2190245.

But its a tedious process though to do bug reports as first level support always wants to contact you by phone, then by mail and it always takes quite some time and effort to convince them to report the issue to R&D.

Calls obviously are meant primarily as a tool to help companies to get up and running as quick as possible if they got stuck, which is a good thing anyway. So I thinks there should be an extra bug report system, where usually contacting the customer/bugreporter is not necessary and it should be in the interest of PTC that this report system should be open to user not under maintainance, too.

You can tell the world but you won't tell support?

Wrong! As you see. But R&D would be well advised to scan the forum for bug reports and maybe setup an easy to use bug report system.

[jsheehan]

So Mathcad Prime matrices now have a new matrix navitor which gives you a free-range window into your data. Much better than sliders. This is a classic example of the new kidsn of development we can do with a new UI code base. This is just the beginning.

The Ribbons UI is here, love it or hate it .. its here, Microsoft said so. I like it .. everything one click away. I love Mathcad 15 but everythign was 2, 3 or 4 levels deep in UI. Its hard for me to go back to MC15.

I was wrong about your apathy toward bug reports. Please accept my humblest of apologies. I was wrong.

[Werner_E]

So Mathcad Prime matrices now have a new matrix navitor which gives you a free-range window into your data. Much better than sliders.

Sounds promising, so I'm looking foreward to see what they will look and feel like in P3. Any chance to get a color for highlighted expressions (which replaced the old underline cursor) which is better visible? On some notebooks I barely see it and editing becomes a trial and error game. Maybe the color could be customizeable.

The Ribbons UI is here, love it or hate it .. its here, Microsoft said so. I like it .. everything one click away.

I neither love nor hate ribbons - I don't care if a program uses classic menus or ribbons as long as I can make my job done as quick, easy and confortable as possible. And concerning that MC15 rules clearly over P2 in my opinion. I very seldom have to go into the menues of MC15. We have convenient keyboard shortuts, double click options (formatting results, plots etc.), right mouse click menus, which come very natural and intuitive and floating palettes we could place near the space we are working (while I often had wished to get the programming commands which I don't know the keyboard short of via right click menu).

In Prime we don't have most of the aforementioned and the keyboard shortcuts don't work with foreign keyboards (and I placed a call concerning that, too, and think it resulted in an SPR ;-). And having to use the menus is inconvenient, no matter if ribbons or classic.

I am sure it wasn't a decision of the development department to go public with a piece of software like Prime 1. And while P2 and as we heard P3 will have some improvements over MC15 (you had pointed out some and there sure are even more) - as long as Prime still is missing features we already had in MC15 for a long time and as long as we face those performance issues (maybe not that much on the most modern machines, but that should not be the benchmark) and bad UX, I fear that some Prime bashing will proceed and it won't be unjustly. But of course it will be somewhat unfair against the developers of Prime. I am sure they would have waited longer until they would have made their work public and I guess they would have needed quite some more ressources to do the job, too. I guess PTC management had underestimated the effort necessary to write a program like Mathcad nearly from scratch. But from the point of a user its not really understandable why a company would follow a program version with one with much less features and capability, even if there are some improvements, too.

BTW, what I had in mind in first place when I wrote about the support for mixed units in matrices not being fully flawlessly implemented was not the issue I opened a support call for (which simply is a bug) but I was thinking of the following. That we cannot chose the display units for matrices as we aould like. In the example below I would like to see the first element as mm and the second as lb. This seems only to be possible if I access the elements individually, as we don't have a way to edit the units inside the matrix. That issue is not applicable for a support call, as I don't consider it a bug, rather a it would be a case for a feature request, as its a natural feature which one would expect to exists but it doesn't. The only mechanism for feature request PTC offers and I know about would be the creation of an "idea" in one of the many subforums of this community. But to be honest, I have very little confidence that those ideas are scanned by PTC staff on a regular basis and may lead to implementation one day. I also notice that the community users don't seem to care much about the ideas and the possibilty to vote, maybe for similar reasons.

Here the example I was talking about

[RichardJ]

John T. Sheehan wrote:

3.) How many keystrokes in Mathcad 15 to add a row or column to a matrix?

How about taking a row from a matrix .. how about simply changing + to - in 2+2

PTC spent 3 calendar years in userability labs around the world. We have a tremendous

pile of data which disagrees with you .. not just me but thousands of users, many Mathcad 15 users.

Sorry, but I have to agree 100% with Werner here. Picking a few specific cases where Primes requires fewer keystrokes or mouseclicks proves nothing. The fact is, in MC15 almost everything is exposed directly on a toolbar (one click) or on a pop-up menu (two clicks). With the ribbon interface that is no longer true, and on average much more clicking is required. That is simply a fact, and is true regardless of what your pile of data might show.

[RichardJ]

John T. Sheehan wrote:

I love Mathcad 15 but everythign was 2, 3 or 4 levels deep in UI.

Huh? Everything on the toolbars was one level deep, and that's at least 80% of what is used regularly. With the ribbon I can't even add an operator without going two levels deep.

[RichardJ]

John T. Sheehan wrote:

how about submitting to customer support? You can tell the world but you won't tell support?

PTC does not permit customers to submit bug reports unless they pay for the privilege.

[RichardJ]

John T. Sheehan wrote:

the development and I stand firm that Mathcad Prime 2.0 is the best release of Mathcad ever.

