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Community Tip - Your Friends List is a way to easily have access to the community members that you interact with the most! X

Lines in 3D space . . .

rwells
4-Participant

Lines in 3D space . . .

0220150921.jpg

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions
rwells
4-Participant
(To:rwells)

I see Werner point about the redundant "overview" to a single post. In fact I am not certain myself about whether or not I am the one that propagated such an extensive discussion about PTC Mathcad politics and protocol. My own use if the site however (if anyone cares) has been a huge success. I am quite impoverished and only have Mathcad 2000 . . .and no internet. I must use the nearby library to seek membership and support from various mathematics discussion groups. In doing so I have learned to be a very careful user of words and sentences. None the less, the picture in my original post about lines in 3d space was accomplished by extensive back and forth verbatim within in the PTC community (about a year ago). Werner and Fred Kohlhepp were big and patient contributors. Now I know it is only a "postage sized" picture, but I have several others, like my first two intersecting planes and my first sphere, that I will not post of course. In each case, the advancement of mathematical understanding, for me at least, was profound.

View solution in original post

18 REPLIES 18
Werner_E
24-Ruby V
(To:rwells)

Is there any question you would like to ask?

And second - is there anything we should see on that stamp size mini photo? Its better to attach you worksheet.

rwells
4-Participant
(To:Werner_E)

No . . .I was not able to finish this post. Not sure how to delete the question as I have not used this site in quite some time

Werner_E
24-Ruby V
(To:rwells)

You can delete a post of yours as long as nobody has replied to by clicking on "Actions" at the lower left.

The new design hides that options and forces us to make one more unnecessary click as we were used to.

But this design is a PITA anyway - too much cluttered so we are forced to scroll down heavily on every page and no way to get a simple straight clear overview. We have no chance to see at a glance who answered a post (we just see who initially posted). We cannot collect new posts from various places we are interested in. The streams don't qualify as an overview as one post blows up to about ten lines there so its pretty useless.

After one week of use I see that I continuously begin to use this forum less and less - its simply too cumbersome.

rwells
4-Participant
(To:Werner_E)

Thanks . . .and I do remember you. You have been most helpful. I use Mathcad 2000 and often use this site for help.

athurin
4-Participant
(To:Werner_E)

How can you say that Werner ? This new and improved website is soooooo much better. Look at all these new shiny features ! it finally looks modern, like so many other great community forums ! You will see, when you get used to it, you will never want to go back to the old version !

Welcome to PTC Community Forums Prime, the new and improved !

Adrien Thurin wrote:

How can you say that Werner ? This new and improved website is soooooo much better. Look at all these new shiny features ! it finally looks modern, like so many other great community forums ! You will see, when you get used to it, you will never want to go back to the old version !

Welcome to PTC Community Forums Prime, the new and improved !

Useability seems not to be high on PTC's priority list, neither in Prime nor in this Forum.

It is sad that PTC manages to worsen a software not only when they develop it themselves (Prime) but they do the trick, too, when they just rent the software (Jive) - amazing and frightening.


I'll still look around here for a while but all I have seen so far is crying at me "Leave! We don't want you to be here" - its all just to uncomfortable and annyoing.

Hope the new forum will find its admireres nonetheless.


athurin
4-Participant
(To:Werner_E)

I completely understand you. You have the fortune of being experienced enough in Mathcad that you don't seem to need help, so if PTC doesn't want you to provide help to others (for which we are all grateful), why should you stay ? Ultimately, if the users don't help each other, they will either get a terrible reputation in terms of support, or will have to increase the number of employes dedicated to helping users. Not your problem, though.

Unfortunately, I don't have this luxury, I know there will be other times where I will need help, and hanging around to help out the very few times I can seems only fair... until, as you say, I get fed up of PTC trying to push us away...

In the meantime, I found merely bearable to add an RSS feed reader to my browser, to see new posts (since the "new and improved" one doesn't highlight them anymore, or at least, not on my browser). Everything else is just horrible. (By the way, if someone knows where the "private message" option has gone, I would be very interested)

PTC seems like a very interesting and obvious case of people designing stuff that they don't use themselves, and that have no idea how users use them. I have seen that in at least 2 companies I have worked for, but at least, it was restricted to situations of "internal" people specifying products for internal use (example : a manager specifying a custom-made software for R&D engineers). This seems to be very common, but at least customers never saw how useless the internal tools were. But PTC seem to apply this principle to stuff they sell. How can that look like a sound business model ?

I would be very curious to see where Mathcad is 10 years from now. I strongly hope that competitors (Maple, Mathematica) will copy whatever they can from the user interface, and advertise to users of Mathcad-as-standalone (meaning : people who don't use Mathcad for its integration with other PTC tools like Creo), and get all the market shares for this category of users. After so many years mis-treating us users, PTC doesn't deserve loyalty anymore.

Silly question, has any software company that you know of (any kind of software) offered discounts for people with licenses from competitors, in order to migrate ?

StuartBruff
23-Emerald II
(To:athurin)

I hope Werner is just venting - it wouldn't be the same place without him. However, with regard to your last part ...

Adrien Thurin wrote:

Silly question, has any software company that you know of (any kind of software) offered discounts for people with licenses from competitors, in order to migrate ?

Yes. I have a vague memory of Maplesoft (I think) offering discounts to people to upgrade to Maple. I'm don't think they're doing it now, but it may be negotiable.

And I notice that their fully working Personal Edition is only £180 ...

athurin
4-Participant
(To:StuartBruff)

StuartBruff wrote:

And I notice that their fully working Personal Edition is only £180 ...

Which is one of the many reasons I checking whether Maple would be a good fit for me in the future ...

StuartBruff
23-Emerald II
(To:Werner_E)

Werner Exinger wrote:

Adrien Thurin wrote:

How can you say that Werner ? This new and improved website is soooooo much better. Look at all these new shiny features ! it finally looks modern, like so many other great community forums ! You will see, when you get used to it, you will never want to go back to the old version !

Welcome to PTC Community Forums Prime, the new and improved !

Useability seems not to be high on PTC's priority list, neither in Prime nor in this Forum.

It is sad that PTC manages to worsen a software not only when they develop it themselves (Prime) but they do the trick, too, when they just rent the software (Jive) - amazing and frightening.


I'll still look around here for a while but all I have seen so far is crying at me "Leave! We don't want you to be here" - its all just to uncomfortable and annyoing.

Hope the new forum will find its admireres nonetheless.


Amusingly, my work's web filter must have taken pretty much the same view, as it declared the new site to be "situs interretialis non grata" and blocked it. I had to put in a request to get it unblocked.

Stuart.

My major gripe is that I still can't cut/copy & paste within the reply box!

My major gripe is that I still can't cut/copy & paste within the reply box!

Its browser specific. You can insert pictures now from the clipboard if you use Firefox.

PhilipOakley
5-Regular Member
(To:StuartBruff)

I'm in the same position - The new net filters block PT Community sites, despite how much we pay PTC for all our MCAD and Mathcad tools. The request to unblock is already in! Hopefully next week we'll get access again.

And yes the web experience is very poor, so all the old hands who actually know how to use mathcad, and what it can do, are stepping back, with one or two notable exceptions. [the web experience is very pretty, and modern, with it's invisible (hard to read) greys that all the sites love these days, but it isn't addressing the function that's required]

One of my colleagues on the PTC MCAD/Creo side notes that whenever PTC buys a company it's sucked in, mangled and chewed for 5 years before being spit back out as a new 'PTC' drone (that was for a company that auto converted production drawing to tech manual drawings). Mathcad's going through the same to become an aid to draughting/drawing. It's hard to see if the managers at PTC eve realise the hidden capabilities that are in Mathcad.

athurin
4-Participant
(To:PhilipOakley)

Philip Oakley wrote:

Mathcad's going through the same to become an aid to draughting/drawing. It's hard to see if the managers at PTC eve realise the hidden capabilities that are in Mathcad.

