PTC Mathcad Prime 3.0 now available

[amcgough]

PTC Mathcad Prime 3.0 is now availble for download - either as a CD Image or as a web installer. Active Global Support customers can download the CD image from this location:

https://www.ptc.com/appserver/auth/it/esd/product.jsp?prodFamily=MCD

You can follow the attached instructions to update your license file.

If you don't have a current license and want to try out PTC Mathcad Prime 3.0 free for 30 days and then with a reduced functionality set for as long as you like, you can download Express by clicking this link:

http://free-dl.ptc.com/install/pim_installmgr_mathcad.exe

PTC Mathcad Prime 3.0 includes new features sych as Templates, Math Formatting, Math in Text, the Global Definiiton operator, Custom Function support and many more upgrades. We're always inetrested in feedback so please do upgrade your existing installation or try the product for free and let us know what you think!

Andy McGough

Product Manager - Mathcad.

[Werner_E]

Thanks.

Any reason Prime 2 M010 isn't available anymore?

[VladimirN]

Werner Exinger wrote:

... Any reason Prime 2 M010 isn't available anymore?...

It's ok with this service release.

[Werner_E]

Yes, its OK now. It was temporarily not available but was fixed in the meantime.

See http://communities.ptc.com/message/222192#222192

[arbiter007]

Never noticed this before, but All Functions listing is only psuedo-alphabetical, e.g., "Solving" is inserted between "Differential Equations" and "Expression Type." Likewise, "Vector and Matrix" and "String" are not in alphabetical order.

I would suggest that Find be included as part of the free functions, since its utility is much higher than Root, and is more likely to entice people to keep using Mathcad.

TTFN

[spaco]

3 versions with the same unfinished and ugly GUI !?!

PTC, you don't get it. Improve the GUI quality !!! The GUI can be changed in 2 weeks. Is it so hard to do?

We should wait another year?

More Problems:

No page width view.

No One page view.

No Two pages view.

No zoom with Ctrl+wheel mouse.

No vector graphic file support (wmf, emf ...)

After you select a region the cursor should be turned into Move on entire region, not only on the border, because is very hard to select the brder.

an so......

I can write several pages but will be for nothing. It seems that PTC should have first an ear examination.

In the end, using Prime with this GUI is like typing using boxing gloves.

[Werner_E]

In the end, using Prime with this GUI is like typing using boxing gloves.

I like this comparison , and unfortunately it is very true

[arbiter007]

You guys couldn't be bothered to make MP3 files readable by MP2? This will be yet another reason for people to abandon Mathcad altogether.

All the blather about Mathcad collaboration and sharing of resources that PTC touts just flew out the window.

[Werner_E]

Mo Det wrote:

You guys couldn't be bothered to make MP3 files readable by MP2? This will be yet another reason for people to abandon Mathcad altogether.

I agree. Usually when a company provides materials for their (future and existing) customers its an important goal to make it available to a as broad audience as possible. In Mathcad terms this always meant save it in MC11 format if ever possible and it went without saying that newer version of the program would be able to read older formats without hassle and also would be able to save in older formats. Not so PTC and Prime. At the time they are flooding the community with a myriad of documents, most of them will only be read by P3.

A lot of those worksheets seem to part of a contiguous series but they post them singly one after the other - bad!

Furthermore a lot of those worksheets consist of just a single function - noboday coming to the idea to summarize them in one single file? That all looks like a ridiculous sham of quantity that is simply not there.

Its also questionable if providing those files in a dynamic environment like a discussion forum is really better than on a static webspace. But I understand that PTCs website is a real nightmare to navigate and so is not that much frequented.

[sbaty]

Prime 3.0 FAQ # 7 Says "easily" convert older worksheets. Requiring that another version be installed alongside should forbid the use of the word "easily".

Quote:

7. Can I use my old PTC Mathcad worksheets with PTC Mathcad Prime 3.0?

Yes. You can easily convert worksheets from any previous version of PTC Mathcad into PTC Mathcad Prime 3.0. Differences in files will be listed in the conversion process and in the converted file for the user’s review. A detailed Migration Guide is included with the product.

