How to Use the 3DSwym Platform?

[mattpeneguy]

I don't know either...
Since the Solidworks Forum is moving to the platform and nobody knows how to use the platform a little guidance is needed to retrieve this information...So, show me how to do it.

Edit to Add: As has been pointed out below, there's a method to search for the old content over there using the "Search this Page" functionality:

The attachment image.png is no longer available

If I figure out how to refine search results by using things like & to force the results to include all words or - to exclude other words, I'll post that here too, when I figure it out.

Edit to Add (6pm 4/2/2021):
Over at the "platform" I was informed that you can plug in advanced search criteria in the "Search this Page" box.
Here's a link to the article https://help.3ds.com/2021x/english/DSDo ... Search.htm
Here's some tid bits:

• * - Wildcard works eg. tes* returns test, tesselation, etc.
• ? - If you know the post contains a ? escape it eg. if you are searching for what? type what\?
• " - Double quotes searches for an exact phrase
• + - Will return results including only the exact word, eg. +cadforum would return results for cadforum, but not cadforum.net
• - - Minus sign will exclude posts with the words with a minus in front of them

I haven't played with this to see how it will drill down, but it's encouraging, if you can remember the words for what you are looking to find.

Edit to Add (6:25pm 4/2/2021)
Good News! All those important COVID posts by @Frederick_Law may be backed up at the platform:

I'd suggest we keep posting those posts over there, but it's just too difficult to be worth it. I was curious what all they were backing up, and searched for a post I did on the old KD, and it's not showing. So, I'm curious what they're doing and how it's being indexed...But, it appears they brought over some of the noise along with the good stuff.

[matt]

Ummmm. We are here to ditch the 3DSwym. So a bunch of rebels here probably don't know or want to know about how to use it.

But then again it strikes me that maybe you're just throwing a match into this tinderbox. In which case, troll away. Nothing sells newspapers like a trainwreck.

[mattpeneguy]

Ummmm. We are here to ditch the 3DSwym. So a bunch of rebels here probably don't know or want to know about how to use it.

But then again it strikes me that maybe you're just throwing a match into this tinderbox. In which case, troll away. Nothing sells newspapers like a trainwreck.

No, not trolling. I would like to be able to retrieve old posts. I have learned a lot from the forum. SO, it would be good to have a few people that know how to get in there and find things. But, you may be right, as Kevin Quigley pointed out, it takes 11 (at a minimum) steps to create a support ticket... All of that information may just become a sunk cost.
Thanks again for setting this up. It is already infinitely better than the platform.

[matt]

At some point, shouldn't google be our friend? You should be able to search out stuff that you remember. Unless all of that is also behind a bot firewall. But DS wouldn't be that stupid, I don't think. It's a public forum, you want the public to be able to find stuff. Google may be your best bet.

[Tom G]

On the side topic of saving archived content you wanted to keep from the old forum -
I figured out how sometimes the old forum's View As PDF action sometimes works and sometimes does not.

If the thread is less than one page long, then it works fine. It shows you a PDF of the thread. You can save this.

If the thread is more than 1 page long, then it shows you an altered web page that still has the pages control. You could print that to PDF, and repeat for subsequent pages. What is odd, confusing is that its address bar shows the page called [filename].pdf although it isn't a pdf, and the browser can save it as an html file.

This is a problem to me because a majority of the best threads, such as the "What are your most impressive tricks" thread, are many many pages. Same thing with the long SSP thread.

I'm just hoping that the information survives.

[matt]

...

I'm just hoping that the information survives.

You know, even if it doesn't, we will have here enough resources to rebuild a lot of that info and filter some of the junk that got in there as well. In any case, they say they are bringing it all forward, and google should allow access to the information in its new location.

[mattpeneguy]

...

I'm just hoping that the information survives.

You know, even if it doesn't, we will have here enough resources to rebuild a lot of that info and filter some of the junk that got in there as well. In any case, they say they are bringing it all forward, and google should allow access to the information in its new location.

We can hope for the best, but I'm not confident DS will allow google to index it. From DS' perspective they want new accounts and participation in the platform and I'm guessing they can hold the forum data hostage to force that participation. If people can just search in Google and find the info, why participate?
It probably works in your favor because people will always choose the easiest path and this forum is pretty darn easy.

[matt]

Ok, whoever suggested that DS is going to hide the forum data behind a login was correct. I thought it would be crazy to keep google from indexing all that information, but Priddy laid it out "priddy" explicitly (sorry, just can't help myself with stuff like that). The new forum won't be google indexed. It's insane.

[Frederick_Law]

I believe the whole SwYmp is not indexed.

Anyway, its good for this forum.
We need to put this in top search.
Right now the cz come up in search.

