The largest modernization effort in Alibre's history. Every dialog - reconsidered.
Complete Dialog Overhaul
Every dialog product wide has been thoughtfully reconsidered and optimized with these guiding principles:
✔ Top to bottom flow
✔ Hide inputs until they are usable
✔ Declutter and simplify wherever possible
✔ When possible, remove extra clicks
✔ Consistency of design language
✔ Simple, direct language and inputs
✔ Be as visual as possible
Uncluttered, Smaller, Less Intrusive
On average, dialogs are about 20% smaller up to almost 40% in some cases, without sacrificing functionality or increasing mouse clicks. Thoughtful hiding of unusable controls allows dialogs to show only the most important information, easing your brain's burden of ignoring things that can't be used while maximizing screen real estate.
Vertical Layout
A vertical top-to-bottom approach guides your eye and workflow down the list of options, simplifying navigation and increasing speed. Multiple tabs have been replaced with other approaches, ensuring all options are readily available in one place.
Dark Mode (For Real!)
Dark mode has been extended into dialogs, now allowing a full dark mode experience. System Options and the 2D drawing work area still remain, but we're 96% of the way there! It's so nice :D
Dockable
Dialogs can be docked neatly to the top left of the workspace, keeping a consistent location that's equally accessible to the workspace and Design Explorer - minimizing mouse travel and keeping the model as visible as possible.
Tooltips
Additional information has been sprinkled through the product to bring requirements, special cases, and other information to your immediate attention. This increases clarity about what's expected and reduces the need to dig through Help.
Optimize for Readability or speed
Two modes allows you to choose a style that most suits your experience, eyesight, monitor resolution, and general preference. Regular is geared for efficiency, lower screen impact, and less mouse travel. Spacious is geared for a more relaxed feel.
Input and Dropdown Icons
Icons adorn inputs to make it clear at a glance how the input will be interpreted.
Favorite Inputs
Create a list of favorite linear and angular values and quickly apply them to any input with a click.
More Default Control
The ability to set the defaults of some commonly used tools such as Project to Sketch are scattered throughout the product, reducing repetitive mouse clicks if you've settled into your preferred workflow.
Delightful improvements everywhere
Everywhere throughout the product, thought has been put into messy, inconsistent, or annoying interactions that disrupt your flow and make the experience feel full of friction. Those have been replaced with simple, intuitive, and efficient interactions.
Complete Layout Overhaul
There's too many to count - we've looked at every dialog and relentlessly iterated to create a more efficient, more usable, more delightful experience. Removed clicks. Added clarity. You're going to love using it.
So much user feedback
We've compiled user feedback old and new from years of requests and made a huge effort to address as many as possible - in this example specific inputs being larger. Individually they can be hard to justify focusing on - but cumulatively they make a huge difference in usability and delight. We're ecstatic to have buckled down and put in the work.
Non-Blocking Notifications
Ever typed in a value into a fillet or constraint and get that annoying popup that tells you it won't work? You have to stop what you're doing, press OK, and try again. Then it happens again?
That sucks and gets you out of your flow. New notification style popups silently alert you to the same information without stopping you from working. Press that fillet spinner increment button all you want! :)
Enhancements & Bug Fixes
General
Part Library - Alibre Toolbox
Standards will begin rollout over the next few months to include:
ANSI Inch ANSI Metric ISO DIN JIS GB
Download via System Options > All Workspaces > Toolbox
Cleaner Side-by-Side Uninstallation
Remove residual files, folders, and shortcuts when uninstalling in a side by side installation scenario
File Association with side-by-side install
Tighten behavior of Alibre Design's integration with Windows for proper File Association of native and imported CAD files when side by side installations are present
Log File Cleanup
Log file getting unnecessarily cluttered with long and repetetive entries
Toolbox Sample Folder Deletion
Unable to delete the Sample folder from Toolbox folder in the System files in WFS
Import with Fractional Units Set
Issues seen when user imports a file with non-inch model units and the user/s default display format is set to fractional
Drawings
Bend Direction Annotations for DWG/DXF
Now you can annotate sheet metal bend centers with bend direction annotations on your 2D drawing exports, increasing clarity for manufacturing.
