The Ribbon

When new software is on the horizon, there’s always a fair amount of flailing about to be the first in line to mention features that are new and improved, or just plain cool. Typically I like to reserve judgement until I’ve had a chance to get my hands dirty, but this year brings new challenges altogether.

I’ve been struggling with what I can say, what I can’t say, what’s fair, what’s not, and I’ve been fighting with myself over what to write in the book, what to blog, and where to draw the line.

As an old CAD Manager, it’s usually the features that aren’t heavily marketed that tend to tickle me the most. I will say this about 2010 – if you don’t take the time to look under the hood and simply expect this to be “another release,” you’ll not only be sadly mistaken, but you be plain sad; I’m seriously impressed with what I’m seeing.

We all know Civil 3D runs on AutoCAD and AutoCAD MAP, but some forget that each of those products have been updated as well (AutoCAD parametric constraints, for example, have a direct impact on boundary resolution in land surveying). Put the 3 together, and you have the strongest civil/survey/gis package on the planet. It honestly is tough this year for me to know where to start, but I’ll start with the obvious, the Ribbon.

We first saw the Ribbon in the 2009 products, and I must admit, I didn’t like it – I suspect I wasn’t alone. Search through the hundreds of posts regarding the 2009 products, and you’ll see hundreds, if not thousands of screen grabs, but you won’t see many grabs of the Ribbon. It was just… clunky. It just can’t be compared to the ribbon we see in 2010.

I’m an open guy. If I think it works, I’ll tell you. If I think it doesn’t, I’ll tell you. And more importantly, if I things there are things you need to be wary of, I’m gonna let you my know. Toolbars, for example – for years I’ve been saying Autodesk wants to get your eyes off the keyboard and onto the screen. One hand for reading notes and flipping through construction documents, one hand on the mouse. And it makes sense, but not when the interface doesn’t cooperate. I’ve gone so far as to help you create toolbars for Land Desktop and Civil Design, but in practice, I don’t use them myself. Civil 3D 2010? Not only does the interface cooperate, it’s context sensitive (i.e. if you select an alignment, the ribbon changes, and all alignment editing/labeling panels open) – I may actually quit typing if this keeps up!

First there are some things to be mindful of:
1. If you’ve relied on tiny pictures on toolbars for your bread and butter, it’s time to stop. I’ve been preaching this forever. I recently taught a class to a group that had several “button pushers,” and it never fails – while the majority of the class has completed 6 commands and are fired up to move on to the real meat, there’s still that one guy looking for the erase button on the modify toolbar because the AutoCAD elves mysteriously moved things overnight. Type E and be done with it – learn the commands, they’ll help you in a pinch.

This may be my favorite: “Scott, ya, this is Norman. I can’t find the button to unisolate a layer, and I’ve been looking all morning.” “Hi Norman, first try the F1 key, and if that turns up nothing, try Googling, and if THAT doesn’t help, try typing LAYUNISO. The command was introduced nearly 10 years ago.”

You just can’t get used to the toolbars – they’re small, they move, and their images are in constant flux. Get used to typing, learn to type the commands you are issuing and you can’t go wrong. Watch for changes in the interface that will help you, steer clear of those that won’t, and keep an open mind if something (like the Ribbon) shows up in the next release.

2. If you’re in the habit of customizing the interface, documenting the customizations as your way of “standardizing” the firm, and you force customization compliance – you’re strangling your users. You know the story – give a man (or woman) a fish and you feed them for a day – teach a man (or woman) to fish and you feed them for a lifetime. If you teach people how to use the tools they have, not only will you breed out of the box thinkers, but the thought of upgrading to another release won’t suck the life out of you. I’ve seen too many CAD Managers lose their positions because they over-customized the software. Install the software, tweak the file locations (ctb’s, stb’s, company templates, etc.), walk away. You need to run with the new features for a bit; check out the changes and give them time to sink in. With improved UI in all the 2010 products, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised and amazed.

3. Here’s my rule: I install the software, you take it upon yourself to study it, learn it, and make it sing. And if that takes time out of your day after hours, it will be an investment that will pay off nicely in the long run. Along the way, management needs to invest in your desire to better yourself to the benefit of the firm. I think users need to prove to management they are willing to go the extra mile and make a personal investment. I think management ought to reciprocate. If you customize the software, more power to you. But should your computer die, I’ll re-install, but I won’t redo any customization. If it takes you 8 hours to re-install your customizations… well… you may as well go home. I can’t bill for “I needed to re-configure my CUI and all my workspaces because my custom menus got trashed but I think it was a registry issue resulting from a crash on my Vista box because I failed to install the service packs after I got bit by that virus Norman warned me about while Googling “unisolate layer” most of last week.”

Check it out:

The panels can be dragged and dropped into your graphics environment, very nice.

Check it out after selecting an alignment:

I’m not sure I need to say anything else! Pipe ends clean up in profile, cut and fill can be hatched in a profile, leaders have 2 new grips in a drag state – add vertex, move vertex. Right click on a leader (these are leaders in a drag state, by the way) and turn off the tail. A new intersection design tool that smokes, new corridor tools that rock, and oh by the way – it’s noticeably faster and more responsive.

I could go on… it’s a clean, quick package, and I’m exceptionally impressed.

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