CUI Implementation: Good Or Bad? The Poll.

[Steve Johnson]

How well do you think Autodesk has implemented the new CUI menus, including the workspace feature? Are you happy with the system design, the user interface, the API, the user documentation, the developer documentation, the file format documentation, the samples and guidance from Autodesk about how to use it, the stability, the lack of bugs, the performance, etc. Rate it according to what's important to you.

[Steve_Bennett]

Well, for their first attempt at making something such as programing menus & such a graphical interface, I think it's a great step in the right direction. I'm not saying it's perfect or that it's horrible. To go from editing menus in a text document to using an interface is great.

To provide a minuscule amount of info about this was a very, very bad idea. The info in the help system is useless since all it does is tell you what the stuff is, not how to implement it, how to utilize it properly, or any other critical aspect of that feature of the software. It would have been nice to have a step by step process for modifying the interface of AutoCAD & what different parts of the interface you would be required to utilize.

Hopefully, Autodesk won't receive scathing feedback about the CUI simply because people don't know how to customize it in the proper manner. At first, I was rather upset with this new feature, but that was due to my lack of knowledge & understanding of it. Now that I have a better grasp of it's intricacies, I'm realize why I was not happy with it. Now I'm more disappointed with the lack of documentum since the average user has no idea where to begin & can screw things up in a hurry. From a CAD Management standpoint this is a good & bad thing. Good since the new interface allows you to lock down the workspace & keep those unwitting souls from messing up AutoCAD. It's bad if you have a group of people used to customizing their workspace & want to leave it unlocked. I suppose I could go on, but then I digress.

[Steve Johnson]

I should point out that I'm not asking people to rate the idea of combining customisation into a single graphical interface. Personally, I think it's a great idea. I'm asking people to rate the implementation. Given that this idea was going to be incorporated into AutoCAD, how well has Autodesk actually done so?

[jaberwok]

For long-term acad users the new interface is far from intuitive. Therefor more/better documentation would have been a great help.
This may be one of those cases where a new user, coming to it with no preconceived ideas, may be in a better position.

[dbroad]

CUI is counter-intuitive and visually more complex than coding LISP and writing menus. There should have been a visual logic test early in the development. It should have been implemented in such a way that experienced power users did not have to use it.

The first time I used it the way I thought it should be used, I lost all toolbars and menus and couldn't get it back without a re-install. After several times of completely messing things up, I decided not to use it again.

That said, it represents an attempt to make customizing AutoCAD easier and should be encouraged. I hope they will work out the kinks and not throw it out with the next version.

CUI should default to customizing the current interface rather than have that hidden deeply under trees and buttons. ACAD.CUI should be a stable relatively unchanging part and the CUSTOM.CUI and ENTERPRISE.CUI should be where the modifications to the ACAD.CUI occur.

Regardless of how they change it, documentation of both the process and the underlying format should be a priority. It should be possible to edit the XML file with notepad without creating problems.

Seems poor to mediocre but with great potential.

[rkmcswain]

I'll admit that I'm not a CUI guru - I have avoided it as much as possible, but this 'feature' is the worst 'implementation' of an idea yet. We have finally abandoned the MNU and started editing our custom menu in the unstable CUI, but it's been painful.


All things considered, It's very slow. (Why is it that anything that has something to do with XML or .NET is slow anyway?)
It crashes every single time we use it. I suppose this may have something to do with our partial menu, since this doesn't seem to be a problem for everyone out there - but there is no indication from any error message of what the problem is. Guess who gets to debug this??? (a menu that has worked fine since R14 BTW)
The interface is not needed by experienced users and too complex for those who need it.

[Ferroequine]

I voted Mediocre. To drop something like that on you without much warning, and then to very poorly document the process involved (causing one to resort to trial and error), is poor at best.

The interface itself functions fairly well, but I'd have to say it has dumbed down the programming aspect of menus quite a bit (not trying to offend anyone here), and in turn has made it much more difficult to maintain libraries.

[lance.81922]

I have had the feeling for a number of years now that Autodesk (like many other companies) regards documentation as a necessary evil, and seems to have given it a decreasing amount of attention with each succeeding release. Their documentation (IMHO, of course) was wonderful up to and including Release 14. 2000 was still pretty good, but it seemed that the newer functions were not as well documented as the older ones. With the advent of CUI, Autodesk has taken a big step in attempting to create a powerful new way to implement user customization, but seems to have provided almost no guidance in how to actually use the tool. There needs to be a coherent explanation of how to create new toolbars, menus, etc., from scratch, WITH examples. A clear explanation of the best way (there are several) of making use of existing custom menus, WITH examples, would also be helpful. I somehow managed to get my menus going successfully, but wish I had saved the original CUI file so that all of my customizations could be redone the "right way" (whatever that is), netting me a clear explanation of how to tell my customers to upgrade their CUI files.

