Re : Ultiboard - Electronic Work bench - National Instruments

[kittmaster]

Hi Nestor I am comfortable with this process and have done it a few times. The issue is the default process can be reimported and there is no way to save this user configuration data. I typically have to reimage my machines every 4-6 months and MS and UB are not part of the image.....maybe they should be but I haven't had time to sort it all out. Is there a way to migrate the keys? Is there an ini file that holds the custom values?

[Euler's_Identity]

"I think it is a disgrace to NI that this software is out there, even moreso because my company actually paid thousands of dollars for this P.O.S!!"

😞  I hear you.  However, I myself am only dealing with the Multisim (as I understand it, that's just the gui and simulator) aspect of it all.  Yes, I too have called it a POS many times, but despite its "features,"  I am still glad it exists -- I'd be worse off without it.  Still, for the price, the price now, it's way overpriced, not ready yet to demand the kind of money being demanded.  It's like I said to NI/Multisim just recently as a matter of fact: to get their competitive price paid by a potential customer, the potential customer must first be presented with competition.  For the price, Multisim is competing with, for examples, Cadence and Altium for the potential customers' money, but does it really compete?  I could see paying $500 for the simulator, for example, but $4000??  $9000??!  True, I understand that to stay in business the asking price must surpass the R&D costs, but there must also be customers left too. 😉 Multisim has a tremendous customer base, but it's shunning those customers as small potatoes in hopes that the deep pockets will, solely due to its price, believe it competitive. ...or at least that's how I see things.   

 

[nestor-sg]

Hi Chris, when you change the shortcut keys, or you customize your GUI, the new assignments should be saved on your User Configuration file. Before you reimage a computer, or move to another desktop, make a backup copy of it, then migrate or reimage and bring that file from your backup.

In Ultiboard, go to Options > Global Preferences, select the Paths tab, and you will see (and you can set also) where your user configuration file is saved, is under the User Settings section. Just go to that folder, locate that file and make a backup of it. Please note that the changes you made are only saved once you exit the software, so you have to exit Ultiboard before copying that file for backup purposes.

As a simple and quick guideline... go to Help > Ultiboard Help, and go to the Contents tab, the second entry from the bottom is called Archiving Data, check it out.

The same backup process applies for Multisim as well.

[kittmaster]

Ah very good, I never actually completed that process or tried to copy that info for data migration. If that's the fix, that will be a wonder thing. Thanks for the feedback All the best Chris

[chtioub]

Hi,

I also use Ullticap and ultiboard since 1995, and I am completely agree.

Ultiboard is a good software, and better every year. But I can not understand why this king of software (some €... ), when an bug is found, or each month for example, NI should send a patch or upgrade.

I can not believe some bug staying one year or sometimes more. Why ?

Now Multisim. Are the developers use this software to develop a board? Ulticap was very simple and powerful. I ask a lot of basic improvement, but they come very slowly.

Just an example : When you create part in multisim. All pins can be created quickly, and with name 1,2,3... If you want to change the name of the pin, you only can do it with mouse. Select entire name and replace it. When you have 100 pins to change, it is very long... long... Mouse is good but keyboard is faster. And impossible to add shortcut here.

Same with ultiboard: when a bug is found, "it will be fixed in next release"... normally...

And us, why do we pay each year? We might wait "bugless" version.

I really think ultiboard is very good, but I think NI is not responsive enough

I really thing multisim (for schematic capture) could be good, but I thing NI should work on it and listen the user.

Have a good work

Message Edité par chtioub le 11-15-2007 08:46 AM

Message Edité par chtioub le 11-15-2007 08:48 AM

[_user32]

Dear users,

Hopefully the suggestions that Nestor has posted have proved useful (thanks Nestor).

Also, even though some of these postings are negative, we do appreciate the feedback, but I do think we need to address these comments as we are striving to make overall product improvements - A) foremost in the quality of the products and B) adding ease of use aspects that make your life as a design engineer easier.  

Electronics Workbench has been around for a relatively long time, within that long history of time, National Instruments has only been at the healm for a few short years, and in fact, we only decided to integrate the NI-EWB group as part of National Instruments starting in January, 2007.  With that decision we have made a concerted effort to make significant improvements - not only in the quality of the product - but through the methods by which we develop and test the product - and also by which we track and address product defects.   We intend to keep moving forward with significant updates to our product so please keep the feedback coming.

Also, if any of the users out there that have posted requests have a 'laundry list' of specific items (some may have already been addressed), please forward them (with indications of priority) to myself or Nestor and these can thoroughly evaluated.   Also, if you'd like to take up your questions offline, I'd be happy to address your feedback directly - please note my contact information below.

Best Regards,

Patrick Noonan
Business Development Manager
National Instruments - Electronics Workbench Group
50 Market St. 1-A
S. Portland, ME 04106
Email: patrick.noonan@ni.com
Tel. (207) 892-9130
Fax. (207) 892-9508

[kittmaster]

Hi Patrick,

I just want to respond to your recent post. The laundry has been reviewed and as stated my nestor and support engineering to be "passed on to engineering". So to go back and try to relist the (at last count if I remember correctly) the 50+ plus issues/recommendations would be impossible. Supposidly this has already been done.

