Modeling 2005 (v13) Migration - Tips and FAQs

[John Scheffel]

I am starting this thread to document tips and answers to frequently asked questions about Modeling 2005. The thread is open to everyone, but please don't post questions or discussion here. If you have the answer to a question that people migrating to 2005 keep asking, please post the question and the answer here. If you have any tips for using 2005, post them as well. If there are relevant threads with further discussion, provide links if you know how. I would like to keep this thread as a quick reference. People can start new threads for questions and detailed discussion.

We have been testing 2005 for a couple of months and have several people trying it with no training. I have noticed that a few questions keep coming up. I will post them with the answers as I have time.

[John Scheffel]

Several people have asked if there is a way to get the old style "Main Task Bar" back. This was the two column menu on the right that has been replaced by the new slide out toolbar on the right, which is also called the "Task Bar". As far as I know there is no way to get the old style back, but you can alter the new Task Bar to make it more like the old style.

Click Edit, UI Settings, open the Task Bar tab.
Uncheck Show Icons
Optionally uncheck Show on Mouse Over if you don't want the menu to pop out or change until you click one of the icon buttons.
Click any button on the right side to open a menu. Click the Pin icon in the upper right corner to pin the menu open.
You now have a text only menu similar to the Main Task Bar which stays open. There is no option to show text for the icons on the far right, but if you hover over them it should pop up a tooltip describing what they do.

You can use the new up/down double arrow buttons to set which portions of the menus to make visible.

All of these settings are persistent, so when you exit and restart the Task Bar should be as you left it.

Note that the "Modeling Main Tasks" toolbar which was on the right side in version 12 is still available, and can be activated from Tools, Customize, Toolbars.

[John Scheffel]

This thread contained some disussion of a question that has come up a lot (plus some other good tips). When doing a 3D move, the method of specifying a precise move distance has changed. You no longer automatically get a menu where you can enter the move distance.

One method that works in 2005 is to click on the arrow and start dragging the face. As you are dragging (keep mouse button depressed), type in the distance and Enter. This will work even if the User Input Line is turned off, but if you prefer to see the number you that are typing, turn it on from View, User Input Line.

[John Scheffel]

Here's another one that comes up a lot. Modeling 2005 defaults to a new method of Dynamic Rotation when you click Clrl-Middle-Mouse-Button.

In previous versions Dynamic Rotation used a predefined rotation center. If you clicked near the center, it rotated about the screen XY axis. If you clicked near the edge of the viewport it rotated about the screen Z axis. You could change the center of rotation with Right Click, Set View Center.

After installing 2005, the center of rotation is determined by where you click the middle mouse button. Regardless of where you click, rotation will be about the screen XY axes. To get rotation about the screen Z axis you now use Shift-Clrl-Middle-Mouse-Button, which will also be about the click point.

Once people get accustomed to the new method they may prefer it. It is similar to other CAD programs I have seen.

But you can restore the previous Dynamic Rotation behavior. If you right click in the viewport, there is a new sub-menu named Rotate Center. It defaults to Follow Mouse (the new behavior), but you can change it to several options which are similar to the old behavior, including Selected which is similar to Set View Center. When you change it, you may notice that an icon in the View toolbar now has an orange background. You can also use this icon to toggle the rotation center behavior.

The rotation setting is persistent. The behavior at startup will be the same as the last exit.

Added Nov 28, 2005 as a result of this thread
The Set View Center command is still available under Tools, Customize, Commands, View. If you want the rotation center to shift to the center of the viewport as it did in previous versions you can add this command to any of your Toolbars. You can add it to the right click Viewport menu from the Menu tab by opening Viewport Right Click under Context Menus, then switch to the commands tab and drag Set View Center into it.

[John Scheffel]

Here is another question which has up a few times. It was discussed in more detail in the OSDM 2005 user interface, resource requirements thread.

In previous versions of Annotation you could click the Move Text button and move any text in the Drawing. In version 13, users often complain that they can't move some text items.

Some text items such as Cutaway text and the Section Line letters are now defined as "Calculated" text rather than "Manual" text. When you open the "Modify Text Position" dialog, the Calc check box is not checked by default, so you cannot select or move Calculated text. If you check Calc, then you can move these text items.

Another workaround is to add the "Move Text (simple)" command to one of your Toolbars from Tools, Customize. This command will move either type of text by default. Even better is to add the command to a context sensitive menu as suggested by John van Doorn in an earlier post to this thread. That's a nice enhancement to the right click menu for Text which should be part of standard Annotation.

[John Scheffel]

Some people have complained that the new Slide Out task bar covers too much of the viewport in 3D Modeling and especially in Annotation. There are a few issues with the way this new Task Bar works.

When the menu slides out it covers part of the active viewport. If you have positioned the model or drawing so you can see the area of interest, the viewport may cover something that you need to select.
Regardless of how large or small the dialog is, it covers the entire vertical space on the right which is fairly wide.
The dialog cannot be moved if it is blocking something you need to pick (unlike the smaller dialogs in previous versions).
For these reasons, some people don't like it. Hopefully CoCreate will improve the Task Bar in version 14, but until then here are a few tips that may help.

If you pin the Task Bar so that it no longer slides in and out, the right edge of the viewport will be shifted to left edge of the Task Bar. This may not sound better since you lose that viewport space permanently, but some people prefer it. Once they have positioned the model or drawing, the menu does not pop out and obscure something they could see before and need to select.
You can adjust the width of the slide out menu. First pin it open, then grab the left side of the menu and move your mouse horizontally. You can make it just wide enough for one column of buttons instead of two. The downside is that you cannot read all the section headings, but some people like this mode. If you combine this with turning off the icons (as described above), you can reduce the amount of scrolling required in this mode.
You can gain considerable viewport space by closing the Browser Bar (Structure, Drawing, etc) when you aren't using it. You can quickly toggle the Browser Bar on and off using the F12 key.
You can hide the new Task Bar by using F9. The menu will still pop open on the left when you click any toolbar button that opens a dialog, but it gains some space. This might be a good option for people who mostly work from their own Toolbars or the old Main Modeling Tasks toolbar, or have adapted to using the new right click options and copilots more than the menus.
If you need to do something in the viewport that does not require seeing the menu (such as dynamic operations with the CoPilot) you can use the F11 key to make the viewport full screen, then press F11 again to return to normal view once finished.

[John Scheffel]

The How to always have the advanced options available thread contains some tips on how you can customize Modeling 2005 to automatically open the Advanced Options menu for selected commands. If there are commands for which you would always prefer to have the advanced menu, this will eliminate the need to click the green arrow every time.

[clausb]

John & others, now that the release of the successor of v13 is imminent, what if we moved the topics covered here into the OSDM FAQ list at http://www.clausbrod.de/Osdm? After some time, we could then drop the "sticky" flag from this thread and instead make the current OSDM 2006 (v14) migration woes "stick".

What do you think?

Claus

[John Scheffel]

OK by me. Once v14 is released we can start a new migration thread and stick it, then unstick this one.