[jcapriotti]

No, not trolling. I would like to be able to retrieve old posts. I have learned a lot from the forum. SO, it would be good to have a few people that know how to get in there and find things.

Good luck searching and navigating anything on the 3dswym site. While people might not all migrate over here, I think its safe to say that most won't migrate over to 3dSwym, at least not for long. It's own UI will drive people elsewhere, be it here, Eng Tips, Reddit, etc.

[mattpeneguy]

No, not trolling. I would like to be able to retrieve old posts. I have learned a lot from the forum. SO, it would be good to have a few people that know how to get in there and find things.

Good luck searching and navigating anything on the 3dswym site. While people might not all migrate over here, I think its safe to say that most won't migrate over to 3dSwym, at least not for long. It's own UI will drive people elsewhere, be it here, Eng Tips, Reddit, etc.

That's why I created this thread. That platform is awful. I want some concise instructions on how to retrieve old posts. The SW forum is a gold mine...too bad DS decided bury it 5 miles below a steaming pile of 3DEXPERIENCE excrement.

I don't know about eng tips, but you can't post files to Reddit. So, that one is out. IIRC, eng tips isn't formatted as a "forum" and is probably why the SW forum took off in the first place. This forum has some potential...DS is shooting themselves in the foot.

[jcapriotti]

IIRC, eng tips isn't formatted as a "forum" and is probably why the SW forum took off in the first place.

Engtips isn't bad, it is a forum. But it covers lots of engineering topics, not just CAD so it won't have the focus I think we want. People, including myself, went to the SolidWorks forums because:

1. It's official and hoped to hear directly from SolidWorks devs (Didn't happen much)
2. Has sub forums to help filter the noise.
3. Was a forum with a decent (not great) user interface.

For the 3DSwym community, The only thing they can do better is 1 and I'm not optimistic about that. There are sub forums/areas, and for point 3, its absolutely the worse interface for having discussions about the software.

[matt]

IIRC, eng tips isn't formatted as a "forum" and is probably why the SW forum took off in the first place.

Engtips isn't bad, it is a forum. But it covers lots of engineering topics, not just CAD so it won't have the focus I think we want. People, including myself, went to the SolidWorks forums because:

1. It's official and hoped to hear directly from SolidWorks devs (Didn't happen much)
2. Has sub forums to help filter the noise.
3. Was a forum with a decent (not great) user interface.

For the 3DSwym community, The only thing they can do better is 1 and I'm not optimistic about that. There are sub forums/areas, and for point 3, its absolutely the worse interface for having discussions about the software.

I had problems with Eng-Tips because they banned me early on for answering a question about how to get work as a contractor. They accused me of advertising my business <shock> I never went back.

[jcapriotti]

I had problems with Eng-Tips because they banned me early on for answering a question about how to get work as a contractor. They accused me of advertising my business <shock> I never went back.

Yeah, that's pretty lousy. I mean, if you were like spamming it constantly I could understand after a warning. You don't want a lot of noise like "Will CAD for food" mucking up the forum, but some moderators get a god complex.

[matt]

Yeah, that's pretty lousy. I mean, if you were like spamming it constantly I could understand after a warning. You don't want a lot of noise like "Will CAD for food" mucking up the forum, but some moderators get a god complex.

I had a bit of a target on my back. I might have deserved banning in other places, but I behaved myself at Eng-Tips, I thought.

[jcapriotti]

Well you are a bit of a rebel in the community. I seem to remember your old post about your attire at PLM World.

[matt]

Well you are a bit of a rebel in the community. I seem to remember your old post about your attire at PLM World.

Yeah, PLM World was an education. https://dezignstuff.com/what-plm-world-taught-me/

[KevinC]

On the side topic of saving archived content you wanted to keep from the old forum -
I figured out how sometimes the old forum's View As PDF action sometimes works and sometimes does not.

If the thread is less than one page long, then it works fine. It shows you a PDF of the thread. You can save this.

If the thread is more than 1 page long, then it shows you an altered web page that still has the pages control. You could print that to PDF, and repeat for subsequent pages. What is odd, confusing is that its address bar shows the page called [filename].pdf although it isn't a pdf, and the browser can save it as an html file.

This is a problem to me because a majority of the best threads, such as the "What are your most impressive tricks" thread, are many many pages. Same thing with the long SSP thread.

I'm just hoping that the information survives.

To save a post with most of the fidelity and content, save the page as an HTML file.
An HTML file and an associated (linked) folder (of the same name) are created.
All of the bits for the page are written to its folder, including maintained links and uploaded files.
Increased fidelity comes with increase disk usage.

Kevin C.

[Ry-guy]

We can hope for the best, but I'm not confident DS will allow google to index it. From DS' perspective they want new accounts and participation in the platform and I'm guessing they can hold the forum data hostage to force that participation. If people can just search in Google and find the info, why participate?