Visibility of edges in shaded views
Unable to control visibility of edges in shaded drawing views in some cases
Red BOM Callouts After Reproject
Reprojecting views in a drawing file immediately after doing a "Save All As" makes all BoM callouts go red as the BoM item number changes
Red BOM Callouts after Unpackage
BoM callouts in drawing become sick with red question mark after restoing a Package file and then reprojecting all the views
Wait Cursor in View Creation Dialog
Wait cursor shown incorrectly when hovering over 3D preview window inside the Standard View Creation dialog in Drawing
Drawing Text and Annotation Color
Drawing text and annotation color setting not honored correctly when we uncheck the 2D Antialiasing option in the system options page
Part
Italicized Sketch when Broken Association
Design Explorer not showing Italicized node for sketches when projected sketch segments have their associativity broken
File specific Crash
Opening a particular customer Part file shuts down application
Draft Dialog
Unable to commit the Draft dialog after entering an angle value and hitting Enter key
Reference Plane Visibility
Reference plane is not visible when the extents of the Design result in a plane with no width or height
Exception on File Specific Import
Alibre throws an exception and fails to import this large STEP file
Hole Tool in Atom3D
Launching Hole Tool doesn't open the sketch tools mode in the Ribbon for Atom3D
Sketch Fillet on Popup with Equation Editor
Sketch Fillet tool invoked from pop-up panel fails to create fillet when radius value is selected from Equation Editor
Inserting Plane on 3D Sketch Path
Inserting plane along projected 3D sketch path fails when the 3D sketch contains a circular arc
Mirroring Reference Figures
Cannot select reference lines when mirroring sketch figures
Assembly
Constraints and Flexible Subassemblies
Assembly constraints not honored properly in certain situation when 'flexible' sub-assemblies are present
Bad State from Replacing Dependent Component
Application gets into a bad state on re-opening assembly after replacing a dependent component (i.e. inter-design) without removing constraints
Dark Mode Visibility
Text in Design Explorer when using 'edit here' in Dark Mode is unreadable
Hang when Constituents are Higher Version
Opening an assembly that has a constituent saved in higher version of Alibre Design causes application to hang
Sheet Metal
Crash on Unbend
Application crashes during Unbend and Flat Pattern operations for some models that were created by converting imported parts to SMP
Failed Flange
Flange on a specific edge of a non rectangular Contour Flange fails, but works when additional edges are added to the feature
Incorrect Corner Relief
Incorrect corner relief created with 'Trim side bends' option results in Unbend operation to fail in some cases
Flange Compute Speed
Flange operation takes a long time to compute in SMP file that has around 300 flanges
Object Reference Error
Object reference error on editing a child flange of Contour Flange soon after opening a saved part
Failed Flanged on Lofted Flanges
Flange feature build atop Lofted Flange feature fail when alignment type is changed
Miter Regeneration Failure
Miter generation fails after regenerate (F5) in some situations
Object Reference Error When Closing Sketch Bend
Cancelling a Sketch Bend dialog without drawing the bend line throws "Object reference error" exception
Small Miter Corner Gaps
Failure to flatten and hang AD if mitre corner gap is too small
Edge Selection Lost
Edge selection lost after entering a formula for wdth offset and exiting the field using TAB key in Flange dialog
Object Reference Error
Object reference error when trying to explode a multi edge flange from right click menu in the DE when edit flange dialog is in open state
Reverse Bend Checkbox
Reverse Bend direction checkbox option is not available when editing a Flange feature
Reverse bend behavior
Reverse bend direction option doesn't work correctly when flanges in question were created with miter option on
Dimple Failure
Dimple feature fails with an error after applying a cut in some cases.
Disappearing Bend Centers
Bend Centerlines disappear in some situations when a drawing of a Flat pattern is reprojected after a flange is edited
PDM
API Support For Some Functions
Add API support to PDM. New sample api program to demonstrate api usage
Data Migration Error on Long Paths
Exception in data migration tool seen when migrating an assembly file with very long constituents name and folder paths
Slow Previews
Previews slow to display in PDM Browser's Versions tab when files are not cached locally
Some Subfolders Not Shown in Browser
PDM Browser's Explorer node does not show the sub folders when refreshed sometimes
Delete Permanently Messaging
Discrepancies in messages displayed when trying to “Delete Permanently” an item which has associations with other items
Clear Server Connection after Migration
Needed to clear the server license connection after Data Migration Tool is closed
Unable to delete some properties
Extra Space in the end of a Property name disallows its deletion
Failure to Open some files
Some files which were saved in previous versions PDM fail to open correctly
Files from Migration with very long paths may not open
Cannot open file that was migrated to PDM safe using migration tool if the original file was nested very deeply in Windows file system (very long file path)
Inability to specify user credentials
Server Console is not allowing user to specify alternative user credentials when Server Data Location points to some network location
remember username in credentials dialog
Credentials dialog in Server Console should remember username for network data paths and provide a 'Revert' button to restore the default username
Exception
Exception reported in log file with long stack traces after checking in files to Safe in certain cases
Currently Installed Server Version Incorrect
About dialog in Server Manager Console does not show the currently installed PDM Server version in certain circumstances