Connect - will it ever get fixed?

Reggie,

No, I've run out of time...and obviously patience. How about we start by dealing with the 20 or so open defects I've already filed since product release (not to mention the ones in beta that still aren't fixed). It seems pretty pointless to keep spending all my time logging issues that may or may not get fixed at some unknown point in time.

I don't believe anybody could complete a real project with this product. At least not if they are trying to incorporate any new "features" like parmemetrics or items. I've try, given it my all and now I'm screwed because I can't deliver files that are stable and have no idea when or if they will be.

I don't want to take this out on support people because they've been dealt the same crappy hand as the customers. This was clearly a management decision to shove this out the door prematurely. Now you guys are on the front line trying to defend a really bad position because somebody in the rear pushed thru a bad plan and I'm telling my client "Sorry your building doesn't really need doors does it? Well maybe you can have them when someone at BSI gets their act together." Maybe they were right and I should have used AutoCAD like they wanted me to.

Unknown said:

The good news is v8i SS4 is in the works. 

SS4 is Bentley admitting that CONNECT is not ready for the big wide world. If it was they wouldn't be releasing an updated  V8i version 

stuartw said:

SS4 is Bentley admitting that CONNECT is not ready for the big wide world. If it was they wouldn't be releasing an updated  V8i version

Not sure this is a worthy statement. Lots of projects will be running on V8i for years to come and rely on addons etc that are not 64bit etc. Bentley shouldn't be criticised for providing updates to existing apps.

When ACAD ported to 64bit there were lots of bugs in ADT for years.

Unknown said:

Not sure this is a worthy statement.

Agree with you for 100%. But it's "stuart's style" to formulate anything in very strict and negative way against Bentley.

The quoted sentence ignores completely the fact you mentioned that there are multi years projects that cannot be switched to new the version in a middle of its lifecycle regardless how good or bad the version is.Maybe the same user will start to use CONNECT Edition in parallel for new projects, but they will maintain V8i for a long time.

It also ignores a fact there are plenty of discipline-specific applications on top of MicroStation (Bentley Map, AECOsim Building Designer...) and standalone software using MicroStation engine (PowerCivil...) and many customers cannot migrate to CONNECT Edition (even if it will be perfect and without bugs) without these application will be available and tested in the same way as MicroStation. And with all delays I am not very optimistic first versions of the mentioned apps will be released earlier than during the second half of this year, so the migration could happen in 2017. And during this time, V8i versions of the applications will be maintained and new versions released in the same way as V8i (SELECTseries 4).

For me, there is only one issue, but very serious and Bentley are loosing credit pretty much: Lack of communication and ignoring customers' questions. Bad things happen in a life, in software development they happen every day. So why it is so big problem to say "We are working on extra feature / we found a has-to-be-repaierd bug" or whatever else?

With regards,

  Jan

Unknown said:

Not sure this is a worthy statement.

We all have opinions.

Unknown said:

Lots of projects will be running on V8i for years to come 

Why? If the file format is the same you can use SS1, SS2, SS3 or CONNECT!!

Unknown said:

Not sure this is a worthy statement.

We all have opinions.

Unknown said:

Lots of projects will be running on V8i for years to come 

Why? If the file format is the same you can use SS1, SS2, SS3 or CONNECT!!

stuartw said:

We all have opinions.

Yea... and there will always be some dumber and more pointless than others.. whether unwitting or not.

stuartw said:

Why? If the file format is the same you can use SS1, SS2, SS3 or CONNECT!!

You obviously haven't worked on very large infrastructure type jobs. See Jan's post above.

flak jacket on :-)

Unknown said:

You obviously haven't worked on very large infrastructure type jobs. See Jan's post above.

May be not but we are talking plain old MicroStation here with no addons. 

stuartw said:

May be not but we are talking plain old MicroStation here with no addons. 

So? Going back to your original 'argument', the appearance of an update to SS3 just does not mean that Connect has failed. It does not follow. Applies regardless of whether you have the luxury of not having to provide BIM deliverables using an addon like Aecosim or not.

stuartw said:

If the file format is the same you can use SS1, SS2, SS3 or CONNECT!!

This is huge misunderstanding. DGN V8 produced by mentioned versions is the same in a similar manner as all XML files are the same format. Yes, they are, but it tells nothing about their content and if a particular application is able to interpret the file.

For the whole history MicroStation is (fortunately) designed in such way that if there is a new element, but still correct accordingly to file format specification, it's simply ignored. DGN V8 file format is designed it allows to add new features without breaking backward compatibility, so it seems the files are the same, but properly speaking they are not.

There are plenty of new features in CONNECT Edition that are not fully compatible with V8i, especially 3D parametric tools, also Acute3D references are not supported by V8i now etc. There is no "V8i compatibility mode" available (but it would be nice ;-), so if I will trust the format is the same as you claim, I will be surprised probably soon after conversion/data sharing, printing and other mechanisms fine-tuned for V8 will start failing simply because a user clicked and used accidentally a tool that produces something MicroStation V8i doesn't know.

Imaging all new features, the backward compatibility is in my opinion incredibly good (and part of known incompatibilities are probably bugs), many SW producers don't care about it at all, but even with such good system I know many CAD administrators that will not allow to use CONNECT Edition because any potential threat is too big threat and to potentialy have to repair broken workflows is a catastrophic scenario influencing many people targeting tense deadlines.

With regards,

  Jan

Unknown said:

DGN V8 file format is designed it allows to add new features without breaking backward compatibility, so it seems the files are the same, but properly speaking they are not.

Yes, SS4 will probably introduce all those Element/Display Handlers to allow the 32 bit V8i apps to 'handle' all those new Connect elements and export/print them.

Looking at the new bits planned for ABD SS6U1 and Prostructures SS8, there will also be DWG 2016 schema / Object Enabler and IFC4 compatibility updates, minor Dynamic View section graphics config, as well as a the Connect Client / PW Connect, Windows 10 support.

Not sure if the new .imodel format would be attachable.