Can we have a forum for posting Civil product wishes? It would make it much easier to review and discuss wishes vs. having to dig them out of the general forum.
Neil Wilson (aka Neilw)
Power Civil v8i 08.11.07.245
AutoCAD Civil 3D 2018
Phil Chouinard:There is a huge amount of work that needs to be done before then, though.
Maybe I'm just bass ackwards, but wouldn't you typically first get user input and then do a huge amount of work? I'm just sayin'....
Oh, we definitely are going to be soliciting user input, but you just have to believe me that there is a great amount of work that needs to be done before that -- that is what we are currently looking at.
Phil,
One minute you guys say you are really close and the next you say you are so far away...... I also know you are talking to certain users out there. I strongly feel you need to open up the lines of communication to the general userand not just the CADD administrators in the big DOTs and consultancies. This comminity site seems the perfect place todo just that. One problem with just consulting with CADD Admins is many of them no long do real design work and have lost touch with what is required in todays environment.
There are many ideas out there, some may actually be good.
Brad
Hmmm... maybe I am looking at this from a different (and possibly closer) perspective, but I do not recall anyone stating (publicly or otherwise) that "v2.0" was "really close"... only that it was currently being worked on. And AFA "I also know you are talking to certain users out there", being one of the folks on "the team", I know of no instances where what I believe you think is happening is currently happening, at least not in the context of beta, alpha, pre-alpha, pre-pre-alpha, etc.
"There are many ideas out there, some may actually be good."
It seems that there are 2 issues in this thread. One about allowing a new forum for Civil wishes and one about why that is important. I certainly cannot answer to the 2.0 version of forums and from what I can tell; Phil has covered that pretty well. As far as wishes for Civil products or things you might want to see added, I stand by the fact that the Bentley Civil developers regularly watch these forums and are very receptive to requests and needs of their users. Take a chance and offer some wishes, along with justification, and you will see how well the process works.
As for CADD administrators being out of touch, I take issue with that statement. From the CADD administrators I regularly talk with, we are very involved with what our users are doing. We hold frequent meetings to find out what is working and what needs to be improved and pass that information on to Bentley. Please try not to generalize based only on your experience as it is unfair to the CA's that work hard to help their users.
As a CADD Manager who is frequently asked to put in billable hours on Projects, I have a distinct advantage. I get to use and manage both the drafting and design software.
I have been is situations where I did not have the authority to submit CR's but wanted to offer suggestions for improvements. I frequently use this forum to put bugs in others ears to see if my idea for improvements also sounds good to others.
I (almost) always submit any CR idea as a formal CR but frequently post the same information here. I also used to work for a DOT and I can tell you that when we (as the DOT) asked about a change, it always received a response. The answer was not always yes, but it frequently resulted in that suggestion being added to the product at some point down the line. A formal CR submission will also always solicit a response - something that occasionally does not happen here.
Putting the CR in the subject line is the most direct way of indicating a post is a "wish list" item and is fewer characters, leaving more room for other information. I'd say it is equally important to specify the product in the subject, since this forum deals with MX, InRoads and GEOPAK. (Power Civil has apparently gotten a bit more cloudy, as there are now two flavors of that product.)
Finally, it is also good to specify version numbers since older bugs have frequently been stomped out by newer releases, but the version info is more appropriate for the body of the post than the subject line.
Charles (Chuck) Rheault CADD Manager
MDOT State Highway Administration
I have only used Power Civil for close to 2 years so I don't have much experience with how things work in the Bentley world, but when I see big deficiencies in the software that should be fundamental in any design application I can't help but wonder why they have not been addressed after being in use for so many years. It leaves me thinking that there is either a lack of response to the end user's needs on the part of the development team or there is a lack of input from the users or there is a disconnect between the development team and the end users. So far in the many cases where I have presented issues I have with the software, the usual response is a cumbersome or inadequate workaround and ocasionally a bug report. I don't know if there is anything being done to resolve the problems and honestly, based on how long the issues have been around, I doubt there is anything being done about them.
I don't like to be negative but this is my perception based on my experience. Others obviously feel otherwise and seem quite happy with things as they are. Our perceptions and experience are no doubt highly influenced by the type of work we do, the software we use, and the support resources we have available to us. In my case I feel my software has some serious deficinecies, so serious that I am reluctant to recommend it's implementation for our company in spite of it's many strengths. I really like Microstation and Power Civil for the most part, and I wish I could commit to it, but the deficencies I have encountered leave me doubting it should be our tool of choice.
If anyone is interested in what I percieve are these "serious deficienies", please review my "wish" posts in the forum. I will continue to post more in hopes it somehow makes a difference. Unfortunately for us it appears that we will have to move on to another solution.
Really Steve Meyer... do you really hold "requent meetings"? How frequent are the requent meetings? Sorry man, I'll buy beers at the next conference ;-)
But seriously Phil, this exhibits the post subject "forum wish list"... how come this forum doesn't underline misspeled words for us?
Granted, most other forums are much simpler than this one; none of the other forums (I'm ever seen) make users pick their own tags. If the categories here were better arranged, it would eliminate the need for making us pick our own tags. Unless users put the product/version/application/tool/option/setting directly in the subject line, it makes getting and following information in this forum rather cloudy. Does anyone else think this?
Here's my wish list for a better forum: 1 - better categorization of products 2 - eliminate the need for tags, or just automatically tag for us 3 - add "word cloud" capability 4 - eliminate the need for the copy/paste pop-up window 5 - add automatic spell cheeker capability 6 - improved search capability (based on thread or subject or date, etc.) 7 - better navigation controls (top and bottom of screen) 8 - get rid of all the white space - leaving more room for content (is king after all) 9 - add a calendar view showing posts 10 - add a "you are here" breadcrumb trail to every page 11 - add an icon for posts with 'files attached' 12 - use more font colors variations 13 - better categorization of products 14 - get rid of all the white space
Thanks for glistening.