Mathcad Prime 5.0: some new updates

[VladimirN]

I decided to start a new topic about the future version 5.0. Based on the new timeline (was dated February 2017), the release is scheduled for early 2018 year. And there is nothing new about the planned features of the 5.0 release.

Old thread "PTC Mathcad Prime Roadmap (2015/2016 update)": https://community.ptc.com/t5/PTC-Mathcad-Blog/PTC-Mathcad-Prime-Roadmap-2015-2016-update/ba-p/446448

[RichardJ]

"Beyond Prime 4.0" could mean anything. Sure, all those things (which for Plot improvements and Functionality we already have in MC 15) will be available in Prime 6.0*10^6

[MJG]

"Plot Improvements: Utilize MORE capabilitis from 3rd party tool."  (emphasis added)

I assume this is from when they still intended to include some plot enhancements in Prime 4.0.

[tslewis]

Any Updates?

[RichardJ]

The "update" is that they blew the release date for Prime 5.0. As far as Mathcad goes, it seems to be the one thing PTC has a real talent for.

What are you expecting to get anyway? All the releases of Prime so far have been a disappointment, even with low expectations before the release. Maybe Prime 5.0 would get past the feeble plotting capabilities of Prime, since that was slated for 4.0, but I wouldn't bank on it. Maybe it wasn't in Prime 4.0 because they just dropped it.

Now that you have to pay an annual subscription simply to access your existing worksheets (if you purchased after they switched to subscription only, of course) they don't need to give you anything significant in an update, so don't expect them to do so. Blackmail (pay or lose access to your worksheets) is so much easier, and cheaper, than providing value for money.

[tslewis]

I agree with some of your points but I have to say Prime is a step forward in a lot of respects.

You cannot keep persevering with old software like Mathcad 15 which cannot make use of latest visions of the .NET framework. Even MS has given up on supporting Windows XP. New CPU architecture and new improvements to the language behind .NET cannot be taken advantage of with Mathcad V15.

I suspect that they had to rebuild the architecture/engine to make use of the .NET frame work.

I much prefer using Prime now compared to V15. The interface is cleaner, looks less dated, functions are nicely organized in a browser. Quality of printed format is much nicer.

However it does need some major additions improvements such as

1. The API is severely lacking in features compared to V15, ability to access and create matrices composed of strings, unable to automate printing to PDF, unable to access and create table objects
2. 3D plotting of meshes and wireframes is terrible and limited to small numbers of elements
3. unable to programmatically define a variable for include statement to access worksheets.
4. Extremely hard to maintain references between sheets without paths breaking down. A global variable for reference in item 3 would help here
5. Need to improve lookup functions on matrices so that it is much faster and quicker to filter and sort data form matrices like SQL/LINQ statements. Lookup functions on strong values is woefully slow.
6. Improved allocation of memory on arrays to speed up performance.
7. Ridiculous still no spell checker.
8. Ability to debug sequentially line by line a program and to look at intermediate values of variables in a step by step process

[awibroe]

Sorry to ask such a ‘noob’ question. Is there anything MC15 can’t do? I’ve always know the legends of MC rely on MC15 but I learnt prime and feel like I need to go back to 15 and learn from scratch to get the best of MC?

[RichardJ]

Yes, there are things MC15 can't do that Prime can. The most important is that Prime handles mixed units in arrays. It also handles units in odesolve. It has dynamic unit checking, rather that static unit checking. Mathcad 11 had dynamic unit checking, and Mathsoft replaced it with static unit checking in MC12. It wasn't a good move. Static unit checking does not create many problems, but they can be very annoying when it happens.

[AlvaroDíaz]

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wrote:
Is there anything MC15 can’t do?

Only in MC11:

 

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[RichardJ]

Hello Alvaro.

There are many things possible only in MC11, especially with regards to mixing symbolic and numeric math.

Alas, a thing of the past . I still have access to MC11, but I have to fire up an old Win7 machine to do it.

[AlvaroDíaz]

Hi Richard. Do you try to backup your old hard drive and set up a virtual machine preserving your Win7 LAN's MAC number?

Best regards.

Alvaro.

[RichardJ]

No. That's an interesting idea, but how would it work? The MC11 license server is dead, so the VM would have be be a perfect clone of my Win7 machine, including XP mode. Is that possible?

[AlvaroDíaz]

Hi Richard. I don't know if XP mode can be executed inside a virtual machine ... I clone a Win XP machine (actually I'm actualize my old virtual Win98 to XP!). 

But always is a good idea having old OS because there are a lot of small programs that refuses run in new's. 

Maybe you can found this interesting: https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=79879 .

There they say about moving from VHD format, which is Microsoft native, to VDI, but I guess that yo can try do directly mounting the clone done with Disk2VHD. There also others programs, like clonezilla, or can try to look a more complete list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_disk_cloning_software 

Anywhere, if what you need is WinXP, maybe was preferable just make a new and clean system with Virtual Box. There are good tutorials about it on youtube about it.

Best regards.

Alvaro.  

[Fred_Kohlhepp]

If you've started in Prime I suggest you stay in Prime.  Prime will either eventually get better or go out of existence; in any case 15 is controlled by the same people (PTC) and will eventually disappear.  (I'm actually surprised that they still supply it; I mean, really, who needs files more than a few years old?)

