Prime 3.1 Grid - Switching between Standard and Fine???

[StuartBruff]

What is the rationale for the change in region position on the page when changing from Standard Grid to Fine Grid and vice versa?  I don't mind the change in granularity, but I don't want my regions to jump all over the place when I change the grid size.

Stuart

[RantEng]

I don't know about Prime 3.1 but the problem persists in 6.0.  Inelegant but simple work around:

• <Ctrl-A>  Select All
• <Ctrl-X> Cut
• Change Grid Size
• <Ctrl-V> Paste

When pasting, it seems to past at page coordinate location rather than grid location.

Bob

[StuartBruff]

Yes, that's what I do when converting a worksheet between grid sizes.

As I normally select the fine grid, I've changed my default template to use that as standard (plus narrow margins).

I still don't understand the rationale behind this, though. 

---

I wonder if the Mathcad requirements managers and implementors actually use Mathcad on a regular basis?  I'm guessing they don't because there is a plethora of irritations that they would surely have addressed by now.  Either that or the team like manually repetitive tasks and annoying, counter-intuitive ways of doing things.   

Creating a text box?  In M15 just start typing, enter a space and, hey presto, M15 is intelligent enough to work out you want a text and not a math region (there's always ctl-z if you made a mistake).  I'm in the middle of writing a looonnnnggg worksheet with a lot of text, and constantly having to type ctl-t is a pain.   Not to mention there being no region auto-align and column guidelines and user-defined tabs in text boxes.   

And the Find/Replace Boxes?  Type a word into Find, hit tab and any reasonable user-interface would move the focus to the Replace box.  Prime?  Shifts the focus to the worksheet and enters a tab into it; same for hitting Enter ...

On the programming side, they still haven't sorted out wrapping long expressions properly and I find the program typographic layout to take far too much vertical space - I much preferred the more compact M15 layout (which had its own issues).   I'd have liked a repeat (functional) programming operator as well as a while.

Despite the gripes, I'm still having fun solving problems in Prime Express, because of its lack of programming - the word "challenge" is a positive one in my book.  

The Prime array entry is a *vast* improvement over M15 and makes them much easier to use - it shows what could be done.

I just hope that one day (very, very soon) PTC put the resources into Mathcad necessary to make it what it should have been.  If it's feature requests they want, I have a list, and all of them have been missed.

Cheers,

Stuart

[RantEng]

Having used Mathcad since 1986, I can talk to the history.  When PTC purchased Mathcad from MathSoft, it needed a major rewrite of the kernel.  Mathcad 15 was really a stopgap patch for 14. 

I believe they had big plans to incorporate Mathcad into Pro-E (now Creo) as an enhancement to their flagship CAD system.  I don't think they had vision beyond that.  Believe it or not, Mathcad was integrated into AutoCad at one time (version 6?).  Was pretty cool being able to drive AutoCad sketches right inside of Mathcad.

Since the acquisition, Mathcad has become the poor step sister of the family.  Only in the last couple years (Prime 5 and 6) has there been some attention paid to it.  The only thing remotely like it on the "market" is a freeware SMath Studio.  It just doesn't have the resources to develop into more than it is.  PTC doesn't have competition for the product to drive them forward.

Well, this has gone a little off topic in the same direction as most posts. (and for the same reason).

Bob