Complaints Archives - Page 2 of 8

Twitter chatter on Monday’s article about using ASME

The article from last Monday entitled To what extent should a company comply with ASME standards on their drawings? generated a fair amount of Twitter chatter. Here’s my rather vane attempt to organize these interesting discussions to share.

@fcsuper: To what extent should a company comply with ASME standards on their drawings? http://goo.gl/fb/7jkqF #solidworks

@SeanDotson: @fcsuper Well said. We “tweak” it to fit our needs as well. [link]

@DevonSowell: @fcsuper comply with ASME? 100% but none do, 13 yrs 44 clients, haven’t see any comply or come close, Mil contractors the closest [link]

@DevonSowell: @fcsuper same client ” I want the minimum amount of Engineering to make and ship our products” [link]

@Edsonius: @DevonSowell @fcsuper some clients don’t want change so compliance from what they’re used to doing means spending $ to be current=#ignorance [link]

@fcsuper: @SeanDotson I cover that tweaking briefly in my #sww11 presentation too. Opened some eyes, I think. [link]

@fcsuper: @DevonSowell those clients may or may not pay more in the long run. It really is about finding min necessary for some companies. [link]

@solidmuse: @DevonSowell @fcsuper If we had to comply with ASME 100% we would be out of business. It is that simple for many companies. [link]

@fcsuper: @Edsonius @DevonSowell i am seeing a move towards compliance, but many smaller companies (who mite benefit most) don’t understand value [link]

@JeffSweeney: @fcsuper It is harder for them to get and see the ROI [link]

@fcsuper: @solidmuse @DevonSowell what areas of #amse do u find burdensome. [link]

@fcsuper: @JeffSweeney yup…I know that from experience. [link]

@Edsonius: @fcsuper @DevonSowell value comes with the cost of being bit on the buttocks (for u @SteveOstrovsky) ‘cuz of non-compliance – #changeishard [link]

@DevonSowell: @solidmuse @fcsuper If we had to comply with ASME 100%… I agree Anna, so do my customers [link]

@DevonSowell: @fcsuper @solidmuse what areas of #amse do u find burdensome, me none. My clients don’t see the value of compliance, and I see their point [link]

@SteveOstrovsky: @Edsonius @fcsuper @DevonSowell Here here. We don’t need any non-compliant buttocks walking around. [link]

@fcsuper: @DevonSowell @solidmuse I am curious what u thought cuz I know #solidworks is not 100% compliant w/ #ASME [link]

@DevonSowell: @fcsuper @solidmuse #solidworks is not 100% compliant w/ #ASME it should offer that, don’t you think? [link]

@fcsuper: @DevonSowell u’d think that should be something they’d want. [link]

SolidWorks World 2012 is on Valentine’s Day (luvification letter included)

Heart Yes, it is true. SolidWorks World 2012 will be from February 13-15, 2012. It’s on Valentine’s Day! Maybe SolidWorks Corp is trying to schedule the event around other major conferences in southern California? Maybe someone didn’t think about the fact that many of us not only have to get approval from our boss at work, but now we have to get special approval from our boss at home?

Well, SolidWorks Corp has decided to help out. They created a new justification, or luvification, letter to help potential SolidWorks World 2012 attendees get approval from their spouses to be away on Valentine’s Day.

From their new weblink:

DS SolidWorks Corporation understands that SolidWorks World 2012 will fall on Valentines Day in 2012. Unfortunately, scheduling around other major events in southern California, such as the MD&M show, requires us to push our conference into mid-February next year. We are sympathetic to the many spouses that may be away from their loved-ones on Valentines Day. This justification, or luvification, letter was written to aid in getting spousal approval for attending SolidWorks World 2012.

SolidWorks World Luvification Letter

Dear madam or sir,

I am writing to you [spouse’s name here], who I love, to request permission to attend the SolidWorks World 2012. It is highly important that I attend this significant event because I believe the conference’s opportunities for technical training and networking with SolidWorks users worldwide can help me accelerate my career. In turn, that will help me bring home more bacon (and other such required groceries).

Don’t worry about me enjoying myself. I’ll be too busy with more than 150 technical training sessions and three long General Sessions. Then there’s the Special Event where I will congregate with other individuals who are missing their spouses. Yes, dear, I will miss you something fierce. The pain and agony of being away from you on Valentines Day will not be bareable. Therefore, the very next weekend, I’m taking you on a very special trip to [insert appropriate location and activities here] without the kids.

Thank you in advance for your consideration, and please let me know if you need additional information on specific conference opportunities and activities. I look forward to your positive response to my request.