Pretty sad.

[jaberwok]

I'm wondering if we will see an outpouring of commercial "how to" books written by AutoDesk employees as always seems to happen with Micros**t products.

[Rico]

I should point out that I'm not asking people to rate the idea of combining customisation into a single graphical interface. Personally, I think it's a great idea. I'm asking people to rate the implementation. Given that this idea was going to be incorporated into AutoCAD, how well has Autodesk actually done so?

I think that the IDEA was good. The way they went about it was bad though. I think that there a lot of people out there who get used to drafting one way (draftspeople are creatures of habit) and when something new is introduced without some sort of gradual integration it just causes havoc. Personally, I like the power behind the CUI, but I know a lot of my co-workers are grumbling about it. "Why did they change what worked before?" "It's all a cash grab" are just a few of the things I hear often when talking about the new CUI. I think if something like a drag and drop a la previous versions of AutoCAD was kept, more people would be happier. It's just so hard to find the time and resources to go for training on CUI. I think next time a new feature like this is going to be implemented there should be some training videos or something like that available directly from autodesk as opposed to having to hunt the training videos down on the web. I think that might go a fair way to easing people's gruntings. Make the info easier to find.

But that's just my humble opinion, anyway.

[Steve Johnson]

Please note that I have done a similar poll for dynamic blocks (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=21498). I think it will make an interesting comparison.

[jmaeding.89426]

The idea of making a GUI for menus was good. The idea of making users make commands that get assigned to toolbar buttons, pulldowns, shortcuts...whatever, was actually really good. Even helping users migrate was a good idea.

But it all fell apart as the people designing the CUI did not seem to stop and make a list of activities users normally do, and how to make those things easy.

Instead they did the most classic nerd design I have ever seen - and I thought some of my programs were bad (some are for sure).

What autodesk should have done is ask "how can we improve the interface experience?", not "how can we compress everything into one dialog box?".

The whole thing would not be so bad except they made the mistake of CONNECTING menus where the main menu loads others. They did not consider that connecting things removes freedom, just when we need it most. The fact that mouse buttons only work right if in the main menu and that you can only make workspaces in the main menu is a sign that the authors did not comprehend the first law of customization - keep the acad default separate from the custom items.

What in the world happened? So what we need now is lots of fixes, documentation on intended setup, a complete API, and a redesigned dialog. In, other words, a complete rewrite of the interface. But the ideas are not bad.

So if the ideas are good and the interface bad, yes, the implementation is horrible and is causing headache to my users. Its all fixable though, I sure hope Adesk revamps this effort.

[Steve_Bennett]

I have had the feeling for a number of years now that Autodesk (like many other companies) regards documentation as a necessary evil, and seems to have given it a decreasing amount of attention with each succeeding release. Their documentation (IMHO, of course) was wonderful up to and including Release 14. 2000 was still pretty good, but it seemed that the newer functions were not as well documented as the older ones. With the advent of CUI, Autodesk has taken a big step in attempting to create a powerful new way to implement user customization, but seems to have provided almost no guidance in how to actually use the tool....I think I just realized where the documentation went. It went to training. Why else would autodesk push training so much? Because the training will cover what used to be supplied in the books. It's not just autodesk as you mention, but ALL software companies.

When was the last time I got a manual with some software I got? I think it was with a game I bought. That had a manual. ;-)

[jguest82179]

For long-term acad users the new interface is far from intuitive. Therefor more/better documentation would have been a great help.

More? How about "Some"?

Personally I think that the concept is brilliant. It offers an amazing degree of control to the CAD manager whilst still safely allowing freedom for the users. I also think that it has some huge potential once people learn how to use it.

Its downfall, however, is that currently very few people know how to use it!

It is not customisable out of the box, as you have to re-arrange the cui files before you get anything like predictable results. (Or at least that was my experience)

It has major issues with consistency, too. I have made many customisations repeatedly because they work for a while and then simply disappear and I don't know the new interface well enough to be able to find them. Or worse still they do what the current batch has done - show up in the CUI looking completely normal but refuse to display in the actual ACAD interface. Literally a case of working one minute - not working the next. VERY frustrating.