Guys, remember one thing: 3DEXPERICENE is a PLATFORM! It is not a website..it is webpage that pulls data from different database stores. So, no I highly doubt that collaboration tools- I didn't say "forum" will allow for external searching. I would be shocked actually if it did. The 3DEXPERIENCE is supposed to be a whole consuming environment. Remeber, Charles' vision was an enviroment like the Apple environment. Then that message switched a bit to include Amazon experience.
You are meant to do anything DS/SW inside this environment.

[matt]

Guys, remember one thing: 3DEXPERICENE is a PLATFORM! It is not a website..it is webpage that pulls data from different database stores. So, no I highly doubt that collaboration tools- I didn't say "forum" will allow for external searching. I would be shocked actually if it did. The 3DEXPERIENCE is supposed to be a whole consuming environment. Remeber, Charles' vision was an enviroment like the Apple environment. Then that message switched a bit to include Amazon experience.
You are meant to do anything DS/SW inside this environment.

Huh. I just went over there and was able to get in this time. I was a little dazzled with all the .... stuff. None of it really relevant to me. So the SWYM is the forum part? I remember from previous abortive attempts at this that SWYM stands for See What You Mean. Although I'm not sure how that is relevant in any way.

[jcapriotti]

I remember from previous abortive attempts at this that SWYM stands for See What You Mean. Although I'm not sure how that is relevant in any way.

Smother What You Made
SolidWorks, You're Murdered
Senseless While Yelling Madly

[matt]

Smother What You Made
SolidWorks, You're Murdered
Senseless While Yelling Madly

That's beautiful

[Frank_Oostendorp]

Did I see "Somebody Want's Your Money" already?

[mattpeneguy]

I remember from previous abortive attempts at this that SWYM stands for See What You Mean. Although I'm not sure how that is relevant in any way.

Smother What You Made
SolidWorks, You're Murdered
Senseless While Yelling Madly

Those are pretty good candidates for the "Deep Pit of Despair and Frustration".

[idesignhaus]

I had problems with Eng-Tips because they banned me early on for answering a question about how to get work as a contractor. They accused me of advertising my business <shock> I never went back.

That's not cool, as I certainly rode along that borderline as much as I could at eng-tips while answering questions, etc. Bummer, I'm sorry to hear that. (This doens't mean I didn't know that. It means that if I did, I've completely forgotten, which is likely.)

Also, what the hell is 3DExperience and 3DSWYM? Even after taking a peek at the nothing-there-ness of all of it several years ago it seems I'm no closer to the answer.

[matt]

I had problems with Eng-Tips because they banned me early on for answering a question about how to get work as a contractor. They accused me of advertising my business <shock> I never went back.

That's not cool, as I certainly rode along that borderline as much as I could at eng-tips while answering questions, etc. Bummer, I'm sorry to hear that. (This doens't mean I didn't know that. It means that if I did, I've completely forgotten, which is likely.)

Also, what the hell is 3DExperience and 3DSWYM? Even after taking a peek at the nothing-there-ness of all of it several years ago it seems I'm no closer to the answer.

Eng-tips was so long ago, I just trot that out for sympathy from time to time. <awwww>

I think 3dxperience is about where it was 10-12 years ago. Except now they have the victory of having destroyed SWWorld under their belt, and Jeff Ray is gone. So they're bolder now. I think this time they're finally actually going to do it - destroy SolidWorks. They bought it back in what, 98? and they've been jealous as it grew all these years. Revenge! At Last! All that crap I wrote in my blog 8-9 years ago is finally coming true.

[idesignhaus]

LOTS of stuff written about 8-9 years ago is coming true. I'll leave that without any tedious (and unwelcome?) extrapolation. "Until the pain..." blah, blah, blah.

I DID take a peek at the SWZYXM forum/platform/thing. Interface looks like a blender exploded on the kitchen walls. I suppose they could clean that up over time for improvement if they control the underlying engine beneath the interface. If desired. The market-speak, however, is platinum. Better keep that.

[jcapriotti]

I DID take a peek at the SWZYXM forum/platform/thing. Interface looks like a blender exploded on the kitchen walls. I suppose they could clean that up over time for improvement if they control the underlying engine beneath the interface. If desired. The market-speak, however, is platinum. Better keep that.

Posts over there are huge.....I have a 2k 32" monitor and only see two or maybe 3 at a time. The list of communities on the left shows me stuff I don't want to see and can't remove. The info on the right is useless....a useless community description that I don't need after reading once, a community member list that is equally useless with no search or detail list view, just oversized icons of which there are too many to go through, and last a timeline of comments in no particular order for useless reading.

The only thing it does have missing here, is the threaded view for comments.

[Ry-guy]

So the SWYM is the forum part?

