Rick Dorrington

Glad to share it Dave. Kevin, just as I would expect from you guys. That's why I'm surprised. Stuff happens and things slip through. If you fixed it once I'm thinking it shouldn't be too hard to fix it again. Or maybe it's not that simple. And since we're telling the whole truth here I recently came across a little aluminum bottle opener. The kind they give away at shows and other places. I pondered the mass, volume and other pertinent factors and decided it was worth carrying around. I still can't twist off a Corona.

Sure, every challenge has a solution. We could use Solidworks too to do things that IC doesn't. Maybe throw in some Inventer, Pro-E and Solid Edge as well. That ought to cover pretty much everything. The least amount of software installed on your system the better. Windows works well if you never use it and never install any software on top of it. I have used pdf995 and it does get the job done-it was happily uninstalled when IC apparently did pdf. The thing is that IC gave us this tool and it doesn't work. I find it absolutely inconceivable that this omission made it through QA. Someone had to notice this. So is this a marketing thing to advertise that IC makes Pdf files to communicate with others? The fact is that it doesn't work. We're not playing horseshoes here. (This is like a word processor that prints your documents with none of the vowels.) Remember, software is like keys on your keychain. Say what? Years ago an older coworker said to me one day "You sure have alot of problems for a young guy." Well I had the world by the cajones then and asked what the heck he was talking about. He pointed to my keychain which had about fifty keys on it (I was important y'know) and said these life altering words, "Every key on that chain is a problem." Today I have 2 keys - My house and my car. Cheers

Chris. How about the missing symbol problem. This has been brought up several times and it seems to be being ignored. Having Pdf capability is great but if the symbols don't show up then the Pdf is useless. The drawing is incomplete. I'm actually surprised that this hasn't been all over the board. Or are we the only ones having this problem?

De Nada

I noticed this the other day. If you pick the part from the browser it will not work. If you select the part in the scene it will work.

We have noticed some unusual crashing. Thought it might be related to our (usually unstable) Cam. We have had the GL2 since version 4 with no problems. We will keep an eye on it and send you whatever develops.

Our titleblock and everything else from our template seems to work just fine.

While we're here. I have also noticed that .icd files created previous to V5.2 do not work very well with the PDF exporter. Has anyone else noticed this?

Beat. It wasn't my intent to start a pissing contest. Windows is certainly much better than it used to be. I don't have much trouble with W2K, probably because we have really decent hardware underneath it. I'm a firm believer in using the right tool for the job. As Sulli says, it might not be practical for everybody to own a Mac if the resources are not available. And it is true that there are some areas of software that are limited, hence we use IC on Windows. You have obviously lived on the other side of the fence and can appreciate that almost everything about the Mac environment is far superior. All else being equal, and given the choice of using a platform to achieve a result, I would choose the Mac every time. You probably would too. And you know that most people cannot understand what the big difference is because they never lived with a Mac. Anybody who has used a Mac for any amount of time is converted. I've seen it a dozen times. I can tell you this. When it comes to putting my own cash into a system I choose the Mac. Not only are they better but the computer will be useful years beyond any PC that you might purchase. As I've said before, we have ten year old Mac's (some older I think) that still provide useful duty every day around here. Not only are they useful but they also require little if any maintenance. They just keep running. Try that with a ten year old PC. I don't think so. One of the things I love so much about IC is the feel of the Mac. In my opinion there is no doubt that IC is the best implementation of software I have ever seen on the Windows platform. Stable, well designed and fun to use. What more could you want? If only our CAM software could do the same. Oh well, I guess you can't have everything. Rick

