Drawing Cursor Icon Thing

[zenomail105021]

I just sent this to Autodesk Product Feedback:

I have used Revit since 7 and like the program very much. In many many ways it is brilliant. There is one thing, however, that bothers me and that is the crayon drawing cursor icon. That thing struck me as ill conceived when I originally moved from ADT to Revit and still remains an irritation for me and apparently others (I was at a recent Revit seminar here in Jacksonville, FL and did a little survey of other Revit users. They were also rather disappointed with the drawing cursor icon). There is no way to be delicate about this. The crayon is cheesy, childish and cheapens the program. Besides, unless you are left handed, you probably do not hold a crayon (or pencil if you must call it such) in that manner. In addition, in case this has escaped anyone, Revit is a CAD program not crayon (or pencil) and paper. It is an unnecessarily obvious and silly metaphor. Something like a well designed bright vermillion dot with perhaps half gray tone crosshairs would be just fine in my opinion and the crosshairs would be a added visual clue for the alignment. Please give us an option or bail us out of having to use a most aesthetically unpleasing and illogically atavistic drawing tool. I know there are other pressing and time consuming improvements you are making to the program but this should be a simple programming task and considering that this particular tool represents the essence of the program and is used more extensively than any other it would really give it a quality boost in exponential proportion to the effort. Thank you for your consideration.

Bill Maddox

[Zoltan]

I think this was discussed a long time ago and we brought it to a vote and most people don't give a **** about the cursor as long as Revit does what it is supposed to do. The people that gripe about it are the same people that immediately change the cross hairs in AutoCAD back to going all the way across the screen.

I am personally more interested in seeing a visual difference between the Pick Lines option and the Modify command, since I find a lot of my students in fundamentals classes will try to click on an object to select it and don't realize that they are creating many many grids one atop another.

[twiceroadsfool]

I dont mind the pencil, but i DO stilld efault back to having crosshairs across the entire screen in AutoCAD, LOL....

Fail boat. :(

[zenomail105021]

maybe they would prefer a crayon in autocad

Bill Maddox

[sfaust]

is the crayon the perfect icon? Probably not. but if functions fine as is and changing it would give very little to the program. So I would place this as #1,345,654 on my list of desired improvements.

[david.metcalf]

During Revit training, I have new users confused with the pencil and the snap mode setting indicator. They attempt to use the box indicating the end snap to pick the snap point rather than the pencil tip as in AutoCAD. So I have to make sure they pay attention to me when I explain the meaning of the snap indicator and pencil. They still may revert to old habits, or just are not focused at the beginning of class. :)

[dhurtubise]

I'll ahve to go with the family. I can think of about ...1,345,654 things i would like the factory to fix/change before the icon.

[trombe]

I just sent this to Autodesk Product Feedback:

I have used Revit since 7 and like the program very much. In many many ways it is brilliant. There is one thing, however, that bothers me and that is the crayon drawing cursor icon. That thing struck me as ill conceived when I originally moved from ADT to Revit and still remains an irritation for me and apparently others (I was at a recent Revit seminar here in Jacksonville, FL and did a little survey of other Revit users. They were also rather disappointed with the drawing cursor icon). There is no way to be delicate about this. The crayon is cheesy, childish and cheapens the program. Besides, unless you are left handed, you probably do not hold a crayon (or pencil if you must call it such) in that manner. In addition, in case this has escaped anyone, Revit is a CAD program not crayon (or pencil) and paper. It is an unnecessarily obvious and silly metaphor. Something like a well designed bright vermillion dot with perhaps half gray tone crosshairs would be just fine in my opinion and the crosshairs would be a added visual clue for the alignment. Please give us an option or bail us out of having to use a most aesthetically unpleasing and illogically atavistic drawing tool. I know there are other pressing and time consuming improvements you are making to the program but this should be a simple programming task and considering that this particular tool represents the essence of the program and is used more extensively than any other it would really give it a quality boost in exponential proportion to the effort. Thank you for your consideration.

Bill Maddox


Dhurtubise..I agree mainly..,
but Bill, I suppose it would not be the end of the world to have an option, but I really hated the AutoCAD cross hair axes !! with or without a box, and was quite happy to see the Revit method and find it works fine.
I would be gutted if I had to go back and use the cross hairs or any iterations thereof !!

dhurtubise....otherwise agree with your ..succinct comment...
trombe

[Gadget Man]

To me the "crayon" or, more appropriately, the "pencil" icon is just fine - it describes EXACTLY what the tool does - drawing a segment of an object rather than picking some other object as a base using the other option - the "pick arrow".

However, I have to agree that, if anything, the "pick arrow" icon is too similar to the standard "modify" icon and this confuses beginner students a lot...

[STHRevit]

It is an interesting thing with the icon.
When i first opened Revit, not that long ago really, it did stike me as somewhat primitive to use a pencil icon, made me think of MS Paint, or some amature cad program like Turbo Cad. But o be honest, i don't even notice any more, I find i am too busy trying to get stairs and ramps to work properly.

[tomnewsom]

meh. it could be a floppsy woppsy bunny wabbit for all I care. it does the job :)

[clog boy]

I don't give a rat's arse as long as the tip indicates the business end. Actually I only notice it just now and I still don't give two sheds about it.