As to the priority of these issues, they are ALL equally important.

One of my questions is, has anyone at EWB/NI ever actually tried to create a major circuit > to pcb > production run? with this software suite.....and do it out of pocket?

Much of the negativity isn't directed at the product (very powerful and fairly easy to use), but at the attitude of NI in the respect of "we'll get to when we can". We can NEVER get a straight answer of when things will be fixed, patched, released........NOTHING. Only that the "next revision" blah blah blah.......yeah we've been hearing that for years.

I was a beta tester for 8, 9, and the beginning of 10. I don't do it anymore because the only feedback ever given is that we'll address that in the next revision.

Seriously, if you had a problem with your car where it randomly started/not started, or something is not working as it should........would you be please if the dealer tells you "we'll get it next year?".......well that is exactly what we are expected to do (annual NI updating).......completely unfair.

I know its not tech supports fault that is this the default answer they must give us. There seems to be no bridge between tech support and engineering.......I WITNESSED this when I was there for traineing in version 7 >8.....every time the support tech had to hail to the engineering gods to get any kind of help......and it took time......no immediate answers......that may have changed.....but it still seems to be that way even to this day.

Tech support does there best for workarounds and give 110%......but that doesn't help when you can't get to 100% completion of a design......its cost MONEY to have to play games with this. Some of us do private engineering, and I'm not very happy when it cost me $500 in tooling charges because something went wrong with say......blind vias....

There really needs to be a news > updates > timeline of what is expected to be fixed, when its going to happen, and tentative release dates. Why not release incremental dll patches? No need to keep recompiling a 250 meg redistributable package.......I mean come on. What the hell is the point of support and upgrade if it only works once a year.....

This is just my initial feedback to your post, I hope it does not offend.....being in the trenchs having to deal with this day to day tends to grate on your nerves after a while when it seems the pleas for help go unanswered.

Greetz

Chris

[_user32]

Chris,

Thanks again for your response.   I am not offended by your response at all.   However, you are correct, in the last 2 years we have been doing a good job at collecting the feedback from our customers (Nestor has been doing a good job at this) and I understand that ALL of the issues are important, but we really need this level of feedback to be specific as possible.   Specifically I have been in the trenches in the last year and am working with many of our Pro customers on both schematic entry, board layout and simulation.

Also specific to your question, yes I have gone through from schematic to layout with Multisim and Ultiboard (I don't think I would call it a major production run) and yes I saw many of the same things that our customers are seeing.   With this in mind, we do have a plan for addressing these bugs.   I will look into how we can do a better job at updating customers with "news > updates > timeline" as you have suggested.  I am sure we can at least notify the group of what the major issues are - and the plan for when they will be addressed.

Also, to your point, that 'things have not changed' - my overall feeling is that this is incorrect - with my brief history with the EWB team, A) we've implemented this user's forum (and we reply to almost every post), B) we have been doing a good job at tracking bugs and reporing these to R&D (with priority levels),  C) the support team (and myself) are being more responsive to customers and we feel we are able to address most issues via work arounds (or sometimes just training) to solve customer's immediate issues and D) R&D IS really working on many of these issues (again I will look at a way to send out better notifications as to the actions we are taking).  

So again, I invite you to keep the feedback coming.   Your requests and insight are not going unnoticed and myself and the others in management at the NI-EWB group are aligned to make your job easier by using our tools.

Regards,

Patrick Noonan
Business Development Manager
National Instruments - Electronics Workbench Group
50 Market St. 1-A
S. Portland, ME 04106
Email: patrick.noonan@ni.com
Tel. (207) 892-9130
Fax. (207) 892-9508

[kittmaster]

Nestor

I tried a migration of the data from docs/settings > config and database dirs.

The user parts came over just fine, where is the file that saves TOOLBAR modifications. For example, I use the zoom board next to the zoom all using the customize feature. When I migrate, I want all my toolbars to come along too.

I have other things I put in the tool bars to make it faster > place bus, offpage bus connector, offpage.......none of those came across and I now have to go and do it again on the mirror image.

So 1/2 of it makes sense, got my database ok, but the rest I must be missing something.

[nestor-sg]

Hi Chris,

Happy Thanksgiving day...

What file are you copying?... it is indeed the User Configuration file the one that saves the toolbar information. However, please note that if the new computer monitor has a different screen resolution your toolbars might show up with a different space in between them and you might have to rearrange the location of the toolbars.... but the custom added buttons (or functions) should be there. Unless you added custom user-built button icons those are saved in another file.

In my case, my user config file according to the Options > Global Preferences > Paths tab is:
C:\Documents and Settings\nestor\Application Data\National Instruments\Circuit Design Suite\10.0\config\standard_ms_uni.ewcfg

It is similar for UItiboard just the filename changes to standard_ub_uni.ewcfg

I made some tests here and I can see it working fine... are you manually copying and backing up that file?