Perhaps, but what development and you think is far less important (at least, it should be) than what your customers think, and based on the posts on these forums many of your customers soundly disagree.

[ValeryOchkov]

Jakov Kucan wrote:

nF (nanofard) is a built in unit in Prime 2.0.

I was yesterday in Westminster Abbey (London) - see my picture below.

I thought at this tableе about... Mathcad has kW... but not kJ

[Werner_E]

We have done a number of usability tests and Prime 2.0 gets good marks on the usability,

Maybe, but as you can see by scanning this forum a lot of your long term users anmd paying customers disagree heavily.

The ribbon seems to be something users either love or hate.

As I already stated in another post, its not a matter of love or hate ribbons. I don't care about menu layout as long as I can my work being done quickly and efficient - and thats not the case in Prime2 (while it is in the current M$ Office with its ribbons).

Nevertheless, we do recognize that for someone that has been using Mathcad 15.0 (and older) for years, it will take some getting used to the new UI.

No, please don't downplay and make the problem looking harmless - its definitely not a matter of just being accustomed to old structures and not being able or willing to learn and get used to something new. Apart from the fact that features which are built in old MC are missing in Prime2 its a matter of severe useability issue, no matter what your pile of data from some useability labs may tell you. I already described my experience with a group of 30 users, none of them had used any version of Mathcad or Prime before.

It is very sad to see that PTC developers don't see the problem as it is but rather would dispose it as the rant of some few users who are not willing to move with the time and barring themselves against anything new.

If a problem is not seen as such we should not expect any substantial improvements, I guess.

We hear the comments on X-Y plots and this will be one of the major items addressed in Prime 4.0.

Ahem, you didn't realized that yourself from the very beginning of the development of Prime? Aren't there any engineers as consultants involved in product development? Sorry if that sounds harsh, but the flaws in both 2D and (especially) 3D plots are so obvious for me that I can't imagine people at development department could have ever seen them as finished and OK.

[Werner_E]

Thanks for the reply. I found nF but wonder why I could not find it yesterday and the day before. I had first tried to enter nF directly but that had not worked.

I don't have any problems with the use of nF. May an issue with Prime's auto labelling which can be quite tricky and confusing.

Thank you also for the CTRL+- for subscripts. But what is Tool Tips? I cannot find anything like that in my copy of Prime 2.0.

ribbon "Math", subarea "Labels" -> "Subscript". Its activated only if the cursor is inside a Math region.

Fortunately this is a keyboard shortcut which works with my German keyboard, too. Most of the others (especially programming commands) don't.

I'm ****** about the fundamental things such as plots and the spell checker. How can these wait until 4.0? What are you smoking?

Needs obviously are different. I won't miss the spell checker myself that much. BTW, no need to lower the level of writing to that of Prime.

Then there is the problem with parentheses. I

...

if I have A = B + C /D and I want A + (B+C)/D as soon as I add the first paren I get A = (B) + C / D and there is not way to fix this. I have to delete the equation and start over. Is there some trick I have missed?

While I agree that the new equation editor is mor cumbersome than the old I don't think you missed something. The paranthesis are made around the highlighted expression, but you can't highlight the subexpression "B+C", that is the first summand and the nominator of the second summand alone. I must confess that I wouldn't had expect being able to do so. So deleting at least one variable and one operator and retype them after putting the parenthesis right would be necessary. I am not sure, though, if implementing the ability to highlight that kind of incomplete subexpressions wouldn't complicate "normal" editing even more than its the case now.

[ValeryOchkov]

It would be good to have two companies - one produces Mathcad and the other Prime. And let them compete.

[ValeryOchkov]

THOMAS BARR wrote:

Try "Engineering with Excel" by Ronald Larsen.

It is/was a book "Engineering with BASIC"

It is/was a book "Engineering with a slide rule" - http://communities.ptc.com/message/198472

[jsheehan]

Can not disagree more. Prime's UI is faster weith less clicks.

The examples I picked BTW are daily occurences, therefore their

impact is felt.

Fortunenately for us many Mathcad customers disagree with you and have migrated to Prime 2.0 . We expect many more will migrate to Prime 3.0

Its is important for customers to know that Mathcad development , as far as new features is concerned, is all in Prime. Mathcad 15 is in maintennce mode.

[jsheehan]

I don;t want to dump on 15, cuz I love it

but example : change a graph line style from solid to dash

mathcad 15 .. on the graph double click

on the popup property menu select special tab

on the line style drop down choose dashed

Prime On the plot tab select line style drop down

.. I can recite these all day .....

[Werner_E]

Can not disagree more. Prime's UI is faster weith less clicks.

Same her, but the other way round. Prime itself is awfully slow and the UI is so , too and needs much click and keyboard action.

Concerning yor example of changing 2+2 in 2-2 - same number of keystrokes in MC as well as in P2:

2+2[left arrow][backspace]-[right arrow]

Working with a combination of mouse and keyboard (which is not very convenient when you type expressions) it need one keystroke less in P2 as you are allowed to overwrite a highlighted operator without deleting it first.

Unfortunately P2 (in contrary to MC) does not allow to overwrite a highlighted expression - you would have to delete it first. I am not sure, but i think I read that this will be changed in P3?

A company is free to ignore its customers as are their customers free not to be happy about such treatment, to say the least.

It looks like Prime is aimed at a new audience with much less needs.