Mastercam X - User Interface Survey

[Thad]

quote:

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In my opinion MCX have been far removed from the seamless transition it was hyped to be.

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A seamless transition to a total rewrite of the software. Who was telling you that?

 

Thad

[part_timer]

It seems as if no one from CNC even asked US what we wanted. Instead they completely had their own ideas on what's best for us. I think that says a lot, and sucks.

[Tinny]

quote:

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A seamless transition to a total rewrite of the software. Who was telling you that?

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We had a seminar on the upcomming release of MCX earlier this year. A guy from CNC software stood in front of us and told us it would be.

 

You should never belive what strangers tell you.

[dwsz71]

quote:

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It seems as if no one from CNC even asked US what we wanted. Instead they completely had their own ideas on what's best for us. I think that says a lot, and sucks.

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That's probably because if it was up to the users nothing would have changed at all. Point blank; the old interface had to go. Keyboard commands had to go. Welcome to Windows!

 

I think the only reason veteran Mastercam users complain about the damn keyboard commands is because, as far as I can see, they never had a better way to navigate. The menus and icons prior to X, IMO were terrible.

 

Does that mean the interface in X is set up the best way possible to utilize the mouse in the most efficient manner? No, but it's not that bad. I think that an approach similar to packages like Solidworks or Inventor, which have menus on the side of the screen, much like V9 did, would have worked better. In X, I use the Toolpath drop down for 95% of my tool path creation, and I do 5% in the Operation Manager. Like many have said, words associate better than pictures (icons).

 

On the bright side, you kept most of your tool paths, maybe even got some new ones. The tool path parameter and tooling parameter pages are nearly identical.

 

The folks at CNC Software are reading your comments everyday either here on the forum or via love/hate/HELP!!! mail. From the resellers too, I hope. IMHO, as far as ideas for a completely new Mastercam go, they could have done a hell of a lot worse.

 

And they’ve been pretty responsive. A Service Pack, two updates and a Maintenance release (tomorrow???) in 4 months. Not to mention all of the participation in this forum. It seems to me that they care about their user base. Just holding out as long as they did from going to the new environment shows that. They were obviously more concerned with the users they had than the prospective ones who held out or passed it up.

 

As far as my first Mastercam "experience" goes, I'm glad I waited for X.

 

JM2C

[Rick46]

@ dwsz71 you mention above about use of the keyboard commands being a bad thing..Do the math its real simple why every one hated to see these go.. you do work with one hand versus two and see who gets the task done quicker.. thats what todays market is all about quicker turn over times not longer ones and this new interface has slowed alot of people down as far as toolpathing goes..

[Guest]

quote:

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you do work with one hand versus two and see who gets the task done quicker..

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1 word,

 

Spaceball

[part_timer]

I dunno if I agree with you on this, rather than only surveying users after the release they should have asked us what we wanted before hand too. I know a lot of work has gone into X, and I won't argue that, but this GUI makes us jump all over the place cross eyed and wondering why this why that.

 

As for the fixes, its not like they were being generous, management knew that if they didn't fix the bugs they would have had a riot on their hands and far greater disaster than what it is now. My opinion of course, but from the postings here, we're not the only ones that see it as a struggle to understand the logic behind these new methods. 9 was dated but I think x's interface and new methods are tough for us longterm users and since we're the bulk of their business and revenue since maintenance, shouldn't we have been asked what was important to us?

 

1 question would have saved them the verbal beatings they have been getting. Something as simple as:

 

What's more important? Ease of migration? or Time wasting click - click - click - click - enter...????? Son of ------!!!!

 

I know their asking us now, and I appreaciate it, but its a little late.

 

So I use 9 when I need to get it done and X when time doesn't matter..which is rarely.

 

Have a great Christmas everyone...I'm going back to work...

[Rick46]

I cant see where a spaceball helps take place of key commands.. nothing will replace these there were to many in version 9 and they were great..I think there was one for almost every key on the key board...lol..Yeah spaceball helps but only in certain aspects..point im trying to get across which I know is hard to do but alot of functionality has been lost with this transition to X from version 9 and time taken to get things done has greatly increased for myself I dunno about others..

[Leehound]

I totally agree with part_timer's sentiments.

 

As a user and the one who signs the checks, I really hope they take a serious look at the interface and make some big changes.