 Going back to version 15 to get capability you don't know about is wasted effort--go find a different piece of software that will do what you need.

[RichardJ]

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wrote:

I mean, really, who needs files more than a few years old?.

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I assume that's meant to have a heavy dose of sarcasm?

[Fred_Kohlhepp]

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@RichardJ wrote:

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wrote:

I mean, really, who needs files more than a few years old?.

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I assume that's meant to have a heavy dose of sarcasm?

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Ya think?

[RichardJ]

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wrote:

I suspect that they had to rebuild the architecture/engine to make use of the .NET frame work.

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You suspect wrong . Older (than MC15) versions of Mathcad used older versions of .NET, and there's no reason MC15 couldn't have been changed to use a more current version (I'm not even sure what version it currently uses). They changed everything because they wanted a new interface, specifically an interface like the MS Fluent interface for Office, with a ribbon, etc. I know it might sound odd that they would change everything just to get a new interface, but you will have to trust me. This is not conjecture on my part.

Personally I dislike the new interface a lot. Very many things that take one click in MC15 take two or three in Prime. Maybe it looks nicer, maybe it doesn't; aesthetics are a personal thing. That doesn't matter to me, because I'm not willing to give up functionality for aesthetics.

[MJG]

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@RichardJ wrote:

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They changed everything because they wanted a new interface, specifically an interface like the MS Fluent interface for Office, with a ribbon, etc. I know it might sound odd that they would change everything just to get a new interface, but you will have to trust me. This is not conjecture on my part.

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My understanding is that they rebuilt Mathcad to make it better compatible with Creo, not just to update the user-interface.

[RichardJ]

There was more than one thing they wanted, and one of them was better integration with their other products, especially Creo. The question is though, what made them essentially rewrite Mathcad from scratch? It was not the need to integrate with Creo. It was not the need to use later versions of .NET. It was, mostly, the desire to have a new user interface. I know that sounds hard to believe, but it's true. I can't get into why, because I made certain promises to someone at PTC. They are no longer there, but I keep my promises.

[DJF]

The reasons for their decisions may be murky or confusing - but I don't see how that explains the situation MC finds itself in.  Converting to a new interface or .NET doesn't take 8 years. It doesn't explain why bugs aren't getting fixed, why features are lacking or why releases are so far apart.  (It's been almost a year since 4.0 and PTC hasn't felt the need for the release of a single new feature.  Perhaps they aren't aware that software is a rapidly evolving field and releases should be often and regular.  In fact, I'm not sure I've seen any official communication from PTC on mathcad since 4.0's release (except for one invisible issue fixed in M010))  

[RichardJ]

True. Perhaps it would help if you dump the notion that PTC ever intended to replicate the functionality of Mathcad 15, or cared much about the existing user base.

[LucMeekes]

Hmm.

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Older (than MC15) versions of Mathcad used older versions of .NET,

I think that all versions of Mathcad (1 through 15) were programmed (at least for the core parts) in C (or C++). You can (still) see that by the difference in speed of the user interface between Mathcad (fast) and Prime (slow).

Maybe .Net was used: to program the installation application.

Luc

[Liv]

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@tslewis wrote:

I agree with some of your points but I have to say Prime is a step forward in a lot of respects.

You cannot keep persevering with old software like Mathcad 15 which cannot make use of latest visions of the .NET framework. Even MS has given up on supporting Windows XP. New CPU architecture and new improvements to the language behind .NET cannot be taken advantage of with Mathcad V15.

I suspect that they had to rebuild the architecture/engine to make use of the .NET frame work.

I much prefer using Prime now compared to V15. The interface is cleaner, looks less dated, functions are nicely organized in a browser. Quality of printed format is much nicer.

However it does need some major additions improvements such as

1. unable to programmatically define a variable for include statement to access worksheets.
2. Extremely hard to maintain references between sheets without paths breaking down. A global variable for reference in item 3 would help here

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I had a dream... Mathconnex.

Liv.

[Liv]

Hello everybody !

Obviously it’s not the right place, but I am not able (from within Chrome) to find out how to create a new thread in Topics with Label: Other.

However, my problem is that I am currently using IE11 and most often (like now, but not always !) when trying to access Communities from PTC Mathcad page I get the message “HTTP 500 Internal Server Error” / “This error (HTTP 500 Internal Server Error) means that the website you are visiting had a server problem which prevented the webpage from displaying”.

Have someone happened the same or have any idea why ?

(I’m posting now within Chrome).

Best regards, Liv.

[LucMeekes]

You should start your topic (any question regarding Mathcad) from this point:

And fill in the topic later.

If, instead, you press the "other" button from the list, what you get is the questions that have a topic flagged as "other". You cannot start a new topic from that list.

Success!

Luc

[Liv]

Thank you, Luc.

Liv.

[Liv]

Thank you.

It's done.

Best, Liv. 

[STEVEG]

Why is there no listing for the release of 5.0 on the product calendar on PTC's site?

[VladimirN]

Good question, Steve.

[RichardJ]

Dunno. Since I haven't paid PTC any money for a long time I'm not even allowed to view the calendar!

[VladimirN]

As of March 5, there is nothing new for us. You can see the contents of the calendar in the attachment.