I imagine there are plenty of people about who are like me too, who have been dumped into the role of 'CAD Manager' (without getting the title) simply because nobody else in the company has both the skills and the flexibility of time to be able to do the job. I am by no means a CAD Guru, so I rely on forums such as this and my other contacts in the industry when I hit a wall - and CUI is by far the highest wall I have encountered yet!

A much smarter approach may have been to either implement the changes gradually over successive releases, or better still provide some useful documentation.


When was the last time I got a manual with some software I got? I think it was with a game I bought. That had a manual. ;-)

It's a sad truth, but this trend of not supplying documentation has been gaining momentum for quite some time.

Do you have a manual for what is without a doubt the most complex and powerful piece of software that is on your computer? i.e. Your Operating System

[lance.81922]

I'm convinced that documentation has gone the way of the dodo for the simple reason that corporate management no longer sees it as a justifiable expense. The logic may run as follows -- "They're long term users, so why spend money on books when they will upgrade without it?", or "How many copies of the software are sold by the manual?" The reason that I find this trend so vexing is that Autodesk used to be perhaps the very best at documenting their stuff. With a complex new feature like CUI, I think this lack of comprehensive documentation is a major failing.

[cwade]

Really, it was very poorly implimented, workspaces are a disaster waiting to happen (we have had a few already), customizing toolbars is virtually impossible, the menus are really the only part that got easier, that and migrating older custom menus.

[peter.shoemark]

The CUI 'upgrade' was obviously brought in without any discussion between users in the field and those instituting the new format. While I guess we are only small fry at 12 licences, but we do pay for our products and use the maintenance program only to get stuck with this junk.

[Grumpy]

I may be a little late with this, but I just upgraded to 2006 about a month ago and while the CUI's are not perfect, I don't understand what all the fuss and problems come from. I consider myself a "power" user and have several customized partial menus for drop down menus, toolbars and image tile menus and they all migrated over very easily. The only "problem" I had was with all the extra spaces that were added to the top of the screen menus. All this considered I was up and running on 2006 in (1) 8 hour day. I use to have to manually edit menus, start AutoCAD see if it was right and if not shut it down and try again.

Hopefully I haven't offended anyone, just my honest opinion.

David

[jguest82179]

Can I please change my vote?

I'd like to change it to a MINUS FIVE - that being "The worst implementation of any change to any piece of software that I have ever worked with throughout my entire career!!" :mad:

Earlier on I could see the potential benefits of the CUI, but I think I've now decided that they don't add up to the frustrations that are the cost.

I've been happily using the CUI now for a while, and after reading a number of discussions here on AUGI and elsewhere I thought I had it to a point where I was happy with it.

Then today I go to add some items to my pull down menus and everything looks perfect within the CUI, I click OK and it does its little rebuild of the menus etc. and I go to my pull down and nothing has changed.

"Oh, darn, I must have hit 'Cancel' instead of 'OK', that was silly - now I'll have to do it again."

So I goes and does it all over again, being very careful to first select 'Apply' (to see if any errors come up - not that I've ever seen any feedbak from the CUI as yet) and then 'OK' and then I go and check my pull down - NOTHING!!

Now I KNOW that I have not changed anything that should have any effect on this since performing EXACTLY the same task yesterday with no problems whatsoever. I find it completely astounding that a product with a pricetag as high as this can be shipped in what essentially amounts to a non-functional state. If it can't provide predictable results then it may as well not work at all! :banghead:

OK,.....I've had my rant now,....I'm calm,.....I'm calm.....:beer:....Aah! NOW I'm calm. :)

[Ferroequine]

I would like to change my vote also. To a -5.

Like jguest said, I've been working with it for a while, and I have concluded that I would rather be poked in my eyes with hot needles. What a #@($@@ piece of S@#$ this implementation is. Totally unpredictable, poorly documented and very inflexible and unnatural. In my 15 years as a CAD manager / programmer, this one takes the cake. It's right up there with Release 13...

Is anyone from AutoDesk actually aware of the massive frustration levels that are being experienced?

[hand471037]

A much simpler, but IMHO nice and workable implementation of this idea is within the GUI of the open-source 3D software, Blender.

Blender allows one to customize the layout and tools and such of the application at will, move things around, do whatever they wish, and all that 'state' is saved along with the actual project file, so next time you open that project your interface (where you last left it on that job) is right back where you left it for that job. You customize mostly by dragging things around, it's rather simple.

This allows you to very simply have a custom setup on a job-by-job basis, so if you're doing lots of skinning, or lots of modeling, or lots of whatever, the interface jumps from setup to setup automatically for you, for it simply resets to the last saved state of when you were last working on that job. It's a no-brainer.