8. Can I use PTC Mathcad 15.0 and PTC Mathcad Prime 3.0 with the same license file?

Yes. When you install PTC Mathcad Prime 3.0, you can install PTC Mathcad 15.0 and point it to your PTC Mathcad Prime 3.0 license. The converter requires PTC Mathcad 15.0 to be installed so that you can convert any worksheets from past versions of PTC Mathcad.

[Werner_E]

I read in advance that Prime 3 would make it much easier to access files in older formats - if we still can't do it the normal way using the file open menu it seems that was a lie.

Some PTC employees also promised here that P3 would retrofit the missing support for useful cut and paste. Now I just read here some posts earlier that still no vector graphics would be supported. I hardly can believe that.

Does anyone can explain whats going on her? Whats wrong with those people at PTC?

[arbiter007]

Right, but the converter cannot convert MP2 files, since M15 can't read MP2, therefore, MP3 with M15 still cannot read MP2 files.

TTFN

[Werner_E]

I didn't bother downloading and installing Prime 3 yet, but I hardly can believe that P3 can't read P2 files. I doubt it - not even PTC would do such a stupidity, I guess. At least P2 was able to read P1 files without converter in a transparent way as it shoud be and as it should (but doesn't) read MC15 and older formats.

Can you really confirm that P3 is not able to read P2 file format?

[arbiter007]

I suppose it's possible there's something not set up correctly in my MP2, but I know I can open MP2 files with MP2 and MP3, and the recently uploaded files by Tudor Marin that were created in MP3 can only be read by my MP3.

You could possibly confirm that if you download one of the MP3-created files to see if your copy of MP2 can open them.

Thanks in advance

TTFN

[Werner_E]

You could possibly confirm that if you download one of the MP3-created files to see if your copy of MP2 can open them.

I won't bother downloading P3 but I can tell you even without doing so that P2 will not be able to read P3 files - all you see is an empty sheet w/o errormessage or the like.

But you claimed in your post http://communities.ptc.com/message/222236#222236 that P3 would not be able to read P2 files which is the other way round and probably not true as I guess:

Mo Det wrote:

Right, but the converter cannot convert MP2 files, since M15 can't read MP2, therefore, MP3 with M15 still cannot read MP2 files.

[arbiter007]

sorry, that was not what I was trying to say.

I was trying to say that the file conversion function could not convert any MPn files, since it uses M15, which can't read any MPn files at all.

TTFN

[Werner_E]

Mo Det wrote:

sorry, that was not what I was trying to say.

Already thought that it was a mistake.

And I agree. Its really bad,sad and absolutely incomprehensible to hear that Prime 3 won't be able to save files in Prime 2 format.

[VladimirN]

Quote from the "Read This First" guide:

[Werner_E]

Yes, thats exactly what I supposed, namely that Mo Det's claim P3 would not be able to open P2 file is wrong.

[DavidWilloughby]

I just installed Prime 3 (had Prime 2) and now I cannot convert my mathcad files. It worked fine with Prime 2. I uninstalled mathcad and reloaded, but still will not convert. I get a failed msg each time. Any ideas?

[VladimirN]

PDF "Read This First" and "What's New (Enhancement Details)" guide for new PTC's Mathcad Prime 3.0 release can be found in the attachment.

Microsoft Hotfix's for Prime 3.0:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2652531 (Microsoft Hotfix for Fonts).

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2588096 (Microsoft Hotfix for Memory and Performance Issues).

[Werner_E]

VladimirN. wrote:

PDF "Read This First" and "What's New (Enhancement Details)" guide for new PTC's Mathcad Prime 3.0 release can be found in the attachment.

Thanks, but aren't these file included in the P3 installation anyway?

[ValeryOchkov]

Werner Exinger wrote:

VladimirN. wrote:

PDF "Read This First" and "What's New (Enhancement Details)" guide for new PTC's Mathcad Prime 3.0 release can be found in the attachment.

Thanks, but aren't these file included in the P3 installation anyway?

[VladimirN]

You can find these files only after the installation of the program.

[Werner_E]

VladimirN. wrote:

You can find these files only after the installation of the program.

Sure, it would be a surprise to me if I could find them already now sitting on my disk

[RickMason]

Nearly 3 years later and Prime 3.0 still cannot convert my v15 worksheets properly. This even after I provided PTC with a very simple example of one of my worksheets that Prime 2.0 could not convert properly. There are still several missing capabilities! So I still CANNOT use Prime! I have many, many v15 worksheets that need to be converted!