Nope! This is the collaboration tool! If you are familiar with Salesforce, it's the same type of tool.

Collab.PNG

[Lapuo]

I had some "sympathy" with social media look a like for this thing.
Than i tried to use it and i am never coming back again
Nobody knows how to use it.

[jcapriotti]

I spy a user who won't be found at the 3dx site.

image.png

[Roasted By John]

Learning Curve coming up..

At the SWYM

[MJuric]

Ummmm. We are here to ditch the 3DSwym. So a bunch of rebels here probably don't know or want to know about how to use it.

But then again it strikes me that maybe you're just throwing a match into this tinderbox. In which case, troll away. Nothing sells newspapers like a trainwreck.

No, not trolling. I would like to be able to retrieve old posts. I have learned a lot from the forum. SO, it would be good to have a few people that know how to get in there and find things. But, you may be right, as Kevin Quigley pointed out, it takes 11 (at a minimum) steps to create a support ticket... All of that information may just become a sunk cost.
Thanks again for setting this up. It is already infinitely better than the platform.

Finding stuff over there is actually not that hard. The problem with that forum is not it's searching it's its' function as a forum. Finding new content, keeping a post going, etc etc is near impossible short of bookmarking every post you want to look at. Missing new posts is easy as it only take a couple posts to disappear. Looking thru 20-30 posts to read just the headers is impossible.

If you actually want to find something over there all you need to do is go to the community, set your search to "Search only this page" and type in what you're looking for. Using tags is worthless because unless you know what the tag is the search with a tag won't find it. Eventually with everyone being allowed to add whatever tags they want you will have a tag list eight miles long making it even more worthless.

[jcapriotti]

Learning Curve coming up..

At the SWYM

Sorry, I'm not willing to learn to SWYM, my sanity just can't take it.

[mattpeneguy]

Ummmm. We are here to ditch the 3DSwym. So a bunch of rebels here probably don't know or want to know about how to use it.

But then again it strikes me that maybe you're just throwing a match into this tinderbox. In which case, troll away. Nothing sells newspapers like a trainwreck.

No, not trolling. I would like to be able to retrieve old posts. I have learned a lot from the forum. SO, it would be good to have a few people that know how to get in there and find things. But, you may be right, as Kevin Quigley pointed out, it takes 11 (at a minimum) steps to create a support ticket... All of that information may just become a sunk cost.
Thanks again for setting this up. It is already infinitely better than the platform.

Finding stuff over there is actually not that hard. The problem with that forum is not it's searching it's its' function as a forum. Finding new content, keeping a post going, etc etc is near impossible short of bookmarking every post you want to look at. Missing new posts is easy as it only take a couple posts to disappear. Looking thru 20-30 posts to read just the headers is impossible.

If you actually want to find something over there all you need to do is go to the community, set your search to "Search only this page" and type in what you're looking for. Using tags is worthless because unless you know what the tag is the search with a tag won't find it. Eventually with everyone being allowed to add whatever tags they want you will have a tag list eight miles long making it even more worthless.

Matt,
I think you are right on all points above. I think Ryan Priddy did a good job pointing the search functionality out, and it's helpfully pinned right now to the top of the SW Forum thread. And hopefully it'll be easy to retrieve old posts.

I completely agree about new content. This will definitely greatly affect new users who aren't diligent to figure out what's where and why. They'll be posting over there and even if there is help available, there questions will get ignored, for the reasons you state. I see some of the SW people helping out now, but that'll only be for a short time (they didn't allocate resources over at the old forum, the SW guys seemed to have participated on their own time over there). So, I expect them to help out for a few months, but after that...DS is going to reassign those resources.

Since this whole thread is about finding our old stuff, I'll edit the OP and add a screenshot in a few minutes.

[Maha Nadarasa]

Do not worry. I am also in the same boat. But anyone can learn when there is a need because "Necessity is the mother of invention".

[mattpeneguy]

Yeah @Maha Nadarasa,
I think this is the boat I'm in at the 3DSwamp:

image.png

BTW, I'm glad to see you here. You will be a great asset here like you were on the old forum!

[Maha Nadarasa]

@ mattpeneguy
Thanks for the complement.

[jcapriotti]

image.png

[mattpeneguy]

I'm bumping this thread because I updated the OP to include information about how to query the platform for old posts (for whatever reason, here it doesn't get moved to "recent" when that happens like the old forum did)...It is what it is, and while I'm not contributing over there, except for clarifications and to get information like above, I don't plan on helping fix the site or provide my help for SW there.

I really should work in marketing...How's this:
"3DSwym, an Amazing Platform...in ways we just haven't discovered, yet..."

I'm about to leave, but if I have time before leaving, I'm adding that to my signature over there...I think I'll add an attribution to "--everyone".