SolidWorks 2008: Interface Follow up

Just cleaning up some details from yesterday’s interface commentary, the filter at the top of the FeatureManager is new in SW08. This is the item with the funnel above the Part1 icon. This is a fantastic tool that searches features, parts, sketches, comments, custom properties, material names, light names, global variables, annotation views, component patterns, mates, etc. real time while you type, and the list updates instantly. This is a really nice option. It’s also nice that they left us a few things we can still file enhancements for: it currently doesn’t filter body names or folder names. This is simple, robust, and fast, not to mention cool and very useful for finding parts in an assembly or features in a part. Another thing I like about it is that it can be used to filter the display of parts in the graphics window for an assembly, so you could use it to instantly show only hardware, or purchased parts, or turned parts or brass parts, or whatever. One kind of scary thing is that it can also filter hidden or suppressed parts (it completely removes them from the tree display – I can see me getting myself in trouble with that one). There is no option to filter suppressed features in parts, although that would be another good enhancement for this function.

There are so many uses for this. One of my favorites is to filter plane names like Front, and then mate the Front planes of several parts together without having to bother with the big long FeatureManagers of each part. Or check several parts in an assembly of plastic parts to make sure that each part has a Scale feature, and that it is suppressed.

If you split the FeatureManager, the filter only displays in the lower panel. You cannot use the filter for configurations, exploded views or Display States.

One piece of functionality I’ve been asking for for a long time is the ability to show the FeatureManager in a straight-line historical list, without reordering and indenting consumed features (like sketches that get indented under the extrude feature even though the sketch was made before the extrude). This would be particularly helpful when editing complex parent/child situations in a part where you might have sketches used in a projected curve used in a composite curve used in a sweep feature. Editing in situations like this is sometimes a bit confusing. I think this sort of “history” filter would be doable and very helpful in this particular function.

Here’s an example of what can happen when the document window is maximized and the main SW window is not maximized or it is being displayed on a low-res screen such as a projector. This is a shot of the upper right corner of the graphics area with all of these new interface elements converging on the same real estate.  These new interface elements all start overlapping one another, making them all useless. This is part of the reason why I think that this part of the interface needs to be thought out a little more thoroughly before it is inflicted on the SW using public.

Software at this level needs to have a really rock solid interface. If we keep excusing little things like this, it doesn’t take many releases where new things are added and old things are never fixed until you’ve got something that’s just really sloppy. And honestly, who is in such a rush that we can’t wait for a few things to be fixed? No one, that’s who. At least not any users. Another example of this sort of thing falling through the cracks is the interface using the PropertyManager in combination with something like Edit Sketch Plane. As soon as you issue the Edit Sketch Plane command, the interface changes and the planes are no longer available in the FeatureManager, you have to expand the flyout and go looking for them again. This is a major pain on parts with more than one screen’s worth of features. Both of these are what I consider to be interface workflow problems that are serious enough to need fixing before release.

Here’s a screen shot that shows that SolidWorks knows that the Minimize, Restore and Close buttons don’t belong in the graphics window. If a document window is not maximized, the controls show up on the title bar for the window, which is where they belong. When the doc is maximized, the only title bar available is on the application title bar. Two sets of controls on the application title bar (one for the SolidWorks window, one for the document window) would be better than putting one set of controls in a place they don’t belong.

_

This is a late addition, but an important observation. The screen shot to the left shows the upper right corner of the SW window when you have two document windows tiled. In this case the Task Pane icons completely block the Close button on the document title bar, and partially obscure the X in the Confirmation Corner. If SW were more consistant about putting the green check from the Confirmation Corner also on the right mouse button to allow every feature to be confirmed this way, I would get rid of the Confirmation Corner altogether. This green check on the RMB is another part of the interface that with minor exceptions is really a fantastic time saver. Finishing implementations of partially implemented features is not a strong point of SolidWorks. Its as if they have a new team of people working on each release and they forget what any previous release had done. Everybody just wants to put their own stamp on the software. We need more consistancy.

To me, these problems with overlapping parts of the interface look really unprofessional, and it costs more time to fiddle with the interface to get it to work than any of these changes actually save. One of the important things to remember here is that SolidWorks is not claiming that you can simply get used to this new interface and break even eventually after working with it for a while, they are claiming that this is faster. I’ve been working with the new interface for a few weeks, and still can’t use the RMB menus without using Tooltips. I can do it if I’m just using extrudes and sketches, but when working with things that really aren’t the “all day everyday” kind of thing, like in-context work, or some of the new virtual component stuff, or working with the ScanTo3D stuff, the things that show up on the “most commonly used” toolbar on the RMB menu are really not that commonly used. I don’t just waste a few milliseconds, I waste 5-10 seconds each time because I scan the menu first to see if the thing I want is in the menu, then I have to scan the tooltips in the “most commonly used” menu. This is not faster, it’s not even just a little slower, it’s a lot slower.

Another nice one is the little pop-up that is displayed when you select an item such as a sketch line, and a toolbar with icons is displayed. The downside is that now you are going to have to learn what all of those icons are, hopefully without resorting to Tooltips, but it does spare you from mousing over to the PropertyManager.

