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No "Picking menu" in English version

Verfasst: Sa 27. Nov 2010, 17:55
von acz88
I am trying to use the English version of z88 but I am unable to get the "Picking menu". Page 19 of the user manual says to press the "^" key but on an English (QWERTY) keyboard nothing happens when that key is pressed, or any other (straight or shifted) key.
Unfortunately there also isn't a corresponding "Picking menu" icon on one of the toolbars or any of the menus.
Any help is welcome because the program otherwise looks appealing to me.

By the way:
1- Page 19 of the manual says that the "Picking menu" is a button but a button is something on a toolbar. It now only seems to be a key on the (German) keyboard.
2- It would be very handy if all shortcut keys would also be listed behind the corresponding menu items, such as is customary in most user interfaces.

I can read German but writing and speaking is a bit difficult. I hope you can read English.

Verfasst: So 28. Nov 2010, 09:47
von acz88
Update: I have added a German keyboard layout and now I can get the popup "Picking menu".
But it is hard to select points. It seems that the "node chain" isn't working as described in the manual. Selecting a point and then entering an angle in the popup gives strange results: 10 degrees selects 90 degrees in one direction. 20 degrees selects a complete cylinder.
Finally having managed to set the correct constraints on the piston_rod example, I tried to run the solver with the default and several other settings. But all I get is an error message: "Error at SIMCASE in Z88manage file. Please edit file." And I lost focus on a popup window so I have to kill the Z88 program to regain control of my screen.
It looks like Z88 needs some additional work to be useful.

Verfasst: Di 30. Nov 2010, 22:22
von Troll
Dear acz88,

first of all, thanks for testing Z88Aurora.

We tested for all the bugs you mentioned, and found out this:

- We allready came across the problem with the US-keyboard layout last
week. The reason is, that a standard US-layout has a "^" key but it
doesn?t have the same meaning as on european keyboards.

- You are right with the manual, we?ll have to fix that.

- The "node chain" feature has caused some trouble, giving strange
results before, but this can change depending on the OS, the part,
and the view. We are permanently trying to improve the algorithm.

- The SIMCASE-error is rare, but has happened before.

Well, as you can see we are allready at work to improve Z88Aurora.
This means, we are going to have an improved version 1.0a out in the next weeks, with these bugfixes:

- The "Picking Menu" and the "Pick less" feature will be moved to the F6
and F7 keys, which are available on every keyboard.

- The manuals will be corrected and updated.

- The SIMCASE problem will be solved

- Several other bugfixes and impovements will be implemented.

Unfortunatly we can not recreate the "loss of focus" problem, by now.
Can you tell me, when this happened? And please post some infos about
your computer: Modell, CPU, Memory and OS.
Maybe then we can track the problem.

Greetings,

Troll

Verfasst: Di 30. Nov 2010, 23:43
von acz88
I would suggest putting the "Picking Menu" on the right mouse button. That is how normally popup windows are activated.

I discovered an additional problem: I am unable to deselect points with the < key. With a German keyboard layout that key doesn't seem to be where it is on a real German keyboard (I have a Z in that area but on a German keyboard there apparently is a key left of the Z/Y). With a US keyboard layout the < key (some shifted key at the lower right of the US keyboard) at first does seem to do what it should, but after pressing the "Apply" button no points are actually deselected.

This is how I can reproduce the "loss of focus" problem:
- press the "Solver" button on the menu,
- in the popup window select "Linear strengh determination" (which is the only option),
- press "OK",
- press the "Run" button on the menu that appears on the right of the window, it will show a popup with the text "Start calculation by pushing the OK button. The window shuts down after the calculation has finished",
- press the OK button,
- a popup will appear saying "The z88manage.txt is wrong! Look at the statusbar."
- Put a window of another application over the Z88Aurora window, and minimize that other window.
- Now the last popup of Z88 isn't visible anymore. Only the "Start calculation ..." popup is visible, and of course the main Z88 window. But neither is active anymore. The only way out is killing Z88.
- Ah, wait, I found a solution (or workaround). If I put the window of the other application again over Z88, and minimize it again, then the Z88 error message popup is visible again and I can proceed normally. Strange.

I am running on a Dell Latitude D630 notebook with an Intel Core 2 duo CPU T7500 at 2.20GHz with 3.5GB of RAM and operating system: windows XP professional version 2002 with service pack 3.

I am looking forward to test the updates.

Verfasst: So 5. Dez 2010, 11:26
von Troll
Dear acz88,

putting the picking-menu on the right mouse button, would be a great solution,
but unfortunately this causes problems with the RMB being used for rotating the
view.

Thats why most of the CAD/FEA-programs out there don't have context-menus.
Those that do usually require a more complicated shortcut for rotating/panning like Shift+RMB.
Rearranging the whole input/menu scheme is a large piece of work, that will be done
for future releases. Maybe we can even enable to user to create own shortcuts and use context-menus.

Now for the focus-problem:

Yes, it can be reproduced, but it generally is a XP-Problem. On Vista and Windows 7
you can select the disappearing popup and close it.
But since this is not satisfying, we found a way to fix the error and will include the changes in release 1.0a.

There also have been some problems with X11/gtk-programs loosing focus on Mac OSX
in the past weeks, which we cannot fix by ourselves (seems to be a Mac<->X11 problem), that's why I was so interested in your setup.

We will make an announcement as soon as the new version is available for download.

Regards,

Troll

Verfasst: Mo 24. Jan 2011, 05:16
von Mahes Rajakaruna
I am having the similar problems picking nodes. It would be beneficial if the English userguide (Figure 3) is written for a US keyboard.

Verfasst: Di 25. Jan 2011, 08:31
von auroraIco
Hello,

we?ve changed the functional keyboard layout already (now the picking menu starts with f6). The new version is online for 2 weeks.

Regards,
aurora_ico