[Don Trust]

we've been using ver 8 since it came out and just in the last 2 weeks upgraded to verX.

 

Even after only 2 weeks, I'd have to agree with most of the comments of it being hard to get used to. Especially post processing. Too many hoops to jump through compared to 8. Changing machines should be as simple as picking a different post from a list, as it was before. Nothing else is acceptable, IMHO.

 

I don't mind the Icon interface, as it will just take some getting used to. Always have one hand on the mouse and the other on the keyboard anyway.

 

I'm both excited and frustrated about the changes. CNC software will hopefully listen and change things for the better in the near future. In the last 20 years, we've changed CAM software 3 times, and it's always been (eventually) a good thing.

 

I do wish that Anilam software had kept up with and updated Anicam 6.1. There's nothing that can touch it for strictly 2d work, IMO. If CNC software would include that kind of programming in Mastercam, it would destroy all other programming systems. Anyone who's used Anicam knows what I'm talking about. (history based, family of parts programming)

[dwsz71]

quote:

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dwsz71 you mention above about use of the keyboard commands being a bad thing

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OH COME ON! With all those snazzy certs...READ!

 

I never said it was a bad thing. I implied that the keystrokes may have been an easier, if not better, nav tool than the icon and menu strategies of past versions of Mastercam.

 

[Matthew]

I use Cadkey as well. One thing I like about their new interface is that certain keys were linked to small menus that would pop up wherever the mouse pointer was. For example, if I wanted to draw a line, I just press "L" and a small menu would pop up exactly where my mouse pointer is showing the different kind of lines I can draw, point to point, horizontal, vert, parallel, etc. Once I make a choice the menu disappears. Same thing with "C"ircles, "A"rcs, "T"rim. When I tried to tie line in Mastercam to "L" it told me that I could not assign a single hotkey to a function, it needed to be ALT-L. Why can't I assign a single hotkey to a function? "L" doesn't do anything else in the graphics window.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

DOes AutoCAD still have the command line? I have not used it since R13 so it's been a week or two

[dwsz71]

James,

 

Mechanical 2005 still had the command line interface. But remember, AutoCAD users waste 4-5 hours a year pressing the space bar or enter to execute each and every one of those commands. Sorry I just couldn't resist.

 

But seriously AutoCAD is a terrible example. That program still looks and functions the same as it did in R13, for the most part. Not to mention it's been written for Windows since R11. Having a userbase of six million (Autodesk products) tends to add alot of revenue to apply towards development costs and staffing.

 

JMO

[medaq]

I remember autocad in high school. And they had one cool feature I use to love. The window selection went something like this.

 

Top left to bottom right was normal window selection.

top right to bottom left was window selection with intersect.

 

I dont remember exactly how it went, hell that was 14 years ago. But always wished mastercam would integrate that one into its self...

 

Jim

[W. Cronkhite]

I have to agree with the opinion that the new user interface is no where near as intuitive as v9. I've been programming since 1980 and have used everthing from a calculator and trig tables with a teletype and tape punch to MCX now. As far as computers, my first was a HP industrial processor. set the buttons for each byte and hit enter key. really liked the Commodore Pet when it came out and like many didn't care for windows when it came out (v3.1 was my first). It seems to me that the new X interface is tailored more toward the internet users than the overall windows interface, but thats just my opinion. I'll keep trying to get used to X, but I'm not about to uninstall my v9.1 anytime soon.

The comment about asking the users what they would like in an upgrade made sense to me. The answer that most would not want any major changes and that that would be a bad thing I don't understand. It would seem that they would want to support an existing solid user base than cater to a possible new group of users which may or may not accept the new interface any more than the existing base. Oh well, thats enougn for now.

Bill

[W. Cronkhite]

Bythe way, that last post was from home not work. Not a new user usually....

[Brad McIntosh]

I second the suggestion for an option to have text labels on the icon bars and dialogs. Sometimes a simple word can jog your memory and/or clarify what one of those pictures is about. (I realize that there is the HOVER-TEXT that is of help but... you have to keep hovering over everything!)

 

Another thing that I believe someone has mentioned, either is this or another thread is a more simplified way of handling posting. I understand that to some (or many) the new Meachine/Control Def system is great, but to some it may be overkill and can actually leave one quite unsure of what you have selected/configured/etc and what it is you are going to get spewed out!

