Black Forest wrote: ↑Tue Mar 11, 2025 5:38 pm
I have to say Keith that you are doing a really bad job on all these updates and bug fixes being handled so quickly. Not good man. Because you do this and only your company does this I live a very frustrated life with all the other software that I use. They just don't do it in any way near to what you do. So I am frustrated with 50 other companies because I know it can be done but they just don't do it. Piss's me off. Before you I just accepted it as that is how it must be but now I know different so I am frustrated.
I'm afraid it can often work the other way. Take Microsoft as an example - it seems unusual for me to be able to fire up W11 without an "update" soon coming along, requiring a reboot or simply causing the system to perform at a degraded level until you realise such an update is already partly installed. This ease of update clearly encourages sloppy, untested work to be "rolled out" to the masses. Where I work we now have "guinea pig" testers to check out these "updates" before they are inflicted on the wider business, as they now represent a significant risk to the business. I imagine teams of interns churning this stuff out, despite having little or no knowledge of the end product itself.
Centroid seems to have a happy medium where bugs and new features are dealt with without undue delay. Notwithstanding the fact that they have a fairly small team, the quality of the software seems pretty good. In return for this excellent service, the user base is happy to help out with the testing - and bugs / new features are implemented openly and simply. This is an unusual business model and must have been an act of faith when Keith and the team first set out on that path.
My main issue is the update process which is still quite involved. It's become simpler with the improved wizard and PDF generation but is still quite a chore. I don't expect there is any simple way around this, as presumably the machine configuration parameters often need to change when the program structure is altered at each major revision - a small price to pay.
(Note: Liking will "up vote" a post in the search results helping others find good information faster)
Black Forest wrote: ↑Tue Mar 11, 2025 5:38 pm
I have to say Keith that you are doing a really bad job on all these updates and bug fixes being handled so quickly. Not good man. Because you do this and only your company does this I live a very frustrated life with all the other software that I use. They just don't do it in any way near to what you do. So I am frustrated with 50 other companies because I know it can be done but they just don't do it. Piss's me off. Before you I just accepted it as that is how it must be but now I know different so I am frustrated.
I'm afraid it can often work the other way. Take Microsoft as an example - it seems unusual for me to be able to fire up W11 without an "update" soon coming along, requiring a reboot or simply causing the system to perform at a degraded level until you realise such an update is already partly installed. This ease of update clearly encourages sloppy, untested work to be "rolled out" to the masses. Where I work we now have "guinea pig" testers to check out these "updates" before they are inflicted on the wider business, as they now represent a significant risk to the business. I imagine teams of interns churning this stuff out, despite having little or no knowledge of the end product itself.
Centroid seems to have a happy medium where bugs and new features are dealt with without undue delay. Notwithstanding the fact that they have a fairly small team, the quality of the software seems pretty good. In return for this excellent service, the user base is happy to help out with the testing - and bugs / new features are implemented openly and simply. This is an unusual business model and must have been an act of faith when Keith and the team first set out on that path.
My main issue is the update process which is still quite involved. It's become simpler with the improved wizard and PDF generation but is still quite a chore. I don't expect there is any simple way around this, as presumably the machine configuration parameters often need to change when the program structure is altered at each major revision - a small price to pay.
yeah, if it was simple we would have done it already.
we are close to implementing a Wizard UI page that helps with copying over cnc config from the old cnc12 install to the new one.
over the years its been a calculation of resources.
"would you like these new CNC features and these bugs fixes? -or- would you like some sort of update tool that holds your hand through copying old files to the new install?" we'll get there. I've just been making the executive decision to push on with new features and fixes which will be used daily by tens of thousands of users rather than a feature that will be used infrequently even though it would save 15 minutes a few times a year for the average users.
The executive decision process has been working fine. IMO it is more expedient than decisions by committee or consensus, as long as it is done by a qualified individual or team. I consider Keith qualified.
Perhaps an interim stage for upgrades would be to export settings for tool database/tool height offsets, machine axis parameters, and ATC settings which could be imported into each page of the Wizard as needed. These tend to take the longest time to populate in my experience. Standardized identification for each value/ field would be required. Some of these files can be copied over from version to version, but if there's a change in the SW requirements an older version could cause issues.
Not everyone uses the same features so they could export which features they need and then import the previous values into the wizard page on the new version.
I'm not a a SW Engineer, so I'll leave it to the SME's.
(Note: Liking will "up vote" a post in the search results helping others find good information faster)
Black Forest wrote: ↑Tue Mar 11, 2025 5:38 pm
I have to say Keith that you are doing a really bad job on all these updates and bug fixes being handled so quickly. Not good man. Because you do this and only your company does this I live a very frustrated life with all the other software that I use. They just don't do it in any way near to what you do. So I am frustrated with 50 other companies because I know it can be done but they just don't do it. Piss's me off. Before you I just accepted it as that is how it must be but now I know different so I am frustrated.
