NOOOOOO NX9 use ribbon interface 30

[capnhook]

No, you are wrong about that. A change to NX that alters a universe of users' personal interaction with a purchased product, and purports to deliver magical "productivity gains", is truly something that I expect to be discussed here, and not behind closed doors.

I would think you would put a value on users' opinions.

Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community..

[green]To the Toolmaker, your nice little cartoon drawing of your glass looks cool, but your solid model sucks. Do you want me to fix it, or are you going to take all week to get it back to me so I can get some work done?[/green]

 

[JohnRBaker]

For being a member of the so-called "Reality-Based Community" you sure are having problems understanding a simple statement; "I have NO intentions of NOT continuing to respond in public forums, be it this one or any others, where this topic may be brought up!". Please point out where I've not answered any questions put forward in this thread concerning the changes to the UI being made for NX 9.0.

My request for people to contact me OFF-LINE has NOTHING to do with discussing the pro's and con's of what we are doing for NX 9.0. Perhaps someone who has already contacted me OFF-LINE might be willing to back-up this statement since they're aware of why I asked them to contact me and why it would not have been appropriate to have asked the questions, which I've already asked them, here on an Eng-Tips forum.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[SDETERS]

I e-mailed John a question yesterday. So I would like to ask the beta testers if they observered any slow down and or extra system resources being taken up by this new interface? If you are not allowed to comment I understand.

Below is the question I asked John off line.

Does going to the new Ribbion take more memory away from the system resources from a Graphics card, memory and or CPU point of view? Do we get performance enhancements going to the ribbion versus using the old interface?

I will let John reply with his comment he sent back to me if he wants.

Good topic

Thanks

 

[capnhook]

I am hoping for a reply to your question, SDETERS. We may actually get an answer from Baker, since I read he intends to continue to respond to this topic.

Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community..

[green]To the Toolmaker, your nice little cartoon drawing of your glass looks cool, but your solid model sucks. Do you want me to fix it, or are you going to take all week to get it back to me so I can get some work done?[/green]

 

[JohnRBaker]

In keeping with the idea of being open and above board (but only because SDETERS has suggested it since I normally consider direct email exchanges to be private communications) I'm posting my response, in its entirety (without any additions or subtractions), to his recent OFF-LINE question to me:


The UI (AKA ‘Ribbon’) project, as you can imagine, was implemented with improving productivity in mind rather than pure performance, but that being said, they had strict orders to NOT impact performance, and they feel that they have accomplished both aspects of that effort, improved overall productivity with no noticeable impact on the performance of the system, both in terms of how the user interface behaves or how the underlying NX code executes.

As for the rather formidable looking ‘drop-down’ shown in my example that I posted, be aware that the user has complete control as to which of the galleries or groups of icons as well as individual icons are visible, or if they are located on the main Ribbon tab versus even having to be on a ‘more’ gallery (AKA ‘pull-down’), or if you’d rather have them on one of the ‘side-bars’, which again the user has control over whether they’re shown or not (by definition, a side bar, even if technically ‘active’, will not be visible if there are NO icons on it).

As for the raw performance of the Ribbon UI, it’s hard for me personally to quote anything quantitative since everyone’s systems are different. For example, while I do all of my work on a Dell laptop with only 8GB of memory, it is a fairly fast 4-core configuration with a decent graphics card (for a laptop) however the hard drive has been replaced with a 500GB SSD ‘drive’ and since that swap-out, I have to admit that ALL versions of NX that I’m running on it have seen significant improvements in performance, particularly when starting a cold session and when opening large files (all my files are stored locally on that same SSD ‘drive’, and I’m NOT running under Teamcenter so that’s a factor as well).


I'll let SDETERS add any additional comments with respect to his reaction to my email response to him which I've now shared (at his request) with the general public, as it were.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[capnhook]

What measurement criteria were used to quantify the "productvity gains". Please cite examples.

