This needs to be mentioned. My manager has told me to ask if these issues of downloading new versions is worth the money my company pays for this product. I have been using STAAD now for 12 years but the new programs that Bentley is trying to attach and integrate has been less than desirable with all the program errors I have encountered. I have logged many software disputes but all I get is "download the new version", which doesn't help me because I cannot do this by myself, it goes through a software review from our central office in San Antonia, TX. I need Bentley to prove to my company, in some form, that it needs the new version to analyze any structure whether STAAD, RAM Connections or STAAD Foundation Advanced. RAM Structural Systems is basically useless when trying to ISM STAAD files. Beams are not correctly placed, issues with gravity members or lateral members not being defined correctly when imported from ISM.
I recently completed my yearly review with my manager and I brought up all of the problems I have encountered with the Bentley programs. He agrees with me that STAAD has not been forthcoming with fixing errors, only asking for the model and reissuing another version that fixes what was wrong without explanation and this dates back to 1990 as he has told me.
Personally, I am having a hard time relying on your company to put forth a working version of any of your structural programs because of the fact Bentley keeps reissuing versions of programs we already have without any explanation of what was wrong with the previous version. I have found many errors that have been “Logged” in the most recent of versions that has been supplied to us. It seems that when I find an issue with the recent program it gets corrected in the next version. Am I to assume that I am a beta tester for all Bentley software that is issued to us? If so then other users of this software may not be aware of these problems and are designing inferior structures that could become catastrophic failures in the field.
Yes the behavior Zoom Window and Dynamic Zoom got swapped in STAAD.Pro Connect Edition compared to what it was in STAAD.Pro v8i. This has been addressed by the developers and the feature is currently under testing. The fix should be available in the STAAD.Pro CE Update 3 which is expected to be released this summer.
Actually, the behavior of Zoom Window and Dynamic Zoom are reversed from previous versions and how it is described in Help. I should emphasize that I'm talking about "Help" not tool tips. The behavior described in too tips is opposite from how it's described in Help.
Tank/Russell : Ideally we would like to address every issue that is reported till date in an upcoming release. However practically it is next to impossible to do that. STAAD & RAM products, just like many of the other Bentley products, are used across the globe by hundreds and thousands of users every day. So you can imagine how many issues get reported. Since we cannot address all in a single release, we put in our best effort to prioritize the issues considering their impact and fix as much as we can in one release. Issues that cannot be addressed spills over to a future release.
On that same note, there are lot of issues that get addressed in every release and in case you are not aware, you can find a detailed list of such items in the published revision history
https://communities.bentley.com/products/ram-staad/w/structural_analysis_and_design__wiki/6555/revision-history
In addition, I would like to mention that a lot of development effort has gone in towards launching the STAAD.Pro Connect Edition with the new interface and the new physical modeler. I am not claiming that it is at it’s best. Rather we are improving it every day based on our own testing and based on user feedback. More and more users are adopting the Connect edition and I am sure it would add more and more value to them down the line, as we come up with more releases.
Talking of releases, we are going to have a release every quarter so that newer features and fixes reach our users faster. Our QA process is being bolstered by automated testing in addition to the manual methods that we already use.
So I am really excited about the future of our products and I am very hopeful that you will see the value in using our products too.
Regarding why to upgrade to the Connect Edition, we added some new web pages to cover key features: https://www.bentley.com/en/Perspectives-and-Viewpoints/Topics/Campaign/CONNECT-Edition-STAAD
Regarding defects, we try to fix the most critical issues first and also include other fixes that might be easier to address. Within the first 2 updates many of the defects and enhancement requests we received were, in fact, implemented, just not the issue Tank mentioned regretfully. I'll see if "Defect 795150: Dynamic zoom not working" can be addressed in the next update. Meanwhile I understand that it works fine from the menu.
One of the advantages of the Connect Edition is the update notification and simplified update process, so that we can get fixes to the users more quickly.
No I have not, just the generic letter from Seth Guthrie up there. I'm currently working with version 20.07.11.70 and it must not have this feature because it just brings up the standard right click menu when holding down the shift key.
I'm in the same boat as you, I could care less about how pretty it is, I just need it to function correctly but I am a little fish in a big company and I don't have the administrative rights to getting the new versions installed or even enter a service ticket, I have to do this through our cadd technician and he has to submit it for documentation. I have done a write up that my manager has relayed back to our other offices and the chief engineer of our company to try and get us up to speed on the latest and greatest which seems to have been well received.
My manager has said this seems to be the norm for how STAAD has approached this when he was using it before the GUI was introduced. He would report an issue, they would ask for the code and would send it back fixed and then a few months would go by and a new version would be pushed out. Quality control does not seem to be their strong suit.