However this largely works because you're dealing 90% or more of the time with premade GUI elements here, and the elements tile and hide in such a way that they don't get lost. I don't think a similar 'save last state' would work for something like AutoCAD, which IMHO has always been too fractured and complex for it's own good. But Blender it's an example of how a very 'fluid' GUI that can set itself to be custom per task or job can really work.

Oh, and you set a 'baseline' for the GUI, so that all new projects start with that baseline, and/or you can reset the GUI back to said baseline if you feel like it... However, many don't like the Blender GUI for it's really... uh... different. I'm just pointing it out as an example of a GUI that can constantly change but that still 'works'.

[Mike.Perry]

How well do you think Autodesk has implemented the new CUI menus, including the workspace feature? Are you happy with the system design, the user interface, the API, the user documentation, the developer documentation, the file format documentation, the samples and guidance from Autodesk about how to use it, the stability, the lack of bugs, the performance, etc. Rate it according to what's important to you.Hi Steve

I think you might be interested in the following link found in this post - RE: Breaking info on AutoCAD 2006 (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?p=150089#post150089)

"29 Flaws in CUI" by WorldCAD Access

:beer: Mike

[Steve Johnson]

Thanks Mike! I had seen that, but I appreciate the thought. :smile:

[Mike.Perry]

Thanks Mike! I had seen that, but I appreciate the thought. :smile:Hi Steve

No worries... what can I say "I am a little slow..."

:beer: Mike

[Steve Johnson]

Unless you're Nostradamus, you couldn't possibly have been quick enough. Ralph emailed me a day in advance to let me know . ;)

Of course, this is all evidence of an evil conspiracy by a cabal of bitter CAD journos to undermine the wonderful CUI because... er, er, I don't know. Give me some time. I'll think of a reason. :lol:

Actually, Ralph and I occasionally email each other to point out items that may be of interest to the other. Oh, and sometimes, we pick holes in each other's publications. It's all good-natured fun. Ralph and I go back to the days when he distributed his newsletters on paper. :shock: Before that, I admired his work in the 80s when he was a Cadalyst writer and I wasn't. I love the way he cuts through the... er, er, spin.

[Mike.Perry]

Hi Steve

Unless you're Nostradamus, you couldn't possibly have been quick enough. Ralph emailed me a day in advance to let me know .Now I see how it is, insider dealings ;-)



Of course, this is all evidence of an evil conspiracy by a cabal of bitter CAD journos to undermine the wonderful CUI because... er, er, I don't know. Give me some time. I'll think of a reason.You said it ;-)



Actually, Ralph and I occasionally email each other to point out items that may be of interest to the other. Oh, and sometimes, we pick holes in each other's publications. It's all good-natured fun. Ralph and I go back to the days when he distributed his newsletters on paper. Before that, I admired his work in the 80s when he was a Cadalyst writer and I wasn't. I love the way he cuts through the... er, er, spin.Ralph does write some good-stuff, I enjoy reading his weekly CAD E-mail Newsletter.

Occasionally ;-) I even enjoy reading some of your stuff on CADalyst "Bug Watch".

Steve, seriously keep up the excellent work, I always enjoy reading your monthly "Bug Watch" column... now if only CADalyst would archive (post) all! the back issues of "Bug Watch" and add a dedicated search facility to it (just like "get the Code" has)... personally I have given up asking them to add both of them requests to their site...

:beer: Mike

ps Had to remove your smilies from the "quoted" text so I could add my own (due to #4 limit in forum posts).

[nemi.95160]

In my personal opinion - it is GREAT idea with WORST possible implementation.
It should be done in form of a DIALOG BOXES, separate for each task.
for example creating partial menu, gather info through dialog box (what is done behind the screen user does not have to know), give option to add spacers, fly-outs etc, give opportunity to test the look and meaning to fix if user is not happy, before final step.
Similar with buttons, palettes and macros. But this again my personal view.
In present form it takes to long to do anything (4-5 times longer), and I think if AutoDESK is planing to keep it in this format, LEGACY should be broaden to give the option for user to use customization old style like "CLASSIC CUSTOMIZATION" and again what's done behind the screen - personally I dont care - if it is XML or just text file (I prefer text file). I use AutoCAD since 1985, can program in AutoLISP/VLISP/DCS/DIESEL, I am overwhelmed as it is, so learning XML - no thanks, it is to much.

[kennet.sjoberg]

This is a typical BigBoss release, the programmer shout we are not ready yet,
and the boss shout release this thing now !!

