Autodesk Inventor 2012 Part 1 Marking Menus

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Ah, you feel that? That's the burn in my legs and lungs from the fourth trip this morning up and down 5 flights of stairs. I brought my dog to work today and since we aren't the only ones in the building we have to take our dogs up and down the stairs. So here he is, Murphy the golden retriever.

And before you think it - yes there is no shame in my game. I'm not too proud to feature a cute puppy to help drive awareness of our new products. So lets get into it shall we?

First things first - Inventor 2012. So much to write about here, I'll stick to some of my favorites and start with the new marking menu. Marking menus have been around the industry for a while and those that use them 8-10 hours a day flippin fly around never searching for commands or pallets to update. A flick of the wrist and off to the next command.

With the marking menu, muscle memory will eventually kick in. But with all changes, a transition period is needed to get used to the new menu. Some of you may have already turned it off, but seriously give it a try.

There are two modes you can use the marking menu with. The first is as you see it here on the right, a typical pop up style menu, but with radial access to commands.

The other way is through gesturing. Gesturing allows you to right click and hold, drag your cursor in the direction of the command toward its position. So for example, here if I want to call up the Fillet command while editing a part, I'll right click, hold and drag my mouse toward a 12:00 position, 3:00 for parameters, 6:00 for sketch and so on.

This will change the way you access commands and for power users, finally something that will speed up our productivity from a UI standpoint. I know some of you aren't going to like it so as per usual we give you options and also allow you to customize it.

If you want to customize the marking menu go to the tools tab and select Customize. This will allow you to edit the position, and features you want based upon your environment. So if you always want the same commands to display in the marking menu regardless of environment, customize it here. I don't see huge value in that, but then again to each their own and better yet, we built this tool to be flexible - except for the German version. No customizations allowed! Follow ze prosses!! JUST KIDDING - joke guys... you can customize the German version too. You just have to know ze password... ok, I'm done. Next I'll make fun of how Americans are overzealous and brash... equal opportunity guy here.

Back on track - here's what the customize inteface looks like:

So have a go at this, let me know what you guys change and if you like it better than the default after using it for a while. Next post will be about the expanded mini-toolbars. We did some great work here - if I go the rest of my life and never have to use a standard pop up window to control command options, it will be too soon.

Update 4-21. Added a video to this post for your viewing pleasure.

-Rob

Comments

I like the concept and the idea of the gestures, I just wish the response time of the gestures was faster. I do believe this marking menu/gesture UI to be the holy grail for Iventor design UI.

My wish for next year? Get rid of the double dialog boxes. I either want conventional dialog boxes or I want heads up. I don't really see a need to have both. (yes, I know all the options aren't in HUD dialogs. But the majority of what you need is and if you need more, you should be able to invoke a command to show the rest.

I am also looking for improvements to the marking menu. I want it to respond to the mouse instantly. Maybe give us the option to customiz the sensitivity?

Posted by: Kevin E. | 04/05/2011 at 12:17 PM