Every year at Autodesk University AUGI (Autodesk User Group International) presents their member’s top ten AutoCAD wish list to Autodesk. We at Autodesk try our best at getting them in. The AutoCAD Team has been fairly successful in adding many of the items from past AUGI top ten wish lists including the recent tabs and indents in MTEXT in AutoCAD 2004 as well as many others. While the AUGI wish list on AUGI.com is a great way to get your ideas heard it is not the only one Autodesk listens to and there are many other ways to speak with Autodesk in person and online. For example by posting in the Autodesk discussion groups and by participating in usability studies, Autodesk surveys, Autodesk Product feedback page which goes direct to the product teams, and of course beta testing.
I will write a quick post very soon showing all of ther many ways to provide your ideas or suggestions and feedback to the product teams year around. We definitly want to hear from you and also get your feedback on what our ideas are for future development.
The 2003 AUGI Top Ten AutoCAD Wish List:
#10 The ability to display object properties using a hot-key that opens a popup or tooltip while the cursor is over the object.
#9 A Blank and Unblank visibility command. Would be used when cleaning up leader and extension lines that cross each other. Like a two point break but does not split object, just changes visibility.
#8 The ability to create “paperspace only” layers. Some layers are used only for paperspace objects such as title blocks. When a model is inserted or attached, do not bring “paperspace only” layers in.
#7 A true decimal feet setting for civil engineers. When I get work from an architect I need to scale it down by 1/12, or the architect needs to scale my work by 12. This adds margin for error and cuts productivity.
#6 Provide a VBA Macro recorder.
#5 The ability to set certain properties by viewport. Objects could be assigned different colors, lineweights or shades per viewport for plotting different appearances in different views.
#4 An all new AutoCAD-centric “Swiss Army” GUI calculator with all ‘cal functions and the ability to add and subtract feet and inches, conversion to and from metric, and figure incline angles, and distances, yadda-yadda-yadda…
#3 The ability to automatically correct misspelled words when typing, like MS Word.
#2 Change the copy command default to “multiple”. For a single copy, hit enter to end the command.
And the number one item voted on by AUGI members:
#1 “File” tabs like layout tabs for quick change when multiple files are open. Searching through them in sequence with control-tab, and existing “Window” menu is too slow.
Cheers,
-Shaan
