CompuServe Messages

I think there isn't much negativity here because a)there IS a wishlist, b)we all know the wishlist ranks VERY highly w/ the Yost Group, as an indicator of the direction their user-base would like them to be heading, and c)because through their constant presence here, their over-abundent personal support, and their tight, fast, well thought-out code, we know that YG and Autodesk (at least the MM division <g>) care about us and our work. Now, check out the AutoCAD forum…. There's plenty of outright hostility, and I can't honestly say it's all misplaced. For instance, r13 FORCES automatic stacked fractions in dimensions, and (in the c0 release) the numerator and denominator were FIXED at 50% of the full text height — this means that when architects and engineers use their standard 1/8" or 3/32" text heights, they get 1/16" or 3/64" high fraction characters — which are unreadable after plotting and bluelining. Now, how long has Autodesk been providing drafting tools? Did they have ANY architects or engineers beta the thing? Did they listen to them if they did? Heck, 30 minutes after the first shipping copy was in the hands of an end-user this stuff is apparent, but Autodesk (CAD group and marketing) spends countless hours defending its actions instead of listening and helping. (That said, every day, there ARE more and more Adeskers in the forum, and the developer responsible for the stacked fraction stuff is on-line and asking for input.) This sort of "lack of fore-thought" is something we just don't see from YG — on the contrary, it always seems we discover they've given 2-3 times MORE thought to things that we've been ranting about when a new release comes out than what we expect them to! I think criticism is good, but it's just often hard to recognise here, 'cause it's among people who respect one another. Dave