Autodesk 2014 Products

Welcome to the future motherfuckers!!!

Time to toss out that dusty old 2013 software, and load up some shiny new products - and see what they broke (er.. I mean... 'upgraded') this time!

One fairly impressive download and install later, and 'TADOW!!!', it's next goddamned year bitches!!!

Opening up ACAD 2014 I was moderately impressed.  I never import settings, but  they apparently listened to their users, because not only did they opt for a BLACK background (rather than the washed out gray bullshit that was the 2013 default), but they also ran the crosshairs out to the edges of the screen, and a few other options were set just like I like them.

Within about 15 minutes I had the Ribbon 86'ed, all of the other b.s. cleared off.  The tabs feature is  redundant, and takes up an inordinate amount screen real-estate - so I ditched it (ctrl+tab lets me scroll through my drawings, and I can always tile the windows).  Within another 15 minutes, I had all of the settings the way I like them, QAT loaded up with my tools, and everything else stripped back, clean, and ready for business.

When I was done, I amused myself by flipping back and forth betwen 2013 and 2014, because they are identical now (with the exception of the new logo in the upper left hand corner).  I have been using it all day today, with no problems.  I'm sure I'll run across an odd setting or two in the next couple of days that needs tweaking, but as far as I can tell they managed to NOT FUCK IT UP, so kudos to the Autodesk Autocad development team - keep up the good work!

The amusing part was that besides ACAD, the upgrade dumped 5-6 other shortcuts on my desktop (mostly ACAD for other disciplines, plus Navisworks, and something called 'Raster Design' - whatever the fuck that is).

But - no Revit shortcut.

I had to go to my start menu (not sure what you would do if you had Windows 8 - see previous post), and drag a shortcut out to the desktop.  That was my introduction to 2014 Revit - it seemed to say 'we are embarrassed by this piece of shit'.  I opened it and looked at it for a few seconds, closed it, and went back to working in ACAD.

Today I had to open someone elses Revit file - of course Revit '14 tried to open and convert the fucking thing (seriously?), so I had to kill it, manually start Revit '13, and load.  I'm not sure when I will have a chance to actually give it a whirl - but I will make sure to dedicate an entire post to ripping it a new asshole.

Speaking of assholes, I had a passive-aggressive little Revit bitch send me a whiny e-mail today, complete with dismissive attitude, gross over-simplification, and (as always) no clue as to what the fuck they are talking about.  I didn't let him know he was getting to me though - I just responded in my cheeriest tone, and let them be puzzled.

Next time (barring a job change) it's time to put Revit 2014 on the chopping block.  I will honestly shit a brick if they have fixed, improved, or added a single thing that resembles useful electrical tools, improves presentation graphics, or otherwise makes the Revit experience into anything other than a high-speed drill to the cranium.

Fuck.