combo box PRIME 8.0 does not support comined units?

[WV_4599952]

I am trying to get a speed unit (m/sec) into a combo box (prime 8.0.0.0), but this somehow does not work. I'm now using a work around first defining mps as m/sec then putting mps in the combo box. Same thing for accelerations (m/sec^2)

Is prime still this much troubled by unit issues or is it just me having trouble coming from MC15. It appears to me such work arounds should have been implemented out of sight to the user by now. Celebrating 12 yrs of  PRIME (or mostly avoiding it for me to be just fair)

[Werner_E]

I guess the problem is not on you side. Given the development speed of Prime, 12 years is just a moment.

You may be interested in https://community.ptc.com/t5/Mathcad/Mathcad-Prime-7-0-Combo-Box-doesn-t-support-unit-with-exponents/m-p/718297

[WV_4599952]

thanks I think, at least its not me...

Waiting for PRIME to grow up I will not be holding my breath. (and as long as it starts up in the morning I will probably not be deleting MC15 either 🙄)

[Werner_E]

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@WV_4599952 wrote:

thanks I think, at least its not me...

Waiting for PRIME to grow up

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It is very optimistic to hope that we will live to see it and still be able to experience this. Good luck!

VladimirN posted this link today

https://www.mathcad.com/en/blogs/whats-new-in-ptc-mathcad-prime-9

Couldn't find anything about better unit support, neither in combo boxes nor in the badly integrated third party plot component (which doesn't support units at all, maybe PTC still has not understood what Mathcad is/should be all about). Also could not find any announcement for scripted components or improvements for the mediocre 3D plot. Development seems to continue with glacier speed ...

OK, to be fair, its nice that symbolic evaluation of solve blocks will be enabled again (it always was in Mathcad 15 and below) and we get a custom color picker which sure would have been a significant achievement 35 years ago. As for a new feature I am curious to see how powerful the symbolic solving of differential equations will be and if this feature will be extended to other types of differential equations later on. Won't hold my breath either, though.

[DJNewman]

With regards to the roadmap, scripted controls is the main development priority for PTC Mathcad Prime 10.

[Werner_E]

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@DJNewman wrote:

With regards to the roadmap, scripted controls is the main development priority for PTC Mathcad Prime 10.

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Thanks for the information. I noticed it would be a "candidate" for future versions in a posting by VladimirN -> https://community.ptc.com/t5/Mathcad/PTC-Mathcad-Prime-Roadmap-2021-update/m-p/834166/highlight/true#M203506

But I have seen how PTC implemented the 3D plot, how they badly integrated a third party tool for 2D plot because they were not willing (I guess its not lack of ability) to improve the native plots to something more useful and I see how drop downs/combo boxes were implemented wrt units.
So I really have serious concerns about what these scripted components will actually look like.
My impression is that the development team may consist of a couple (far too few) programmers which are well versed in programming windows software and have a lot of fun playing around with ready made programmers toolboxes (just look at the more than uncomfortable way scrolling in large matrices is implemented) but they seem to have no clue what real Mathcad actually was, what the customers would need and what a typical workflow using the software is.

[terryhendicott]

It is possible to work around the two-unit combo box.

[WV_4599952]

Thanks but no thanks. This is excactly what I mean. Lot of smart people working with this software have no trouble finding a work around in less time than it would take to read a help file on the topic. But that does not make the basic implementation any better. PTC just doesn't seem to take its users serious. That makes you wonder what the development team for mathcad looks like. Feels a bit like the "friday afternoon project" kinda play ground to be honest. Offering very limited value for money. By far the most important reason to hang on to mathcad for me is  my customers have a load of  legacy files that can not be easily transfered to someting else.

A shame really as the concept of mathcad is strong and rather unique. Well worth the support of serious develpment and maintenance team. Well worth marketing and selling for its USP. I think if PTC takes this serious they will not have any trouble finding a user base wide enough to pay for the efforts. Now it just looks like a dead end by choice...

[Raiko]

No. it's definitely PTC, not you. They are immune to customer advice.

They recommended to me (in all seriousness) to "use" a unit such as invK to step in for 1/K in a combo box in which I tried and failed to enter the thermal expansion coefficients of different metals. The reason for this is that Prime does not recognize anything more sophisticated than N or lbf. It sure makes reading a lot easier if you have to explain first that your calculation uses another unit system besides metric and imperial.