It is interesting how if you hang around long enough, you can see the interface philosophy change through an entire 360 degrees. Originally in 1995, dialog boxes were on screen, and the way to go. Then that became passe, and you had to get the interface off the screen and into the PropertyManager, which people complained about because it interfered with the FeatureManager and required more mouse travel. Now the winds of fickle trends are again blowing the other way, and the interface elements are put back on screen again. It would be more convincing if they had a single, well thought out, overarching and enduring interface philosophy which transcended trends. It is not a bad thing for the interface to stay the same for more than a release or two. Let me say that again because I think there are people who need to hear this: It is not a bad thing for the interface to stay the same for more than a release or two.Change for the sake of change or fickle trends is not helping anyone get their job done faster. Saying that something is faster doesn’t make it faster either. Making something new and different doesn’t automatically mean it is brilliant. There are some glimpses of brilliance in these changes, but they are rare. Overall, most of the SW08 interface changes don’t have that commanding authority to them that the FeatureManager filter does, or the new hotkey interface which was new in SW07.

An example of simply claiming something is faster is the claim that the new tabbed CommandManager is faster. It isn’t. It is different. It is probably far slower because the tabs, although nice, are smaller than the icons they replace, and harder to hit with the mouse, and again the difficulty of shifting between text and images, as well as the loss of functionality of using icons and flyouts for the tabs. The default organization of toolbar buttons will prove to be far slower because you are now scanning a disorganized combination of icons with and without text in different positions, and arranged in blocks or in a single row. I don’t see anything about it that could be cause for claiming it is faster. It’s just different.

The claim that it takes up less space is also wrong. It takes up more space because of all the blank wasted space. You could put all of your toolbars on the CommandManager, and still have a ton of wasted space, and at the same time needing to click tabs to see toolbars you could have up all the time in the wasted space. That’s wasted space and more clicking. Not to mention that the tabs hanging down and the heads up View toolbar are taking up space which you don’t have the option of getting back, and you can’t customize how the space is used. These are serious problems. I think the View toolbar was made so you couldn’t turn it off just so they could force people to deal with it, and maybe come to like it. I think this will be made an option before the software is released.

SolidWorks 2008 is chock-full of the winds of trend blowing in a direction they have blown before, and calling it something “new”. This on screen trend is one of them. The Instant3D (aka Move/Size Features) is another which in times gone by was turned off I think in 97+ by default because users were having problems with changing things accidentally. Even the new toolbar of icons on top of the RMB menu is a bit of a throw-back to the discarded idea of personalized automatically truncated RMB menus based on usage, which were roundly panned by SW users everywhere several releases ago because you never knew what wasn’t there, and I think we will run into the same thing in this release. Grouping icons by usage doesn’t work because everyone uses the software differently. For example, in the above image showing the context popup toolbar, I rarely use Make Block, Fix, or Zoom to Selection. In 2008 SolidWorks is making more extensive use of fly-out toolbars which were formerly maligned because they were prevalent in AutoCAD R10 15 years ago. Why do we have to learn the same lessons over again?

Speaking of fly-out toolbars in AutoCAD 15 years ago, even back then, AutoCAD knew that if you assign a default function to a flyout toolbar icon, the icon image should reflect that function. For example, lets take the new Rectangle flyout toolbar button in SW08. Fantastic idea to make all of these types of rectangles, even if it is a couple decades late to the market. If you create a 3 Point Center Rectangle, the next time you use the Rectangle icon without using the flyout, you will get the 3 Point Center Rectangle again. The problem is that the icon never changes from the generic Corner Rectangle image. Come on, SolidWorks, even AutoCAD had this figured out 15 years ago. When the default tool changes, the icon should also change. I guarrantee I’ll never remember which kind of rectangle I used last, so what is otherwise a fantastic little improvement is hobbled and comes up short.

SolidWorks spurns useful AutoCAD functionality like this, but then implements useless functionality like the 2D Command Emulator, or Infinite Lines. Go figure. Sometimes these people are my heroes, and sometimes not.

Beyond this, there is another piece of sketch workflow which has changed subtly. For those of you who select a sketch tool such as a rectangle and then select the sketch plane to sketch on, things have changed. Now, the rectangle sketch starts where you select the plane. This means that this workflow can no longer be used for times when you need to sketch from the origin. It does eliminate a click, but it also limits the situations in which it can be used, so instead of eliminating a click, this is going to add clicks. On the other hand, the sketch plane selection in SW08 is easier, because the entire plane shades as solid, and can be selected in the middle instead of just at the edges. Give a little, take a little.

So over all, there are some really nice things and some real stinkers. Your opinion may vary. Mine may change. Even if they leave some of what I consider stinkers in there, I will eventually find a way to work with the software. There are some users who will like whatever they do just because its new. There are some users who will dislike whatever they do just because its new. Because of this contradiction, it is hard for SolidWorks to really take user feedback seriously, regardless of what they say. I try to at least have a good reason for any opinion on new functionality. It is understandable that when SW employees sit back and look at their work, they want to be optimistic about it. Your own baby is never ugly. Still, the interface changes give the impression that there has been too little self-critical introspection. The development and feedback cycles have been far too short to have spent sufficient time in evaluation. Frankly, criticism is being actively suppressed, and the changes may as well be written in stone at this point. Someone knows these interface changes are already unpopular and is just muscling them through, hoping that people just get used to it and shut up.