I am anticipating my managers wanting to know how must faster we will be able to work, seeing how we will have a shiny new user interface.

Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community..

[green]To the Toolmaker, your nice little cartoon drawing of your glass looks cool, but your solid model sucks. Do you want me to fix it, or are you going to take all week to get it back to me so I can get some work done?[/green]

 

[SDETERS]

Thanks John and all for the comments. This is a great topic

With the idea of being new interface is bitter sweet. I go back to my autocad days of custom icons and scripts ect. We went to the new and great Autcad 2000 I think it was, and all of my nice programs, hotkeys, and accelerator customization was junked. Long story short all of my auotcad icons now had smilley faces on them and none of them worked. So with any new interface I have flash back to the autocad days. But with a little bit of work I was able to adapt and make autocad workflows easier and quicker.

Now with that being said the other issue is how NX handles old legacy models, assmeblies ECT. NX does this great. So how long is NX going to hold onto the "old" UI interface?
This has to take up hard drive space to store two different type UI?

Will there now be two different sets of DLX MTX files being stored? Will the ribbon be stored differently than the current user interface?

Once again if these are questions that can not be answered I understand.

 

[JohnRBaker]

For capnhook, we have a process where we rigorously study actual users, both new and experienced, whenever we implement significant changes to the user interface of NX. The last time this occurred, prior to NX9.0, was when we released NX 5.0 (and we heard a lot complaints about those changes as well, but ask anyone if they're willing to go back to a NX 4.0 style interface). This process uses several tools which measures such things as the time it takes to accomplish certain tasks or workflows, the number of keystrokes needed, the amount of mouse travel required, etc. We even video tape the test subjects's hands and faces to see their reactions and physical behavior. The so-called 'usability lab', which is set-up when needed, is often utilized during the alpha and beta process, and certainly was this time with NX 9.0 beta testing earlier this year, as well as taking it 'on-the-road'. For example, at the recent Americas Siemens PLM Connections in Dallas this past June. During the week of the conference many people were asked or volunteered to participate in one of these sessions (another potential benefit if you attend these national meetings) where they not only got to help us gather data about that changes already being implemented but also with respect to some of the 'fine-tuning' which will be taking place over the next several releases. Note that all of this is done only after we had consulted with ergonomic and computer UI experts. And this is not limited to just the sytle of the UI, but also the colors used and other seemingly minor or incidental issues.

As for SDETERS questions, while we have not made a 'carved-in-stone' decision, the idea is that we will continue to support both the Ribbon interface and the so-called 'Classic' interface for at least a couple of releases beyond NX 9.0. The one thing that some people might notice before that is that in the next release, we may not make it as easy (or at least require more explicit user action) to switch from the Ribbon to the Classic UI (for NX 9.0, it's simply an option on the Prefernces -> User Interface... dialog). And while there's obviously some duplication of files needed to support both the Ribbon and the classic interface, they are not significant enough in terms of resources (i.e. disk space) so as to be a determining factor in when and if we remove the old files altogether. And NO there will NOT be TWO different .mtx files or for that matter, different Role files if you do switch between the two different UI styles. We've developed a single file format which uses a super-set of the current data records to record the Ribbon specific changes.

Anyway, I hope that answers your questions.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[SDETERS]

Almost John. Thanks for the feedback. Could you go more into depth about this single file format super set file. At the currrent time we use cohon's customize NX for Windows. This lets any user go to any computer in our company login and get all of special menus they have set up. The Menu files are stored on a network drive at the current time. This works nice. Will this still be possible with this new ribbon UI, Have the Users Super set file stored on a network drive?

Once again Thanks for all the feedback.

 

[JohnRBaker]

While I can't speak specifically to what Rob has done, since I don't personally use his tools (but I know that many people do), I'm not aware of anything that we have done that would prevent him from producing a single set of NX 9.0 compatible files which will work with either the Ribbon or the Classic interface, even if some users on the network were running one style and some the other style. That being said, let me talk to Rob and I'll get back to you if he foresees any issues which will change the approach that he has used with past releases of NX.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[SDETERS]

Thanks for the feedback again. And also for looking into asking Rob about this.