Toolbars and menus from mnu-files did migrated almost perfect, Buttons and Aux did not.
If you compare to a mnu -file the cui file is huge and slow, and you still have to manually edit those inhuman files, and when you do it, you play hazard with a full AutoCAD reinstall.

I have not succeeded to mix items from different cui -files in the menubar.
I have not succeeded to programmatically change between different toolpalettes.
I can not find a satisfied solution with a locked company cui and an editable user cui.
If I use "AutoCAD" icons to "ADT" or vise versa I got [?] in the toolbars, I prefer smiles :) ...uhh

Naaaa... this really stinks...
Autodesk, take it back, do a good work, send it back to us,
but not before the middle of year 2006 so the time is enough to do a good job.

It has only given me headache and a lot of extra work, NOT ANY at all advantages.

: ( Sad Computing !

kennet

[Coolmo]

The idea's great but I've found, even with the service packs, that the CUI pretty much does what it wants when you try to move your old MNU, MNS files over to it with particular regard to the tablet buttons and menu areas. Half the time when loading a MNU or MNS file for transfer it recognizes the macro associated with the menu item but other times, and for no reason that I can see, it assigns the [A-1], [A-2], etc. to the menu area for the "macro". Weird.

[msjca]

Suggestions for improvement:
Allow text editing for if desired (just like in VBA).
Maintain all legacy editing abilities such as copying a toolbutton from one toolbar to another. (The CUI should autoupdate) A good template for CUI and mns should be to consider that legacy was that one could edit an MNS do some things graphically and the MNC would autoupdate. That is, the way MN? files are implemented and work together might be a good model for CUI to function..

[Steve Johnson]

I see some lonely soul has voted CUI as "Best ever new feature implementation". :shock: :confused: :| :lol:

[rkmcswain]

I see some lonely soul has voted CUI as "Best ever new feature implementation".

I wonder about the 24 or so that voted it anywhere from 6-10 :confused:

[kleenhippie]

Wow, you mean it isn't just me???
I thought that I was just missing something, and wasn't understanding. Maybe I'm not so dumb after all. If someone could just tell me how to have my menus load when I restart CAD...Right now I have to customize my workspace every time just to have menus.
:(

[jguest82179]

If someone could just tell me how to have my menus load when I restart CAD...Right now I have to customize my workspace every time just to have menus.
:(
Sounds like you need to do some more experimenting with the workspaces themselves. But first, make sure that you're not trying to change a workspace that is a part of an 'Enterprise' CUI, it has to be in your 'Main' CUI or you can't edit it.

That being said, the easiest way to make sure of this is to simply create a new one. Set up your toolbars etc just how you like them and then go to the Workspaces toolbar and select 'Save Current As' from the pull down and give it a name. Now click the settings button next to the pull down and in the dialog that appears select the new workspace from the pull down at the top. Now click OK, and then whenever you want to return to that particular set of toolbars etc all you need do is click the little 'home' button on the workspaces toolbar and it should take you back to the workspace setup that you created.

HTH.
Cheers,...Jon.

[kleenhippie]

No, not Enterprise. Have that blank in Options.
I'll try again.
Thanks Jon. :?

[kleenhippie]

Thanks Jon. It worked, sometimes I get so stuck on fixing something that I forget that sometimes it's easier to start out fresh....Take my marriage for example...Maybe not... :|

[jguest82179]

Glad I could help. :-)

[sinc]

I wonder about the 24 or so that voted it anywhere from 6-10 :confused:

Well, the bulk of the problems are related to Enterprise and partial CUIs. If you are not trying to use Enterprise CUIs, and all you do is tweak the default Autodesk-supplied CUI without creating your own partial CUIs, then I can see how you might give it a high rating.

But for anyone who actually tries to use Enterprise and partial CUIs in the way they were apparently intended, it's pretty miserable. Especially when vertical apps get involved.

[jaberwok]

I see some lonely soul has voted CUI as "Best ever new feature implementation". :shock: :confused:


"Best ever new feature idea ?" yeah, maybe.

"Best ever new feature implementation? " :banghead:

[rkmcswain]

"Best ever new feature idea ?" yeah, maybe.

If they would have just made it optional.

Let me edit the menu in a text editor and give the newbies a fancy GUI. That way you keep everyone happy :-)

[jaberwok]

If they would have just made it optional.

Let me edit the menu in a text editor and give the newbies a fancy GUI. That way you keep everyone happy :-)


I'll drink to that. :beer: