Mathcad Prime 2 - so much work for nothing

[spaco]

Hello,

I paid my subscription and I installed Prime 2 and I cannot believe what I saw: a horrible GUI.

I mention that when I talk about GUI, I talk about all interface, except the document area.

I am presenting below some of the bugs (when I pay, all issues are bugs):

- there are several types of fonts in GUI. There should be only one. The Windows default one (On Win 7 is Tahoma. Set all GUI fonts to MS Shell Dlg 2.)

- ClearType cannot be turned off;

- switching between documents with Ctrl+Tab is bringing a new window on top !?!;

- no way to insert WMF, EMF;

- when right clicking on the page, the tab title font is turning from bold to regular;

- now way to change GUI color (is always blue. No gray, no black theme);

- all icons are blurry;

- cannot add/remove buttons to Quick Access toolbar;

- no x button for closing the tabs

- button selection is blue on ribbon and yellow on right click menu;

- and more, many more ...

And all of these after 2 years of development.

Any IT student can solve a GUI like the Mathcad one, in this way:

- find on Google a 2010 Office looking GUI, with high quality icons for 50$ or less;

- 2 weeks of work to insert icons and to make connections to the commands.

So much work for nothing. Prime 2 is virtually unusable.

PTC, you forget that most of the user work is data input and you cannot compensate a worst GUI ever seen with an x64 version or some new math libraries.

In few words, Prime 2 is a diamond wrapped in a newspaper.

[seetheforest]

I haven't used Mathcad Prime 2.0 yet so I cannot comment on your observations, but I would like to suggest that you work on the delivery of your ideas. Your tone and manner of presentation are extremely harsh and negative, and I was put off when reading them.

I'm not sure why you feel entitled to changing the GUI color or how that is even beneficial to anyone's workflow.

With that said, I love a nice GUI as much as anyone so I hope I enjoy Prime 2.0 and future iterations.

[spaco]

It's my prerogative: I paid, I can speak.

I can understand this kind of GUI for Prime 1, but not for Prime 2 after 2 years of development.

I am afraid that PTC will not solve anything on the GUI because the bugs I reported were not solved not even now in v15.

[seetheforest]

You can speak whether you've paid or not. The weight of your argument depends on the quality of your ideas and manner of presentation. I was merely offering that your manner of presentation is not condusive to bringing your thoughts to fruition.

You have very particular requests and opinions when it comes to user interface in terms of programs, but you are completely ignoring the user interface between your thoughts and your recipients: which are your words and tone.

Not everything you suggested is absolute, nor is it universally agreed upon. I could make the argument that the entire ribbon concept is a step back and I would feel content with my logic, but that does not make it pure dogma to which I can attack everyone else on.

"How to Win Friends and Influence People" is a great book on the idea of making your voice heard in a respectable manner. I highly recommend it for you. At least I hope you can spend as much time perfecting the presentation of your thoughts as you do perfecting Mathcad's presentation.

[RichardJ]

I could make the argument that the entire ribbon concept is a step back

I have done. Several times.

[RichardJ]

- find on Google a 2010 Office looking GUI, with high quality icons for 50$ or less;

Show me.

[spaco]

Please take one free.

http://fluent.codeplex.com/

[RichardJ]

I don't see all the necessary math icons

[DanMarotta]

It's a rather neat trick since Mathcad Prime 2.0 doesn't become available until tomorrow 2/29. May I ask where you purchased your version?

[spaco]

You are misinformed.

If you have a subscription you can download it from:

https://www.ptc.com/appserver/common/login/ssl/login.jsp?dest=%252Fappserver%252Fauth%252Fit%252Fesd%252Fproduct.jsp%253FprodFamily%253DMCD&msg=1

[VladimirN]

Dan,

For users who have subscribed/paid for Mathcad version 2.0 was available 26 February.

[ChrisHartmann]

Hi Virgil,

I am sorry that you are disappointed in the GUI. You clearly have high and specific expectations.