 

I deal with lots of clients that I write custom posts for and everytime I have a unique post I am checking, rechecking and checking the R?MMD and .control setups again. Most of these clients only have one machine - one control... (Not Lathe - no Wire - just a router using either the Router or Mill product - 3 or 5 axis.) In these situations I long for the v9.1 and earlier days of just selecting the PST file.

 

Maybe it is just me...

[Christine B from CNC Software]

Thanks to everyone who responded to the survey and who added their comments to this thread. The survey is now closed and we're working on compiling all the results. Thanks again!

[Mike Mattera - TFM]

No user interface is 100% intutitive. You guys use this word like you should be born knowing how to use a CadCam system. They All Have To Be Learned.

 

Your all whinning because it's not the same: It's NOT The Same! It's new. New is not bad just different.

 

"They should have asked the users": Hello! where do you think these interface ideas came from?

 

"I used to use the keyboard without thinking": I Know a lot of people like "not thinking". But I have news for you, The keyboard interface is NOT that different. Spend 10 minutes playing with the Alt & Ctrl keys and you find you can do MORE than you could with V9.

 

"I wish there was a way to have Design under the Right Mouse Button (RMB) and then have Mill under the RMB": You can. It does. It's not magic. It does not change by thought. But you can make any menu anything you want. You can have multiple configurations to load any menu or combinations of toolbars.

 

The Mastercam interface is the most highly configurable interface I've ever seen in ANY application. If your spending too much time moving up and down the screen grabbing the button you need, you need to create you own Right Mouse Button (RMB) menu. Or create you own floating tool bar.

 

Mike Mattera

[Rekd™]

quote:

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The Mastercam interface is the most highly configurable interface I've ever seen in ANY application. If your spending too much time moving up and down the screen grabbing the button you need,

you need to create you own Right Mouse Button (RMB) menu. Or create you own floating tool bar.

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It's new. It's different. Some will like it, some wont.

 

CNC did a great job. They've got more to do, obviously, but they've done a great job so far.

[35K chipper]

I would like to see 20 misc int and 20 misc real. Could use them now.

Thanks 35k chipper

[Roger Peterson]

Thad, chain direction does effect offset contour, you are automatically left of your chain direction and then you can flip it if you like. Create line paralell requires that you select a "side" in relation to the line just like in V9, that is why pre-selection doesn't work there. Save some, I don't know why that doesn't allow pre-selection, sure seems like it should.

 

As far as the interface in general, yeah I miss locking my auto cursor to center, hitting "R" to reverse my chains and a few others. But, map the enter key to the thumb button of a 4 or 5 button mouse and half your "mouse wandering" is gone forever (this replaces hitting apply and end selection). More importantly for me there are things that save me sooooo much time on a daily basis that I couldn't even think of going back to 9 (backplot, net surface, subgroups in the ops manager, the new surface toolpaths that allow negative stock to leave greater than the corner radius, the new pencil-finish path, not needing to create a new WCS just because I want to move my origin, geometry creation in general, the list goes on and on and on...). There is no doubt that the transition takes some time and you will stumble. Take the time neccesary while having an open mind and you will not be disappointed. You know, I remember saying/yelling/screaming at the top of my lungs "WHAT THE @#$% IS AN OPERATIONS MANAGER!!!", and were all still here.

 

 

JM2C

[BK]

quote:

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I would like to see "Ok", "Cancel", "Apply", and "Help" buttons. After using X since Alpha releases, I've come to the conclusion I don;t like the icons. I gave them the old College try but, I like Words. I'm a word guy, not an icon guy. That's why I have only the View Icons up in my Mastercam X since yesterday. Much cleaner, not like a cartoon, and Alt+ is fine with me. Almost like the older versions for key strokes. Now to work on my hotkeys.

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+999,999

 

I couldn't agree more. I was hoping there would be actual toolpath improvements (hole making, finding the depth of holes in a solid, importing the feature tree with the solid for people using Solidworks so MC can use the info for the Solid and Auto drill type functions).

 

I am running my V9.1, tried X for a while but had too many bugs and setup / configuration issues.

 

Just my $.02

Bob

[Mct010]

I have grown to like V9 as a student, it was EZ to get the hang of screen Icons, setup, and how to create the part.

 

I download X Demo when one could download it from the net, I hate it, don't want to learn it, to much BS IMHO

 

I have learned the drafting part of it, but still don't like all the BS I have to go though