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GaryV
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 217
Location: Walnut Creek, CA
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 Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 10:52 pm Post subject: PC8 / WT9 Assessments |
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Complaints or praise have been noticeably non-existent (generally). I am not sure what this means. Is no one upgrading? Or are people doing so and it is it great and no one is taking the time to say it (people are generally quiet when things are good as opposed to bad)? Are the speed claims proving out? I just saw a post from Matt suggesting things are not all good in River City.
There have been some questions and comments but nothing at all earth shattering. Is this truly a full upgrade? Usually there is a lot more discussion when a full upgrade comes out.
Those that have upgraded could help those of us that have not by giving us their thoughts on this if you don't mind taking the time to do so.
Thanks in advance! |
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Greg
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 219
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
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| Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 12:00 am Post subject: |
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My two cents worth after using PC8/WT9 for a few weeks:
Generally good speed improvements over PC7 with a snappier feeling, though I haven't done measured speed tests. For really big drawings there is also now the ability to turn off shadows, transparencies, line weights, text display, etc. to get greater speed improvements.
A number of new or improved tools.
Much more sophisticated text and table handling.
Greatly improved dwg translator.
Improvements and cleaning up of interface (all positive except for loss of scale and zoom percentage displays).
Many visual feedback enhancements and some cool new tools in WT9.
I am generally pleased with the performance and the new features, though I had hoped to see some increased sophistication in terms of layer handling, output control and referencing, features which don't appear to have changed much. |
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CJH
Joined: 24 Apr 2004
Posts: 323
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| Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 10:39 am Post subject: |
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I'd have to say this is the best upgrade to PC, ever. There are some nice interface changes, and visual feedback in Wildtools has improved again.
The first biggest improvement is speed. I think it was PC5 where the available hardware and software combined created a very fluid feel to the program, which dropped off with OSX and although there were incremental improvements I could not get that fluid feel back. PC8 has taken a big step forward and is back to being fluid and much more immersive to work in. On a laptop, you can use 2-finger scrolling to pan the drawing without choppiness, in general it is just very fast in regular drawing mode-I have not found a need for the fast drawing mode which turns off hatches, etc. The speed also means you can import a full sheet pdf, and put it on a lower layer for reference, something that used to make the program extremely slow.
The second huge improvement is the dwg translator. It works so well on importing files that I almost never turn on a PC with Autocadd to see what the original file looked like. Importing a new dwg is now a 1 minute process.
I have not seen anything like what Matt described. It may be that he has too many programs running for the amount of memory. The Intel machines need a lot of Ram-2Gb is not enough if any other program such as mail is running-4Gb seems to work very well. |
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patrickm
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 322
Location: santa barbara, ca
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| Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 8:07 am Post subject: |
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| Greg wrote: | My two cents worth after using PC8/WT9 for a few weeks:
Generally good speed improvements over PC7 with a snappier feeling, though I haven't done measured speed tests. For really big drawings there is also now the ability to turn off shadows, transparencies, line weights, text display, etc. to get greater speed improvements.
A number of new or improved tools.
Much more sophisticated text and table handling.
Greatly improved dwg translator.
Improvements and cleaning up of interface (all positive except for loss of scale and zoom percentage displays).
Many visual feedback enhancements and some cool new tools in WT9.
I am generally pleased with the performance and the new features, though I had hoped to see some increased sophistication in terms of layer handling, output control and referencing, features which don't appear to have changed much. |
I concur with Greg...
patrick |
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GaryV
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 217
Location: Walnut Creek, CA
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| Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 9:55 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for those that have contributed to this thread so far. All pretty positive and nothing negative to speak of. Given the number of posts that usually occur on this board though, I still wonder if people are holding back upgrading. I still find it odd that it is generally quiet about this upgrade. Based on what I have read so far, perhaps people are too busy to post as they are busy making money with the new version! 
Thanks again for the assessments guys and to those that might throw in their 2¢ in coming days.
-Gary |
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Derek
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 568
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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| Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 3:22 am Post subject: |
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Gary,
I'm 'holding back' for several reasons:
1/ I don't have Intel.
(not much more to add after saying that however...)
2/ E.S. have not informed me the new version is available. I guess there was some point in registering the purchase of the previous version when I received it.
3/ NO DEMO VERSION. Heck, I don't think anyone doubts I'm a PowerCADD supporter but I still want to try before I buy.
4/ I suspect the international version is not yet available.... am I meant to be responsible for enquiring about this?