I'm afraid it can often work the other way. Take Microsoft as an example - it seems unusual for me to be able to fire up W11 without an "update" soon coming along, requiring a reboot or simply causing the system to perform at a degraded level until you realise such an update is already partly installed. This ease of update clearly encourages sloppy, untested work to be "rolled out" to the masses. Where I work we now have "guinea pig" testers to check out these "updates" before they are inflicted on the wider business, as they now represent a significant risk to the business. I imagine teams of interns churning this stuff out, despite having little or no knowledge of the end product itself.
Centroid seems to have a happy medium where bugs and new features are dealt with without undue delay. Notwithstanding the fact that they have a fairly small team, the quality of the software seems pretty good. In return for this excellent service, the user base is happy to help out with the testing - and bugs / new features are implemented openly and simply. This is an unusual business model and must have been an act of faith when Keith and the team first set out on that path.
My main issue is the update process which is still quite involved. It's become simpler with the improved wizard and PDF generation but is still quite a chore. I don't expect there is any simple way around this, as presumably the machine configuration parameters often need to change when the program structure is altered at each major revision - a small price to pay.
yeah, if it was simple we would have done it already.
we are close to implementing a Wizard UI page that helps with copying over cnc config from the old cnc12 install to the new one.
over the years its been a calculation of resources.
"would you like these new CNC features and these bugs fixes? -or- would you like some sort of update tool that holds your hand through copying old files to the new install?" we'll get there. I've just been making the executive decision to push on with new features and fixes which will be used daily by tens of thousands of users rather than a feature that will be used infrequently even though it would save 15 minutes a few times a year for the average users.
I hope you realized Keith my comment was made as a compliment to your good management.
(Note: Liking will "up vote" a post in the search results helping others find good information faster)
I'm afraid it can often work the other way. Take Microsoft as an example - it seems unusual for me to be able to fire up W11 without an "update" soon coming along, requiring a reboot or simply causing the system to perform at a degraded level until you realise such an update is already partly installed. This ease of update clearly encourages sloppy, untested work to be "rolled out" to the masses. Where I work we now have "guinea pig" testers to check out these "updates" before they are inflicted on the wider business, as they now represent a significant risk to the business. I imagine teams of interns churning this stuff out, despite having little or no knowledge of the end product itself.
Centroid seems to have a happy medium where bugs and new features are dealt with without undue delay. Notwithstanding the fact that they have a fairly small team, the quality of the software seems pretty good. In return for this excellent service, the user base is happy to help out with the testing - and bugs / new features are implemented openly and simply. This is an unusual business model and must have been an act of faith when Keith and the team first set out on that path.
My main issue is the update process which is still quite involved. It's become simpler with the improved wizard and PDF generation but is still quite a chore. I don't expect there is any simple way around this, as presumably the machine configuration parameters often need to change when the program structure is altered at each major revision - a small price to pay.
yeah, if it was simple we would have done it already.
we are close to implementing a Wizard UI page that helps with copying over cnc config from the old cnc12 install to the new one.
over the years its been a calculation of resources.
"would you like these new CNC features and these bugs fixes? -or- would you like some sort of update tool that holds your hand through copying old files to the new install?" we'll get there. I've just been making the executive decision to push on with new features and fixes which will be used daily by tens of thousands of users rather than a feature that will be used infrequently even though it would save 15 minutes a few times a year for the average users.
I hope you realized Keith my comment was made as a compliment to your good management.
cnckeith wrote: ↑Wed Mar 12, 2025 2:09 pm
we are close to implementing a Wizard UI page that helps with copying over cnc config from the old cnc12 install to the new one.
over the years its been a calculation of resources.
"would you like these new CNC features and these bugs fixes? -or- would you like some sort of update tool that holds your hand through copying old files to the new install?" we'll get there. I've just been making the executive decision to push on with new features and fixes which will be used daily by tens of thousands of users rather than a feature that will be used infrequently even though it would save 15 minutes a few times a year for the average users.
Glad to hear you're pursuing both. Fixing the upgrade process is huge, and the current upgrade process is a little more involved (print screen and copying settings, identifying and copying macros, copying tool libraries, etc.) if one hasn't upgraded in a while and has to look it up and poke around to find everything.
2 users liked this post
(Note: Liking will "up vote" a post in the search results helping others find good information faster)
I'm having trouble upgrading from Router 5.24 to 5.30. The Wizard will not accept the Overall Turns Ratio for my rotary axis "A" that I used previously. I downloaded the most recent installer files (yesterday) before I started, so they should be the correct set.
Can someone take a look and help me out?
Thanks,
Gary
Report and Screenshot attached
2. The Wizard now accepts “degrees/rev” as units for the Overall Turns Ratio for rotary
axes in both imperial and metric.
So maybe it wants you to enter 120.0 degrees/rev, instead of 0.00833 revs/degree. That would be more obvious, of course, if the Wizard were able to tell you what units it expects you to enter....
(Note: Liking will "up vote" a post in the search results helping others find good information faster)