I work for PTC's Academic Program and I have been using Prime 2.0 on a daily basis for several months. In this time I have been working with professors who are long-term users and teachers who have never before used Mathcad. I cannot recall anyone having a negative reaction to the GUI. Long-time users see a lot of improvement over Mathcad 15.0, new users find it intuitive.

Since August I have been conducting workshops for high school students as part of PTC's FIRST Robotics program. In these workshops we use Mathcad Prime 1.0 this year. (We provide all FIRST participants with a free copy of Mathcad Prime 1.0 for educational use as a reward for their participation in this high quality engineering program). Even the Mathcad Prime 1.0 GUI, which is less well developed than Prime 2.0, is a hit with these high school students.

I hope that over the next few days you will uncover some of the benefits of Mathcad Prime 2.0's new interface. At present it may feel like you are driving a standard transmission for the first time. Soon, I hope you will feel like you are driving a Ferrari.

Best,

Chris

[ValeryOchkov]

Christopher Edward Hartmann wrote:

Soon, I hope you will feel like you are driving a Ferrari.

See http://communities.ptc.com/message/175077#175077

[RWickrama]

I thought of seeking your help for my question:

In my calculations, I use mathcad paragraphs with math regions included. MathCAD 15 is good for this. However, I am not able to use math in text blocks in Prime versions for which I am not able to use them for my calculations documents. Would you help me, pl.

[MikeArmstrong]

.

I work for PTC's Academic Program and I have been using Prime 2.0 on a daily basis for several months. In this time I have been working with professors who are long-term users and teachers who have never before used Mathcad. I cannot recall anyone having a negative reaction to the GUI. Long-time users see a lot of improvement over Mathcad 15.0, new users find it intuitive.

I find this astonishing that long term users not having negative reactions to the GUI.

Mike

[ptc-1307023]

At some point, I'm sure I'll try Prime and we'll see. I must admit a bit of pre-experience prejudice, because I've watched my 'favorite software in the world' go from a 'lean-and-mean', rock-solid, best-in-class engineering application, to a fat, bloated, and fairly buggy piece of software. I recognize that you represent the PTC side of things, but I hold PTC partly responsible for the degradation in product reliability, and the remaining responsibility falls on MS - chasing '.NET' - from a developmental standpoint.

I have personally experienced numerous bug issues (several non-trivial ones too) working through v13 and v14. I have now just started using v15, and, so far, I haven't noticed any major issues. But IMO, v11 was the last great version - the minor features added since have not offset all of the issues that started with the .NET versions v12 and following.

I used to provide a lot of technical feedback (aka bug reports) to PTC and stopped doing so, because at the time my company then wasn't on maintenance (for whatever reason) and PTC didn't want bug information from end-users that weren't on maintenance. I thought that was pretty short-sighted...

Engineers (and others from the scientific community) are a fickle bunch, and yet our standards are 'high' - we expect stuff to work perfectly, all the time, and never change. That is a software developer's worst nightmare.

Kevin Spahr

[MikeArmstrong]

Well said Kevin, sorry I missed your reply.

[rpreston]

I agree with the backwards step of any and all products (including Microsoft Office ) that use a ribbon toolbar. I don't need it. The older style worked just fine for me. At least give the user a choice.

Not having collapsible regions is a major step back for me because I use a third party worksheet with locked regions. These regions contain the authors intellectual property that he is not willing to divulge. Therefore, my main use of Prime 1.0 and 2.0 is negated. Apparently I can only use MathCad 15.0 from now on.

My main pet peeve about all versions of MathCad center on the fact that it is touted as being "freeform". Nothing could be further from the truth. In my opinion I should just be able to start typing without having to create a text region or math region or any other region.

Also, I don't use MathCad that often. When I do use it, I can't remember which keystroke does what. Why can't the "=" sign be used in place of the ":="? etc, etc, etc

[ptc-1307023]

From what I've seen in the official PTC promotional videos, it reminds me of the Maple interface - remember that company that had a really good symbolic engine? Why be another 'me too' product? This (obviously) is the 'end of the line' for the venerable Mathcad product - which, by the way, I've used ever since Mathcad 2.0 (remember that great DOS interface?)