Maybe I'm in the minority but rumours of a new release and a bit of hype in the scuttlebutt aren't enough for me to blindly pre-order anything. Where are the trumpets, the fanfare, the announcement, the demo? This dribble release method turns me off 100%. It just makes me think we're still in beta mode.
Derek
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PowerCADD Preference Utility |
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Rob C
Joined: 14 Apr 2004
Posts: 532
Location: Southern Connecticut
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| Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 6:07 am Post subject: |
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I'm not on Intel yet myself. Getting this close, I've been kinda dragging my feet with the hopes Blue Ray would be added. I'd hate to buy a new machine (which I try to get 3 years out of), only to have that introduced the next week. I've only had this PowerBook for 2 years now.
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Rob
www.robertcoolidge.com |
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Damon
Joined: 22 Sep 2004
Posts: 27
Location: Vancouver, BC
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| Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 11:21 am Post subject: PC 8 Assessment |
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I'll jump in here. I've used PC8/WT9 for a few days, and will offer some impressions FWIW.
Aspects I like:
Speed: Appears very quick. Scrolling and moving around has a much different feel. I was not one who felt terribly inconvenienced by the speed of PC7, but V8 is much faster. Even opening the 'commands' part of the preferences setting is instant.
Rotate by Centers: Brilliant, and will soon be essential.
Advanced Text: Improves on mediocre text handling. I haven't used all of its abilities, but I think it is good. Adds to the ordinary text tool, so you still have choices. Also ties in to the table tool, and I think this will also now be useable- previously I felt it was quite useless.
DWG import: Seems very much improved, although the tiresome limits imposed by the paper size in PCadd is still frustrating. Huge gains in facility here, though, and this will be important to many.
'So What' Aspects:
Tool Bar at the top of the window: This may be useful for some, but I see little value in a bar that mostly lists commands such as 'open', 'save', 'print', etc. Those are the Apple Critical commands that are part of every Mac compatible application, and also the commands that we easily do with the keyboard. It is useful to have 'send to back', or 'move forward' buttons, as that saves mousing around. Maybe there is more customization available.
Drawing setup: In V7 I could get the Drawing Setup box to open, even with Zoomer on. I just had to wait a moment. This seems to be gone from PC8. So I just turn Zoomer off.
Move tool. Not at all sure what this does. Why select a tool to move an object when the arrow thingy seems to do the exact same thing. I'm probably missing something here.
Multi trim/ Extend: This appears to add some of the WT trim tool facility. Not sure that I will use it instead of the WT item. The PC multi trim extend does seem to have a nice ability in that you can draw a lazy, freehand-type of line to select multiple objects for trimming or extending, rather than just a straight/ linear selection line.
Disappointing Aspects:
Libraries: windows are still small and not improved. I wish they could be resized, or even that all objects in the library would actually show up in the window. PC 7 was the same.
Upper left anchored drawing. This is still a shame, but will probably never change. I absolutely ache to have the drawing centered in the window, and set free from any paper size. VW anybody?
No VW translator: Just me, but this is more important than DWG or DXF import facility.
Semi-Fatal Flaws:
Mouse wheel zooming: upgraded to sub-par, but not even close to so many other programs. Really disappointing. Acceleration set to 'zero' in preferences. I've had discussions that suggest that the mighty mouse is partly to blame, but I think it is still a 'zoom by leaps and bounds' approach.
Fatal Flaws:
'Sort' button STILL in layer window, and STILL undoable. Hard to believe that nobody else hits that button by mistake. All you can do is close the drawing.
Absence of 'visible layers only' on 'save-as' to DXF or DWG. Heads around the world will shake with this change. I simply can't imagine what would inspire such an omission.
Overall?
I don't get the sense that this is 'equivalent to two previous upgrades' as has been offered, but I'm sure that the programming efforts that went into the DWG translation and speed improvements are significant. If these two issues were the worst of V7, then the upgrade is essential.
At this moment, I suppose I would say that I wished for more, but I also fully credit the ENGSW folks for making it fast.
BTW there is a registration issue, and I haven't seen anything on the ENGSW website about it. It drove me around the bend... although that is not a long journey for me.
Clearly much more than $0.02, but once logged in, one may as well get it over with.
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Damon
"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months." Oscar Wilde |
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patrickm
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 322
Location: santa barbara, ca
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| Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 2:52 pm Post subject: Re: PC 8 Assessment |
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| Damon wrote: | I'll jump in here. I've used PC8/WT9 for a few days, and will offer some impressions FWIW.
(snip...)
Drawing setup: In V7 I could get the Drawing Setup box to open, even with Zoomer on. I just had to wait a moment. This seems to be gone from PC8. So I just turn Zoomer off.