With great love,

[insert your pitiful name here]

I originally posted this “luvification letter” in the SolidWorks Forum. And in case someone missed it, this is a joke. 🙂

Hidden SolidWorks Commands – compiled by Scott Baugh

SolidWorks Help file is notoriously unhelpful at times. It has evolved over the years to improve its usefulness. However, there are still many under-documented functions within the Help file or commands that are completely undocumented. One day in January 2011, Scott Baugh asked a sincere and innocent question in the SolidWorks area on Eng-Tips.

Does anyone no (sic) where I can find a document with hidden SW commands. There are some key strokes and commands in SW that are not always listed in the help, or if they are they are overlooked very easy (sic).

From there, a long thread of comments grew. Someone mentioned that users can print out a list of keystroke assignments. This isn’t what Baugh was looking for.

Then, the list of “hidden SolidWorks commands” began as people submitted commands they felt were obscure or impossible to find in the SolidWorks Help file. It wasn’t long before Baugh offered to compile the list into a document. At first, the idea was to build the list in a discrete document. However, Deepak Gupta suggested GoogleDocs.

From there, Baugh built the list of “hidden SolidWorks commands”. There were three types of items added to the list: commands that are truly undocumented, commands that are under-documented (full functionality isn’t described), and commands that were too hard to find within the documentation.

Baugh then brought the topic over to the SolidWorks Forums, where the discussion further exploded. SolidWorks staff chimed in to address several points, but also to learn. Jim Wilkinson provided several detailed responses to help bring clarity to the conversation. Through his efforts, he also discovered several areas where improvement to the SolidWorks Help file is needed.

The Hidden SolidWorks Commands list is now a treasure of numerous golden nuggets. It’s not long, yet it can take awhile to fully explore. Check it out. If you have any further suggestions, feel free to leave a comment here, or in either the SolidWorks Forum thread or the Eng-Tips thread.

Hidden SolidWorks Commands

SolidWorks World 2011 Top Ten requests

Each year, SolidWorks users vote on the changes they’d most like to see included in SolidWorks. This year, voting was conducted in a special area on the SolidWorks forums. For the amount of attention this list gets, it should be noted that the top vote-getter on the Top Ten List didn’t get much more than 120 total votes. There are several important requests in this year’s list. There are also some that leave me wondering, “what’s the big deal?”

Top Ten List

Angle mates that don’t flip at random (Yes, we need this!)
Better utilize processor cores (Yes, of course!)
Option to dangle instead of deleting (A cool option that could be useful.)
SolidWorks should cleanly uninstall itself (Done! …supposedly in 2012.)
Freeze Features (Again, done! …supposedly in 2012.)
Enhanced Equations Input & Editing & Linking (Again again, Done! …supposedly in 2012.)
Convert a Solid Body into a Surface body without having to delete, offset, or knit faces (Ok, cool idea, but aren’t there more critical changes needed?)
Make the ideas section (in the forum) available all year, not just for SWW (huh?)
File compatibility between versions (Every year this is on the list. Every year this is not implemented.)
Pressing Escape key should immediately return control of the interface (This ESC key request again? Yes, but let’s move on already.)

Vote for your ideas to improve SolidWorks

Without much fanfare, a new feature was added to the SolidWorks Forum under the SolidWorks World area. Its called Ideas. Heres a link (you’ll need to be logged into the forums to gain access to this area). In this new tab, you’ll be able to create and vote on ideas on how to improve SolidWorks. Presumably, the most popular results will be presented at SolidWorks World 2011. So, if you have some zany ideas on how to make SolidWorks better, go to Ideas and submit your idea. Be sure to vote for great ideas submitted to others.

As of right now, it appears that the most popular Idea tag is “Drawing” and the second most popular is “Drawings”. I think that speaks volumes about where SolidWorks needs to be focusing their resources to improve SolidWorks. Happy voting!

What silly drawing workarounds are you using?

Melissa Appel, DS SolidWorks Product Definition Specialist, started an engaging forum thread on the SolidWorks Forum. She invites SolidWorks users to answer the question:

What are the silliest workarounds you use in drawings, and what is the actual goal?

To date, there are 124 responses. Most comments cover one or more particular cases where a silly workaround has to be used in order to acheive desireable results.

There are many topics covered. Several comments are about well covered (and mostly resolved) topics, like the elimination of the Dimension Palette. There’s a few solutions to problems some users experience. Other topics cover little problems, like the fact that a user is forced to double-escape from the Ordinate Dimension command before a new set ordinate dimensions can be started. Then there are big topics, like the fact that SolidWorks doesn’t provide any method to break dimension extension lines around other leaders and extension lines (unless they are actually cross through an arrow).

There’s a lot of good information in the forum thread, but I’m sure there are a great number of topics to cover! Check our the forum thread and add your own or comment on existing topics.