 

[cubalibre000]

I'm a NX user from NX6.
I use NX 8 hours for day and a lot of hours at home.
I'm NX 9 beta user and I assure the users that the new ribbon UI increment the usability of NX and save time.

Thank you...

Using NX 8 and TC9.1

 

[MichaelPrichard]

Quick question for John; I love what I've seen so far in the screen shots (thanks for those), but I worry that I've also read lots of mention of Microsoft development, so I'm wondering if this new ribbon will be a Windows-only UI enhancement? Right now, the unified toolbar (or whatever it's called) isn't available to us Mac users who are stuck in an X11/Motif time machine, and I cringe at the thought of another major release of NX with minimal improvements to the Mac UI. I know we're a small portion of the market, along with the Linux guys I suspect, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I can't imagine that X11/Motif has enough of a UI toolbox to offer a ribbon, so I'd also wonder if there were any plans to migrate NX to the full native Aqua UI on the Mac? I know it's probably asking a lot, but I'm trying to be that squeaky wheel.

Thanks for the updates on NX 9.

 

[NutAce]

Hello All.

Adressing my question to John.
As an engineer using NX I am working with a dual monitor. In fact all of our engineers are using this dual monitor setup.
What I normally do is place all my Navigator screens undocked on my second monitor so I can have them active all the time and still be able to see my full NX desktop on my first monitor.
The one problem with this is alligning my navigators, so they fit neatly on my second monitor. It is difficult and win7 doesn't nicely remember the positions so they tend to jump around with each new NX session. I would like them to be alligned and also fully extended.
Would be a nice addition to the user interface if I can "group" my navigators in undocked position and being able to place them (all combined)
as a seperate window on my other monitor.

Pherhaps someone has an alternative solution or is NX9 handeling this differently now?

Br. Ronald

 

[multicaduser]

A quick question, which versions of windows will NX9 run on, i.e. 7, 8 or both? Thanks in advance.

 

[JohnRBaker]

For MichaelPrichard, I can't comment on the last part of your question relative to any future effort to adopt a more Mac-like interface for Mac-OS versions of NX (despite my own personal feelings, having been a Mac user in my personal life since 1985).

As for your initial question, the NX 9.0 Ribbon Project is for Windows only, Linux and Mac users will continue to use the 'Classic' UI.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[JohnRBaker]

For nutace, as far as NX 9.0 is concerned, I'm not aware of any changes to the behavior of 'undocked' Navigators, irrespective of whether you're utilizing one or two monitors.

As for your general request for advice concerning your current efforts with this, perhaps it would be better to start a new thread dedicated to this specific issue since comments on this issue could get lost in the minutiae of this rather long and sometimes intense thread

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[JohnRBaker]

A quick question, which versions of windows will NX9 run on, i.e. 7, 8 or both?

Since we've already certified (albeit with at least one caveat) NX 8.5 on Windows 8, and since support for Windows 7 is not going aways anytime soon, the answer to your question is a definite BOTH.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[Zrob]

I think its a training problem myself and either companies should keep up with training or it's up to the employees to just train them selves. I was an AutoCAD user mostly and five years ago my company told me to run NX5 and never even considered sending me for training. I had to take it upon myself to request the training and it was not initially approved so I had to ask at higher levels of management and then finally after I researched where and when only then it got approved.

Now my company is making the switch for everyone to get NX, and now we have a good work place training program. This has made a huge difference in productivity.