(...snip) |
I had noticed the same thing -- I was used to using control+option+p to open the Drawing Setup window. I think WT's Zoomer co-opted the control+option key combination. You can work around this by creating a different key command for opening the Drawing Setup window (but I'd prefer to use the old control+option command, likewise for a number of my other key commands). |
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Rob C
Joined: 14 Apr 2004
Posts: 532
Location: Southern Connecticut
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| Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 7:41 pm Post subject: Re: PC 8 Assessment |
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| Damon wrote: |
... 'Sort' button STILL in layer window, and STILL undoable. Hard to believe that nobody else hits that button by mistake. All you can do is close the drawing. ... |
I've found this infuriating too, but most of the sting is eased by having at least one saved layer set up ... reselecting a saved layer set restores order.
_________________
Rob
www.robertcoolidge.com |
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Schaeffer
Joined: 06 Feb 2008
Posts: 9
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| Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 11:10 am Post subject: |
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I apologize if I missed an assessment or description of a new file referencing capability, but this is my biggest issue with Powercadd. No mention of it on the ES website PDF, so I'm not terribly optimistic.
The functionality of PC 7 doesn't belong in a program written in this century, and it has to make up ground before I swipe my credit card.
Any feedback?
thanks, S. |
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Matt
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 399
Location: Sterling, Virginia
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| Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 12:14 pm Post subject: |
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Shaeffer -- the dwg import is vastly improved in PC8, although not yet perfect.
What are you expecting from file referencing? |
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Schaeffer
Joined: 06 Feb 2008
Posts: 9
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| Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 12:40 pm Post subject: |
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I've never been too concerned with DWG file import/export -- I don't tend to trade off files with autocad users regularly, so the pain of clean-up tends to be a front end issue, but improved functionality is appreciated. However, it's not going to be enough to reinvest in PC.
As far as references, I think I posted a laundry list last year, but it's barely operable for me. I want to have multiple reference files, layers, and layer groups, and extremely well refined tools to manage the data. The implementation in PC seems primitive to me as an ex-microstation triforma modeler/draftsperson.
I can't clip a reference, turn it on/off, turn on/off layers within the reference, control scale, save referenced elements to the active file, and manage all of this within a management dialog. This is the sort of capability Microstation had in the 90s.
The even more primitive aspects of Powercadd are particularly frustrating. I have been developing tables of data in word or excel, print to PDF, and references multiple copies into a sheet. If there's a thematic group of sheets, I'll have multiple sheets in one file. Everytime I open the file, the references are updated, creating new layers in the layer list. The layer-reference linkage does allow you turn/off the display of a reference, but there's a detritus of old layers left behind after every update, which have to be manually deleted.
An aside to layers, if I grab a group of layers and try to move it up and down in a long list of layers, the rainbow wheel starts turning and it literally takes 5 minutes to do what Form Z or any other program does instantaneously. I don't know anything about software design, but this really bad, and I hope that's been fixed.
I'm glad to hear that PC 8 is running faster, because PC 7 on an intel machine is painfully slow for a 2D program. PC is not dirt cheap, so there's the temptation to throw down even more cash and get more functionality in virtualized windows mode. At least this is a start, and there are multiple paths to nirvanna.
thanks, s. |
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Napoleon
Joined: 30 Nov 2005
Posts: 97
Location: Oregon
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| Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 4:40 pm Post subject: |
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I agree 100% with Schaeffer on the Xref issue. I feel ham-strung without the ability to clip Xrefs.
nb |
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patrickm
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 322
Location: santa barbara, ca
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| Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 4:30 pm Post subject: |
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Now that I have been using PC8/WT9 for a week or so, I've noticed two things worth mentioning:
1. If PowerCADD isn't running and I double click on an PC file, PowerCADD doesn't open. It looks like it is starting up (that icon with an italic "A" shows up in the Dock but PowerCADD never opens). If I start PowerCADD, then double click on a file, it opens.
2. When I print PDF's using Adobe Acrobat Pro, occasionally, no file is created. It looks like it is printing a PDF file, then a PDF file shows up on the Desktop (where I am printing to), then the PDF file disappears. I've noticed that the PDF file has a different name than the name of my PC file, so I think it might be printing a temporary file that soon vanishes. (i.e. the file that I am trying to print is called Hock Sheet A-2, but the vanishing PDF file is called c2.pdf.)
I am using a 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro, 2 GB ram, 30" external Apple display.
(I have performed the updates that ES sent me emails about.)
I'll email ES. |
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