Beat, We've had to give in as well for alot of things. We still use the Mac a bit because our old CAM software runs on it - however, the software is way out of date and we have not upgraded a Mac in 5 years or so although we do have a few newer IBooks and I also use a newer Mac at home. Chris is on the right track with the Postscript vs PCL thing. PCL doesn't cut it. Postscript is a very mature page description language and is well supported in the print/graphics industry. Don't even try to send a PCL file to a print house, they'd laugh you off the planet. The way the Mac handles files is also much different to the PC. I can take almost any file format you want (graphics/text) and make it print perfectly in no time. Or place it into a Word doc or whatever and it's not a problem to do anything you want with it. No hassles. One of the big differences is the way the Mac displays things. The Mac monitor is 72 dpi - exactly the same as the number of points in an inch. Fonts and lines and stuff are usually layed out in points ( or some alternate such as picas ). That is where the whole WYSIWYG thing comes from. Your document will print the way it looks on the screen. Windows uses something like 70 points to the inch (don't quote me on this) so what you see on the screen is kind of close to what you might get but not exactly. It may seem like a small difference but when you are laying out text/graphics or other elements in a document that you expect to print it can make a HUGE difference. Especially if you have a large document like a manual with page breaks and other typographic stuff like orphans/widows. We won't even go into the whole colour thing, that's another issue altogether. As an example, I created a 2 page document in Word (front/back) for IronCad to send to potential customers. (They asked us to be a reference account) The sales department liked it so much they wanted to use it as a sales tool at shows. I sent the file up front so they could print it off whenever they wanted to and the file went berserk. Windows just could not format the file in a manner that would print properly. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the file and it works beautifully on the Mac. It prints exactly as it displays. Any time we have a request for logos or pictures or something we almost always have to hook up with the requester through our Macs because the office staff can never supply files that are satisfactory. I've been working with both OS's for ten years ( Windows since V1.0 / Mac since V6.0 )and I just know what works. I can get at least 3X as much work done on a Mac as on a Windows machine. No contest. BTW, Microsoft might even admit that Office for OS X is the best product they make. It puts Office for Windows to shame. Rick

You boys need to get a Mac. We have office staff trying to do this stuff all the time and inevitably it ends up being done a whole lot easier and with the quality you want on our old Macs in the programming office. Windows just doesn't cut it.

Hey Dave, I think we tried this once before. Check out http://www.ironcad.com/support/community/index.php?showtopic=304

Finally an answer. Thank You. Just out of curiosity, what sort of time frame does "near term" mean in Georgia? I've found in the past that most people have very different perceptions of time, especially when described in an abstract fashion. Confucius: Man with one watch knows the time - Man with two watches not quite sure. (He didn't have an internet time server)

Sounds good, then we won't have to worry about the blue screen anymore. And those ascii graphics - hold me down boys. Dos rules.

Got it. My favourite thing now is the new style of dialogue boxes, The POP-UNDER Brilliant

More like having a GPS system in your car. Yes, OS X is veeery lush looking - all graphics are pdf based. The new Imac is a blast but if we're talking Cad here we should be thinking about the dual G4 desktop systems. Not too much software available? Huh Apples website lists over 20,000 titles, that's right - 20,000 plus 3616 of them written to take advantage of OS X. All others can be run inside an OS 9.xx window. You should be able to find what you're looking for without too much trouble.

This is a great tip. Thank you. Very useful.

Geoffrey, Do any racing?

You know what Microsoft says, " Enjoy the XPerience".

Eric, That's where I was basically going with this. Why half-ass it when you could just do it correctly. And you're absolutely right in your assertion that if IC wants to be taken seriously then these tools and other add-ons should be useful in a serious way, meaning the conformance to a standard.

Realistically, I don't see any reason why IronCad users should have to run around looking for accurate hardware. Why not just get the sizes correct and be done with it. We machine parts sometimes within a hair of a clamp/bolt or other fixturing device and we need to know that a tool spinning 20,000 rpm and travelling 300 ipm is not going to hit it.

We found that the Socket Head Cap Screws are not to standard size either. We haven't really investigated any further but I suspect that other screw/bolt/nut sizes are incorrect as well.

Sorry, I didn't think it was that ambiguous. Trying to put a knurl on a model. It's a turning knob. Straight or diamond knurl, both would be nice.

Was wondering if anyone has a bump for a knurl. If not, any pointers on making one? Thanks

Check out: http://www.ironcad.com/support/community/index.php?showtopic=308