Funny you should say that. It seems that, without your inside knowledge, many people arrived to the conclusion that PTC doesn't care about people how use Mathcad as a standalone product. Which is pretty much what you are describing here.

In case anyone still had doubts...

"Drink the kool-aid"

rwells
4-Participant
(To:rwells)

I see Werner point about the redundant "overview" to a single post. In fact I am not certain myself about whether or not I am the one that propagated such an extensive discussion about PTC Mathcad politics and protocol. My own use if the site however (if anyone cares) has been a huge success. I am quite impoverished and only have Mathcad 2000 . . .and no internet. I must use the nearby library to seek membership and support from various mathematics discussion groups. In doing so I have learned to be a very careful user of words and sentences. None the less, the picture in my original post about lines in 3d space was accomplished by extensive back and forth verbatim within in the PTC community (about a year ago). Werner and Fred Kohlhepp were big and patient contributors. Now I know it is only a "postage sized" picture, but I have several others, like my first two intersecting planes and my first sphere, that I will not post of course. In each case, the advancement of mathematical understanding, for me at least, was profound.

PhilipOakley
5-Regular Member
(To:rwells)

Hi Roger,

Glad you have found the site to be beneficial. I think we all want it to be that way, and 'ease of use for all' is something that the older hands have complained about for the frequent use scenario.

There used to be 10 to 30 posts per day most days on the old collaboratory. It didn't pretend to have fancy graphics, but did have a number of features that allowed the regular contributors to review all the new posts since they last looked in quick succession and help and advise everyone.

The new site unfortunately has lost some of the power usage features, so I don't bother returning that often any more, except when there is something awkward I need support on (see current 3d graphics thread).

Always happy to help

Philip

rwells
4-Participant
(To:PhilipOakley)

I now have the income to afford a Mathcad program. Probably this summer. The one I have now is Mathcad 2000 that I bought at a college bookstore for about 200 dollars. It was just sitting up on the counter and I thought it might be cool. I have accomplished quite a lot on that same computer with that same program. And I have used all of the others (I live next to a university) like Wolfram and Mathematica. But I don't always have access to those facilities of course (sometimes I just ask and they let me in the math lab . . .It's that simple!) But yea . . .this summer I plan to purchase an inexpensive laptop and a Mathcad program. I have found the latter to be quite difficult. The "download" option is out of the question. I have moved heaven and earth to get the "free 90 day trials". The security is unbelievable. They act like I you are trying to get the nuclear launch codes. I just want to order the disk or walk into a bookstore and buy the stupid thing in the same way you buy a video at Wallmart. I could probably buy the thing at the university (Boise State if you care) book store but I think you need to be a student. My solution to that would be to pay another student or sign up for one class . . .like music appreciation 101) . . .ya know whatever it takes. Maybe "craigs list". It doesn't even need to be new or the latest version (which I believe they call "Prime") Any suggestions?

PhilipOakley
5-Regular Member
(To:rwells)

Hi,

Prime is still a dog, but the old style V15 that goes with it is OK. The download size is massive, so see if you can get someone else to download it to a memory stick.

Of the older versions, V11.2a was good. It was the last one that had the Maple compute engine embedded (before Maple pulled out of the licence and started competing).

Both run fine on XP.

V15 is locked to the ethernet port MAC address with a fairly high strength encryption / licence file (need an internet connection normally). I think you can make it give a 30 day trial if installing without internet

V11.2a was available with a CD key (IIRC), so is easier to get hold of (eBay etc), and doesn't need internet connection. Though PTC support for V11 is terminating at the end of March.

Also checkout the Mathcad books. Some have a CD with them. Can't remember the deal though (i.e. may only be 30 days, or 1 year or ?).

The 'new' (or not so new) PTC pricing can be quite high for maintenance if you want future upgrades.

Philip

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