Monday, August 22, 2016

Autocad 2017 - The Ribboning

Donde Esta El Skullfuck?

It's been busy busy here, we've got projects coming in the door like crazy - and I've got the tools to do the job.  The only problem I've been running into is the occasional client who doesn't know what the fuck they want (typical), or the ones that know exactly what they want (but don't know how to communicate it).

I banged out a massive 700,000 s.f. warehouse/production facility, then spent twice as long designing (what should have been) a fairly simple access control system.  The guy who sold the job was operating under the delusion that I knew what his client wanted (via telepathy apparently).

Meanwhile, the client couldn't keep anything straight, but instead of figuring it out first then going forward, they had me over-design everything to the nth degree before then going back through the resulting clusterfuck and tweak it to their liking (we are making a pile of money though).

Then it was on to a 180,000 s.f. media production facility upgrade - which I was completely done with when the client started poking around in it and making vague requests (with very specific expectations).

I thought I had him squared away, but then he came back claiming we hadn't sent him updated drawings (we had), and then when we re-sent them, he claimed we hadn't addressed his comments.  Fortunately the client was nearby our office, so we had a quick meeting with him this morning.

It turned out that we had indeed done pretty much everything he wanted - and just had to make a few corrections to the floor plan layout (the one they sent us to go by mind you).  We actually removed two devices that were excess to need, and then talked him out of moving some conduits.

I got those drawings submitted, then it was on to finishing up a 64,000 s.f. office building (inside of a government facility - so, of course, it's not going to be as simple as it should be), and we've got 3-4 more projects ready to go after that (with more to come).

I'm all for it because the day goes by faster (and thanks to some overtime - it makes my paycheck grow substantially).  It will also be nice to have a stack of large-scale projects under my belt when I come up for review (I had to take a little pay cut to come here, and I'm hoping to make it up).

Most important though is having the right tools - and even better than not being force-fed the newest version of Revit every year at my new job has been the fact that (while we have access to newer CAD) we are still ticking along perfectly happy in ACAD 2014.

I might eventually skip up to 2016 like I had at my previous job (fuck 2015 - piece of shit), but since I'm pretty sure these are stand-alone copies (rather than the subscription based license bullshit) I doubt I will worry about it for a while.

A quick review of 2017 seemed to show that they are doubling down on this ribbon bullshit - to the point of eliminating the 'classic view' altogether - although it can easily be 'recreated'.  This begs the question of why the fuck they wouldn't just leave it alone (unless they are just trying to drag the last few people kicking and screaming into ribbonland).

Fortunately, as long as they leave the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) the fuck alone, I'm golden.  The only other feature (there didn't seem to be a whole lot - but it's hard to improve on perfection) that I saw was built-in .pdf import, which would come in handy from time to time (assuming I get .pdfs that aren't scans of old drawings, etc. that import as nigh unusable bullshit (which is most of them).


I'm sure they probably broke some important shit (it wouldn't be an 'update' otherwise), but for now the only changes I have had to put up with here was when they put Windows 10 on our machines - fortunately the only problem I had with it (so far) was one of my printer drivers (other people haven't been so lucky).

Fuck Revit, Fuck Reviteers, Yadda Yadda.  Fuck you if you don't like it, etc. etc.

-Skullfuck.

Next Time: BIM idiot opines not being able to use his shitty model as a deliverable (hat tip to SF Reader 'Hysteresis').