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Drawing Center Mark Improvements & The Lack Thereof

2 April 2010 48 views View Comments

Frustrated User A recent comment on my post on my favorite improvements in SolidWorks 2010 reminded me of an issue I have with what was one of my most favorite improvements: Drawing Center Mark Improvements.

When this feature improvement was first announced and I saw it demoed, I was very excited. My workflow has always been to add center marks, and then dimension to them, as dimensioning to the holes would not allow the dimension witness lines to display correctly with the center marks in place. And I occasionally had issues when something happened that required the center marks be deleted and recreated, and then I would end up with dangling dimensions.

Finally, my issues were addressed with the drawing center mark improvements! Not…

Unfortunately, it turns out that the improvement only works on individual center marks, and not linear center marks, which is pretty much all that we use. So, while this is an improvement, it’s not really for me at all. It’s only half done.

I really hope that SolidWorks finishes this feature in 2011 (or a Service Pack would be even better). It would really make my workflow streamlined.

Like the comment I mentioned above states, it IS the small things that make a difference!

Photo credit: sybrenstuvel

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  • http://twitter.com/SeanDotson Sean Dotson

    Why is it that software compaines (all of them, not just Solidworks and Autodesk, heck not even just CAD companies) release a new feature that is 50% done. It's as if they got part of it working and then said.. good enough.

    I cannot imagine the QA guys walking thru these workflows and signing off on it. It's as if they were never tested in the “real world”.

    Then, chances are they do not even finish it in the next release. They wait for 2-3 release before returning to the incomplete feature to address it.

    By then, users have developed workarounds and even if the features are completed, it takes a huge effort to overcome the ingrained workaround and use the completed feature the way it was intended.

    I suppose it's all a part of the feature war that plagues most software manufacturers.

  • Steve_Calvert

    Nice catch Brian… I would hope that SW didn't do this on purpose and that this would be updated in a service pack but we all have to wonder about other software companies doing the same thing.

    Like sdotson said, “By then, users have developed workarounds and even if the features are completed, it takes a huge effort to overcome the ingrained workaround and use the completed feature the way it was intended.” I've always thought (to myself) that maybe companies do this because they want to see reaction to the feature.

    Steve

  • Steve_Calvert

    Nice catch Brian… I would hope that SW didn't do this on purpose and that this would be updated in a service pack but we all have to wonder about other software companies doing the same thing.

    Like sdotson said, “By then, users have developed workarounds and even if the features are completed, it takes a huge effort to overcome the ingrained workaround and use the completed feature the way it was intended.” I've always thought (to myself) that maybe companies do this because they want to see reaction to the feature.

    Steve

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