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Funky Appearance Manager

TomD.inPDX
17-Peridot

Funky Appearance Manager

Creo 2.0 M020

Anyone else have very limited visibility of their appearance icons?

I can't seem to stretch the windows or increase the visible appearances.

The comparison is a WF5 training screen.

Appearance Manger Funky.PNGWF5_appearance_manager.PNG


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1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

21 REPLIES 21
Constantin
13-Aquamarine
(To:TomD.inPDX)

Hi Antonius,
I can only compare to F000 where it looks alright...App_manager.jpg

Thanks bernuth. I remember something like that in Creo 2.0 F001 as well.

Hello, Antonius.

If you switch from small icons to the big ones and back again it will solve your problem.

Best regards, Vladimir.

CropImage.jpg

I did try that (of course) but I get this: Still can't size the window manually.

Appearance Manger Funky II.PNG

Creo 2 M010

am.PNG

Oops... yes, M010!

I reported it to Support... who said theirs works fine

Thanks for the confirmation, Jakub

My referencing M020 must have been freudian...

PTC support reported that this is fixed in M020.

Indeed, the tech tested it in F000 by mistake

You are welcome. I bet the tech support is on Creo 2.1 where everything works.

Wouldn't be surprised...

Patriot_1776
22-Sapphire II
(To:James62)

Well Jakub, I've been on Pro/E long enough to say EVERYTHING never ALWAYS works....

hehe,

Well said, Frank.

Patriot_1776
22-Sapphire II
(To:TomD.inPDX)

Oh, and. BTW, I loathe the new appearance manager. Blech......

Yeah... I have to agree with you Frank. The new Appearance Manager is not my favorite enhancement. I don't know what was so bad about the old one. It worked. It made sense. It was concise. I'm not sure why we changed it... but the new one is confusing and takes some previously easy-to-use features and makes them difficult.

I'm still scratching my head on this one.

I scratch my heard any more or any harder and I'll be bald.......

The old one worked fine. Now, it seems so much less intuitive, and far more time-intensive just to do......what we were able to easily do before. How is that "progress" or "more efficiient"?

My only explanation is perhaps that, starting with the WF interface, PTC started firing all their experienced software developers and replacing them with people that Mac and Solidworks fired.

I think they've completely lost their sense of direction and customer needs. Can they fix it? Dunno. do I hope they DO? Certainly.

I don't think I'm going to give them anymore of my free time without something in it for me though......

The entire UI has been seriously compromised for usability. It started with WF where someone decided Pro/E needed a facelift to look more like the "other guy". Now with the "ribbon craze" it seems the whole operation was outsourced for convenience. I've seen "collage projects" that looked very much like this. "Pretty" but totally unusable. I don't know how PTC is going to dig out of this one.

Does PTC even have a "focus group" to determine how to "present" the product?

I know at Planet PTC Live 2012, they had a UX (User Experience) focus group. Actually it was a series of focus groups. I worked with a very pleasant and thoughtful young lady named Deb on the user interface for PTC Customer Support. We spend at least 90 minutes ripping through the current interface and jotting down ideas to improve it.

There were also groups focusing on the Core Modeling, Detailing, and other areas. By the time I tried to sign up, all those other areas were taken. FRANK needs to get on one of those UX teams! They'd better give the PTC rep a flak jacket for that interview.

But to answer your question Antonius... yes, they actually do listen to customer requests. Some say that most people love the new interface and only a few curmudgeons on here dislike it. Many times I go with my gut... and my gut tells me that's not true. My gut tells me more people dislike it than like it... unless they're brand new users and they don't know the way it used to be. I'm sure new designers out of college love the new interface. That doesn't make it better actually... it just makes it new.

I'm working as fast as I can to learn C++, Java and Javascript so I can write my own applications using Toolkit, J-LInk, Info*Engine, and Web.Link (if it's still working once I acquire the knowledge to operate it). I feel like maybe if I have the ability to design my own tools, I can bring something to the table to benefit everyone. Right now it's so tough to develop applications, most people don't bother. The few who do are pretty well paid!

Has anyone found a means to select solid surfaces within AM ?

The only way I can seem to get to them is to select solid surfaces before using AM.

Maybe they've sorted this in CREO 2 ?

Whoever re-wrote AM didn't understand how appearances are used in CREO: didn't understand object-action action-object paradigm, didn't understand how surface collection techniques work and didn't understand that UNDO is important. Perhaps they'll get the Measure Tool Team to fix it - how many iterations of that have we seen?

It would be interesting to see how PTC design these interfaces because their process is crap - right through to the QC of them. They preach gated processes but dont seem to use them themselves.

There's some previous discussion on this link

Hi Burt...

It seems to me that they want you to grab the Solid Surfaces first, then apply the color from the Appearance Manager (or from the color bulb in the menu).

However, there's another way. I'm not saying it's a great method or anything... but it does work.

Go into your config.pro file and set logical_objects to yes (if they're not already enabled). Why in the world this isn't the default and enabled for every single model is beyond me... but it isn't). Next, you have to use the model player to reset your model. Once you switch the logical_objects setting you need to do a complete "force regeneration" on your model before Creo will recognize logical objects for the model. I don't know why... it's just the way it is.

So... go to your Model Player. Turn on "Regenerate Features". You can optionally turn on "Display Each Feature". Rewind the model to the very beginning and step through a few features... click Finish to skip the the end. This will force regenerate your model and activate logical objects.

Now, select a surface, right-click and select Solid Objects. Select Insert->Model Datum->Reference or just pick the Reference datum icon. In Creo the sequence is different but you should still have the Reference icon. This will create an Intent Surface encompassing all Solid Objects. You can selectively include or exclude other surfaces if you wish... this is a nice feature.

Once you've created a Reference feature, you can pick any color from the appearance manager, select the Reference feature from the model tree, and the surfaces will immediately recolor.

I realize this is a bit more work but it gives you the action-object functionality back.

I sense I may have made things worse. I know it's a pain in the neck and I agree on the measuring tool, too. I'm just trying to give you a solution other than the one you had. As I said, it's not a good solution... but it is something cool to try.

Reference datums are probably the most under-used datum type to come along since the old Evaluate datum. Anyone remember those? Two points for anyone who can actually still remember how an Evaluate datum worked and the method that more or less replaced it.

Thanks!

-Brian

model_player.png

Nice tip Brian, I sometimes use to click on part name at the top of the model tree to assign the color to the model.

model_tree.JPG

What I don't understand is why is it not possible to change color of a part from the assembly.

When you change part's color in the assembly and then open the actuall part you can see that the color in the part file didn't change. Is there a way to change this behaviour?

I use the Evaluate feature from old Model Datum menu and I am new user of this sometimes leg breaking CAD.

I like it cause when I choose to measure distance between planes it actually only prehighlights planes before each selection. Not points or edges and other unnecessary entities like the new "enhanced" measure tool does. So the menu to pick specific kind of entity actually gives you selection filter which is great. Then it saves all the measurements as parameters into one feature. Too good in combination with mapkeys.

Btw I don't use the appereance manager at all. My models are always all grey. There's just too few colors in this thing.

Patriot_1776
22-Sapphire II
(To:TomD.inPDX)

Ok, so, am I missing something, or is the "from model" ability now gone as an "enhancement"?

Really annoyed.....again.

No, "from model" is now iconized in the edit appearance in the upper right corner.

Patriot_1776
22-Sapphire II
(To:TomD.inPDX)

Yeah, finaly found it. Why do I need to spend eternity trying to find where they buried all the previously easy-to find commands? Still give the new interface an F-.

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