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For the UI, Don't Even Consider This...


Bob Holtzmann

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I am very content with Vectorworks present UI. The toolbars really work: you have the Basic Toolbar, the grouped Toolbars, OIP, Resources, etc., that you can move to the side, or the 2nd Monitor if you have one. I find little need to improve the toolbars, except if they can all possibly stick together at the edges while they are moved, so that they don't obscure or hide one another.

But my real concern is all of the buzz over Microsoft's Ribbon interface. After seeing this YouTube video on

, I was stunned over how the tool icons jump around and change layout on the upper 1/5 bar of the document screen. A full day of this would be hard on the eyes for me.

Looking through the online Forums, I've found the Ribbon in AutoDesk's Revit 2010 has left many Autodesk users with a puzzled reaction. One commenter described Revit 2010's UI as a feeble exercise in "Funtion follows Form." Another blogger, Phil Read , wrote a comical essay on the "drunken lephrechaun in the shed" who magically puts away all the tools.

So in summary, PLEASE DO NOT ribbonize Vectorworks! It already has an easy to comprehend Two-Fold UI......1) The Toolbars organize all the plug-in objects, and 2) the pulldown Menus handle all of the object modifying and file commands. I have always relied on this mantra for understanding the Vectorworks interface. I know NNA has better sense than to consider the Ribbon, but I thought I should mention it anyway.

Thanks.

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i'll definitely go with this one Bob. All too often GUI's get fiddled with and it messes up the whole thing.

Loads of old packages had Photoshop like interfaces and worked like a dream, then they got bought out and the new owners came up with a new interface that turned production into a fiasco.

Please NNA "let sleeping dogs lay"!

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I switched to office 2007, and hated it.

Then after using it for a while find it to be a huge improvement.

First, the icons are bigger but don't take up more screen real estate.

Second, it is incredibly context sensitive.

I doubt it will ever come to Vectorworks until Mac support is dropped. Like many very useful technologies which are trivial to impliment on Windows, doing so on the Mac is a major undertaking.

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I doubt it will ever come to Vectorworks until Mac support is dropped. Like many very useful technologies which are trivial to impliment on Windows, doing so on the Mac is a major undertaking.

Thanx a lot!

But, then, remember . . . . . .

MiniCAD was a Mac only piece of software, where would Windows users be now if not expanded for windows too . . . ???

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I hated Office 2007 when I first began to use it but love the ribbon UI now

Sensibly and thoughtfully implemented I think it could be a great improvement

Perhaps NNA needs to be careful though as some may just not like something new

Really though it is only a Workspace so logically if the UI was dramatically changed ? even ?ribbonised? there would still the option of choosing which Workspace you wanted to use

Bring it on

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Sorry, i can't really agree, unless there is a choice. Working with more than one monitor means i like to put the palettes where i want them.

If NNA goes down the route of C4D i wouldn't mind so much because you can "Undock" and "Dock" the various components as you wish and place them where you want, but i'd still want the "Menus" as they are now not stuck to the UI window as in C4D.

Lots of options all with Pros and Cons and for me, "if it ani't broke" . . . . . .

Let's for now just stick to getting thing's that are "broke" fixed and add the racing stripes once it goes.

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I agree, i would prefer VW to be more 'stable' and lag behind somewhat in new 'functions' compared to the other apps.

Let the other program developers do the dirty work and let the chaps/gals developing VW steal the good ideas and build a stable, functionable VW instead. I haven't been using VW that long but it seems to be becoming somewhat less stable than before?! (ie VW 12 vs 2009) 2009 almost feels like a Beta version, more hiccups and inconsistent small irritations(bugs), (nothing large though ;))

Edited by Vincent Cuclair
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Sorry, i can't really agree, unless there is a choice. Working with more than one monitor means i like to put the palettes where i want them.

If NNA goes down the route of C4D i wouldn't mind so much because you can "Undock" and "Dock" the various components as you wish and place them where you want, but i'd still want the "Menus" as they are now not stuck to the UI window as in C4D.

Lots of options all with Pros and Cons and for me, "if it ani't broke" . . . . . .

I like the Menus too -- they are not modal, they don't disappear during a command. The are stable, and easy to find. They are always there, even with no open documents. Vectorworks' menus have a very clearly understandable purpose. It just does not make any sense to mix the menu command with the object tools. I do alot of reconfiguring with the toolbars (with every new version) - Vw toolbars are not as static as menus. I rely heavily on VectorBits' PopUp Align tool, for example.

The Ribbon takes away alot of command visibility, by eliminating the menus. Word 2007 hides all the tools and commands behind tabs. Except Word's "File Open", "Print", "Save", and "Quit" - a pulldown menu behind a big round button. Which is funny - who would think a round button is a pulldown menu?

And I cannot escape the analogy of putting all your tools in charge of a "drunk leprechaun" after seeing that YouTube video. The way that Revit Ribbon makes the buttons jump around, and command modes hiding essential tools makes me wince. Using key commands could be a workaround for easily using some hidden tools, but not all of them.

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I like the Menus too -- . They are always there, even with no open documents. Vectorworks' menus have a very clearly understandable purpose. It just does not make any sense to mix the menu command with the object tools.

