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Subject: Re: Status Bar? #1
Author: Christopher Wright
Date: 1970-01-01 00:59:00

>I've had to do the same thing. In the Ansys 55 "mesh toolbar" there is
>a button there to do this, but for those of us who still remember the
>"E,P" it's not a big help.

I've been an ANSYS bigot (term used by NASTRAN bigots ;-> ) for most of
the last 20 years, and I'm a little uncomfortable mentioning a competing
product on XANSYS, but COSMOS/M is a hands down winner in usability
issues such as this. I've found a lot of things with COSMOS that I'm not
real happy about, but usability isn't one of them, and ANSYS Inc might
profit by a look as how others do interfaces.

The status of such things as active coordinate systems element types and
real constant sets appears from a hot key activated dialog box which also
allows changing certain display and default options and goes away with
the click of a button. COSMOS also has self-prompting input which is a
great help when you know the command but forget the input parameter
sequence. (Like the AAT, mat,real,type ...or is it real,mat,type... which
has confounded me for years) No such problem with COSMOS, and I spend
less time flipping through manuals or on-line command help: context
sensitive, BTW; the help key pops up a short description of the command
I've half-finished entering. Finally the screen layout is a lot less
cluttered and the graphics window isn't obscured by a lot of extra
windows and palettes. I can do good work with a 15 inch monitor, even a
13 inch monitor in a pinch.

I'm not looking to generate any flames 'better' or 'more user friendly,'
(both terms equally applicable to TNT and FEA software); I'd be happy to
chat with anyone on this topic since it's a real hot button of mine, but
better off-list, I think.

Christopher Wright P.E. |"They couldn't hit an elephant from
chrisw@s... | this distance" (last words of Gen.
___________________________| John Sedgwick, Spotsylvania 1864)
http://www.skypoint.com/~chrisw

Posts possibly associated with message #244AuthorDateScore
230Re: Status Bar? #1Ernst Hustedt1999/01/14 
231Re: Status Bar? #1 -ReplyMark Tate1999/01/14 
232Re: Status Bar? #1Monte McGlaun1999/01/14 
233Re: Status Bar? #1Jean-Pierre Dube1999/01/14 
238Re: Status Bar? #1Dan Bohlen1999/01/15 
242Re: Status Bar? #1David Ballenger1999/01/15 
244Re: Status Bar? #1Christopher Wright1970/01/01 
246Re: Status Bar? #1Xiao Gong1999/01/15