Currently Using NX8.0

 

[cnc07]

Hi,

I am a Catia user and own a personal seat for machining. I have used NX on and off between jobs and almost bought one personal seat of NX but the dealer failed to honor the deal even after I signed the PO. Anyway first time I used NX back in 2006 and I really liked it and it got even better in NX5, NX6, NX7.
I customized some templates for the machining users. I think NX offers great functionality to customize the dialog boxes for the machining operations. The custom templates I made in NX can help any Catia user to switch to NX in no time for NC-programming. I hope NX folks didn't take that functionality out. Currently I am trying to bring in at least one NX machining seat at my workplace and eventually try to replace all Catia machining seats with NX.

Anyway back to this ribbon interface. I am 100% agreed to the points made by these users
HercalloY wrote:

I think my main gripes with Ribbon 'anything' is that there are three main aspects that really annoy me.

1) You are limited to using the top of the screen only. No matter where your cursor is... you have to move it all the way to the top to enter a command. As opposed to what i can do now... I have the ability to have buttons all around my UI. The most used ones (like sketching for example) are on the side where my cursor seems to usually "sit". And it just seems to help/be more usable/be less annoying.

2) You are forced to click more to achieve the same. You have to click two (and sometimes three) times to start a command as opposed to what i can do now.... ONCE! This is really frustrating to me. I don't care how flashy the UI is. If it requires more clicks to do the same thing.. its annoying. Don't get me wrong.. i'm not a big proponent of clicks=productivity. Because this isn't the case. It's simply frustrating as a user to be able to achieve any command with one click... and then have to use multiple clicks just to start a command like as if you are forced to use a pull-down menu for EVERYTHING but lack the organizational benefits of the pull-down menu system (because most Ribbon UI's are poorly grouped and have been painful in that regard also).

And finally...

3) I can have as many (or as few) commands showing and all be a single press away. This allows me to have great tool/command discovery and flexibility and not 'forget' that i have this tool or that tool at my disposal even if i rarely use it. All while taking up stuff all screen real estate.

CNSZU wrote

For what my opinion is worth, I would advise people to use the full screen mode with a single, customized floating toolbar palette that you access with the alt key.

Advantages are:

Maximum real estate
Only the commands that you use are visible (nobody uses 3000 commands)
Minimum time is wasted moving your eyes away from the work and looking for commands (the palette pops up right where your cursor is)
No time is wasted switching between toolbars (or tabs)
Use mouse gestures for maximum speed

Having this setup allows you to play NX like a piano, rather than getting distracted by the interface.

I really never liked the UI of Catia especially their PPR tree which requires lots of mouse clicking/scrolling. So I ended up writing my own small interface using winAPIs and of course some Catia APIs. However Catia has certain things which are really good.

For example
I can work on Catia for 10-12-14 hours a day without any strain on my eyes. Color and feel of graphics are much better than NX. No matter how hard I tried to customize the color settings in NX. I was never able to achieve the same feel you get out of Catia. In NX the color setting dialog box has very small icons which really puts lots of strain on the eyes, unless there is a way to make them big. So NX could look into improvements, be it documentation/training or software.
Maybe it is their tool-bars which have really nice 3d effect that gives such feel. I hope that NX offers some customization options for setting the colors and style of the tool-bars.

Attached are some snapshots.

* In this ribbon bar there is one major flaw. Save and Undo buttons are very close. If user hits Save instead of Undo then it is not good at least not in Catia where it flushes Undo buffer. So user could accidentally overwrite the file and lose lots of time.

* Moreover this ribbon suits the microsoft office products which are nowhere near cadcam systems. I hope it doesn't cause any problems especially when users want to customize UI. Even if it does then it is not a big problem because users will always adapt to the changes as they have to make their living. However, sometimes it leaves a bitter experience.

One more thing I would like to add is that you don't have to change for the sake of change or because new engineers, designers have a background in office products etc. It is an engineering system which is not an office word or excel to write text only stuff. Change is good as long there is no compromise in functionality.

As far as I know NX is the best cadcam system amongst the ones I have used in my experience. I hope they will keep it that way.

Just my 2 cents.