That's what i mean. i know i'm always saying this, but the "Photoshop" style tool palettes where the best set up anyone could wish for. Open any App, and you'd find everything in more or less the same place, apart from slightly different function of the same tool.

Now with that standardization gone, each App has to be learned from scratch and switching between them, like PH, C4D and VW just slows things up(for me). Don't get me wrong C4D is an excellent piece of kit and performs better than most under any circumstances, but if the UI was more like my other two favourite Apps, i'd be a lot happier.

i still feel there are a lot more basic issues that need attention in VW(and PH), getting up to speed with modern and future hardware technology is much more important, like multi core processors-multi threading(and all that's connected with this tech) so that wire frame re-rendering, transitions between editing stages and layer switches, lags while VW calculates certain processes all happen in an instant instead of the "let's go and make a cup tea while we wait" factor that often exists.

New paint and racing stripes can come later. Much later!

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The Ribbon takes away alot of command visibility, by eliminating the menus. Word 2007 hides all the tools and commands behind tabs. Except Word's "File Open", "Print", "Save", and "Quit" - a pulldown menu behind a big round button. Which is funny - who would think a round button is a pulldown menu?

I spend days to find out that I would find those menus onder the round button!

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The ribbon combines two traditional menu systems, the pull down and the toolbar.

The panes of the ribbon can be switched by

Then you get large icons...instead of small ones that require precise clicking.

It is different, but it's highly efficient.

It takes a little time to get used to, but then again so does texting on my phone.

Edited by brudgers
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It takes a little time to get used to, but then again so does texting on my phone.

The thing is, any App can be efficient once you've learned the interface and how it works, but who wants to waste all the time it takes to reach that level, finding out.

i certainly don't!

Bryce was great fun when it first hit the market. Powerful and capable, but i loath the the UI, always wishing it also had the Photoshop TRULY intuitive ease of use. Unfortunately many followed a similar path to Bryce.

No Ribbon in VW please!

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Like many very useful technologies which are trivial to impliment on Windows, doing so on the Mac is a major undertaking.

That's rather incorrect. Perhaps you're not familiar with any of the Core technologies nor how easy they are to work with; such a thing ought not be hard work at all to implement in OS X.

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That's rather incorrect. Perhaps you're not familiar with any of the Core technologies nor how easy they are to work with; such a thing ought not be hard work at all to implement in OS X.

I'm not saying that there are no useful technologies that are easy to implement on the Mac.

Nor am I saying that Windows technologies such as the ribbon (or OLE, VB, ODBC, etc) couldn't be implimented under OSX (or other Unix knockoffs such as linux).

What I am saying is that implementing these technologies in Windows is trivial - since they are part common IDE's like Visual Studio - in comparison to implementing them under OSX where they don't toe the party line and are unsupported.

In theory any Turing machine can emulate any other, in practice messy reality intrudes. The ROI for implementing a ribbon interface on the Mac is dubious (and the likelyhood of it's being accepted low since it didn't come from PARC).

Unix has certainly gone far beyond what Ritchie imagined forty years ago, but it does have it's limits.

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Read about Cocoa#/Core before making such claims as what you're saying is simply incorrect; I would presume the system could be developed to beta level in well under a day yet with better use of resources and far more versatility. Indeed the ROI would be pathetic. There is a reason people praise the OSX GUI and it does not involve Fisher Price ribbons.

PARC?! Expose, Core, Audio Unit, etc etc were developed by PARC? Such comments do not do you credit. If it's a good idea, they'll buy or steal it. Simple as that. Unix has indeed evolved significantly since its inception, which is a far cry from the (still NT-based) Windows OS' you see today.

It is a shame that any post on this board that (even slightly) dabbles with OSX/Windows must be dragged down to the level of Digg.com. You may have had some good points if they weren't sprinkled with troll.

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Why is it that these discussions always have to end up in bickering and finger pointing?

Whilst i AM an advocate of OSX and it's Unix underpinnings, i'm sure i could, once again, return to work in a Windows environment. Thing is, i don't really(at the moment) want to relearn these skills. i'm happy with OSX. AND it's stability.

i love the ability in VW to be able to set up the Workspace to be most comfortable for me, as it tends to reflect how i need to be able to access the tools in an engineering workshop with everything always visible and just a click away. The Menus are the Tool Draws and the Palettes are the Panels around the Workbench, all within easy reach.

Bundle them all behind a big Red Dot, or green or yellow or blue or whatever else tickles your fancy and i'd start loosing things like i do when i don't put a tool back in it's place.

VW as it is, when it works, works well, so lets not throw any new spanners in the works regarding hashing up the GUI until the whole thing is perfect, then we can worry about new fads and fiddle with the choice of "Metalflake" or "Candy"!

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The workshop analogy was real helpful, and now I understand.

I too always enjoy stepping over the floor jack when I'm painting a chair.

And just the other day, I was worried that I might need the belt sander when I was changing spark plugs. That's why I got rid of all my tool boxes.

I've translated it to my computer too. In Vectorworks, I keep all my tool set pallets open all the time. Not that you notice because, the vectorworks window is only 100 pixels square and often covered...since I keep all my other applications open (though I did draw the line at every document).

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