This, like a lot of things dealing with what are known as 'Gateway' issues, things which are UI in nature or which provides common functionality and behavior, like selection, display, preferences, etc. are a 'work in progress' meaning that we work on it continuously with projects funded for each release but there is no one single big project to change everything at once. For example, in NX 9.0 we introduced the new Ribbon interface, but there are projects in NX 10.0 to fine tune some of the features associated with new interface and we expect that there will be some additional work in NX 11.0 as well. Also in NX 9.0 we completely revamped all of the Drafting Preferences combining several different dialogs into a single new 'settings' format which will be the model for when we update the preferences dialogs for other areas of NX as we go forward. For example, in NX 10.0, the User Interface Preferences got this new overhaul. We're also working on making the Customer Defaults presentation more consistent with what you're now starting to see with the changes that we're making with preferences.
As for some of your other issue, there will always be a separate Customer Default and Preferences set-up. Customer Defaults are intended to be just that, the place where you set what the CUSTOMER wants to see as THEIR 'Defaults' when he starts a new project on NX. Preferences are for things which fall into one of two categories; items that one might wish to change while in the middle of a project or even while working on a specific part file, such as Display setting, selection options, tolerances, etc. And then there are the items which will be saved with the Part File itself which while Customer Defaults might have covered 90% of the cases, there still might be some specific changes that one might want to make which is then saved with that part file but which would have no effect on any other part file already created or which might be created in the near future.
As for the use of the 'registry', again there are certain things that just makes sense such as anything which might be relevant to the particular workstation that you're running NX on, it only makes sense that these setting should stay with the workstation even if their initial 'out-of-the-box' settings were first determined by Customer Defaults. And even here we are constantly changing, reducing what we are using the registry for. Years ago, much more was being saved in the registry than today. Again, another example, in NX 10.0 we've implemented new options to control the content and appearance of the Resource Bar and its 'tabs'. In the past any changes to the Resource Bar were saved in the Registry, however, starting with NX 10.0 these will now be saved in the .mtx file like most other settings and UI preferences, which means a couple of things. First off, since the .mtx file can sort things by application/task, the Resource Bar settings can now be set to specific options on a per Application/Task basis. Also, since these are now saved in the .mtx, that also means that you can have different Resource Bar settings in difference Roles, which also means that it will be easier to save them for use by other people in your organization.
So you see, we are making progress, slow though it may seem as it's an ongoing effort, but it's one with a limited amount of funding and even that funding most be weighed against how we're funding all of the other projects which make-up the effort put forth for each new version of NX.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
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UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
