Version 29

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User Interface

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
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