In the mean time, there has been no functional advancement of v15. PTC MUST stop charging for support for v15 until Prime does what it is finally supposed to do and that is to support ALL of v15 functionality in some way that does require a re-write of a worksheet. The current PTC support strategy for v15 is absolute THEFT in my opinion!

Very, very frustrated.

[asgomez]

Of course I agree with all that has been said about the (lack of) quality of MP# versions... All of a sudden, and year after year, we longtime users (since 1992 in my case) have been deprived of the friendly and simple, but powerful, calculation platform we were accustomed to. And that's a shame since users like myself will never ever spend a single penny on a software like this.

But I would like to point out something that has been omitted in this forum (or at least I haven't seen it yet) and is about "loading time"... Let me point this out: I run an i7 Dell Precision laptop with a FirePro Video card, a SSD and 32 GB RAM. That's a nice piece of hardware to run from any Autodesk soft to Accelrys Materials Studio to make some serious movie renders... Almost anything here (FLUENT calculations, ANSYS, etc...) is just a breeze... Needless to say that high demanding floating points operations like Quantum calculations and self consistent routines are very competitive.

But wait, starting MP2 here is more than just a matter of sit and wait... Debugging old workbooks takes some time and graphing complex functions may not render quite niftly... Mathcad 15, however, does the things according to what is expected... maybe without the (silly and useless) ribbon, maybe more "orthodox", whatever you put it, but it does the job.

So, not only MP# are bags full of garbage from an "interface point of view", or from a "portability POV", or from a "backwards compatibility POV", they are ALSO bags full of garbage from a "loading time POV" and from an "economy of resources POV".

Unlike a colleague professor that encourages his students to try and buy the software, I just advice them to not to do so. The free WolframAlpha platform, Mathematica with a more competitive price, Maple and even tons of free open source GNU software do a lot more without such a lack of economy of resources.

I think, PTC staff, that whatever you do with Mathcad, if it excludes M15 compatibility and continuity (M16, for instance), it will be destined forever to be forgotten and, definitely, not recommended. In my case, I have been a freelance (non-profit) anti-PTCMathcad activist since the Prime generation came to surface.

Long live M15, the last of the mohicans. The rest is pure trash disguised with a (useless and ugly) ribbon.

[ValeryOchkov]

Amaury Suárez-Gómez wrote:

Long live M15, the last of the mohicans. The rest is pure trash disguised with a (useless and ugly) ribbon.

Long live USSR - Да здравствует СССР!

I often see such a slogan on the streets.

But most of my students prefer the new "ugly" Russia.

It was impossible to develop old country for new time and old package for new computers.

But I do not like new Russia too..

The place is best of all where we haven't been at all.

The grass is always geener on the other side of the fence

Some strange analogy but not why?

PS

Long live M16 and Kalashnikov!

[asgomez]

Dear Ochkov (I admit being a reader of your books, so all my respects to you and your work)

I am a Cuban born fellow who grew up watching a lot of USSR-made cartoons and TV series and movies in the 80's... we used to be "sister nations", remember that? This documentary, sadly untranslated into english or russian, gives a fair account of that http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-ArhjKLucw

Currently I am a mexican citizen, 10 years living here now. And you may guess why I flew the island...

Maybe this "current politics" fable serves good to PTC, that keeps evolving into something we dont know yet but we can assure it is clearly worst. Instead, they say they are improving but we dont know how, or what has been improved. Just like in the real socialism: "two steps forward, three steps backwards, but keep on smiling and cheering"

Best regards, dear professor.

[ValeryOchkov]

Amaury Suárez-Gómez wrote:

I admit being a reader of your books, so all my respects to you and your work

Gracias. I am glad!

I am a Cuban born

I have had 10-15 students from Cuba. Now some of them work over the world.

I have a dream to visit Cuba or/and... Mexico. Why not? Whith lectures for students...

I must in Soviet time ask Soviet goverment to visit my friends in one country.

Now I must ask the govenment of this country to visit my friends in this country. Compare please

...who grew up watching a lot of USSR-made...

But not all so simple and linear...

You can fly to Cuba from Florida for example and compare

And You can fly to Cuba from San Salvador, Honduras, Columbia, etc and compare too

Or from Venezuela