Solid Edge 2023 Impressions?

[KennyG]

For those using Solid Edge 2023 in a production environment...

Any "showstoppers" or annoyances you want to share?

Any big productivity improvements you have found?

Your opinion of the new UI after using it for a couple weeks?

[KennyG]

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[AlexLachance]

I'm surprised it didn't get that much attention. SolidEdge is pretty popular around here too.

[KennyG]

Seems this forum has kind of "dried up" after the new wore off. Most folks are using the Siemens Community Solid Edge forum or the Solid Edge Users Facebook group it seems. Heck, even the Solid Edge sub-Reddit had responses.

[Jaylin Hochstetler]

I have not yet used SE 2023 yet but I'm kind of irked that they changed the interface. With the current color scheme you can instantly see what a function is. The new interface the functions are all similarly colored making them hard to distinguish. I imagine I'll get used to it. I'm hoping that now they are using their own interface it will mean less crashes. The previous interface was created by a 3rd party.

[bnemec]

I have not yet used SE 2023 yet but I'm kind of irked that they changed the interface. With the current color scheme you can instantly see what a function is. The new interface the functions are all similarly colored making them hard to distinguish. I imagine I'll get used to it. I'm hoping that now they are using their own interface it will mean less crashes. The previous interface was created by a 3rd party.

Interesting. SW interfaces appear to have also been created by a 3rd party. Then parties 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 joined in as well.

[KennyG]

I have not yet used SE 2023 yet but I'm kind of irked that they changed the interface. With the current color scheme you can instantly see what a function is. The new interface the functions are all similarly colored making them hard to distinguish. I imagine I'll get used to it. I'm hoping that now they are using their own interface it will mean less crashes. The previous interface was created by a 3rd party.

The UI toolkit SE was using hasn't changed (same 3rd party). What has changed is the appearance which is being driven by some new guidelines which intend to make all Xcelerator products look similar. Not sure what you are referring to in regard to it causing crashes. Typically, crashes only occurs when you are using a junk GPU or out of date drivers/firmware or don't have enough memory. Can't remember when the last crash occurred due to a UI issue... Maybe years ago.

[jcapriotti]

Looks like the icons were changed to match NX

[bnemec]

Looks like the icons were changed to match NX

image.png

Having never used NX I would have been PO'd. Changing icons undermines the whole point of icons. It's a symbol that means something in a specific context for the sake of efficiency, both time and display space. Please tell me SE provided an exhaustive side by side chart that users can print out that shows the old icon and new icon 1:1 to reduce the time it takes to get back up to speed.

On the flip side, I can understand and appreciate the desire to make the two the same. There is value in that. Unless of course Siemens is just making preparations to sunset SE and expect the customers will all take the 3x ? price hike to NX. I mean it makes sense, it's not like they're going to jump over to the more similarly priced Solidworks after what DSS has done with it. Who would be stupid enough to do that? Oh wait, never mind. Those new icons sure are pretty.

[KennyG]

Having never used NX I would have been PO'd. Changing icons undermines the whole point of icons. It's a symbol that means something in a specific context for the sake of efficiency, both time and display space. Please tell me SE provided an exhaustive side by side chart that users can print out that shows the old icon and new icon 1:1 to reduce the time it takes to get back up to speed.

On the flip side, I can understand and appreciate the desire to make the two the same. There is value in that. Unless of course Siemens is just making preparations to sunset SE and expect the customers will all take the 3x ? price hike to NX. I mean it makes sense, it's not like they're going to jump over to the more similarly priced Solidworks after what DSS has done with it. Who would be stupid enough to do that? Oh wait, never mind. Those new icons sure are pretty.

NX started migrating first to the new Xcelerator UI design standard and because of that I'm sure they had a big say in keeping like icons because of it, but color standards are color standards. As far as a "cross reference" legend, the icon graphics are not different enough to be unrecognizable and for the most part are all in the same place. It will barely impact efficiency. The thing that will impact efficiency from a re-learning is the shortcut command (righ mouse click) Context Tool Bar... They moved commonly used commands off the shortcut menu and on to the CTB that appears just above it. Will be more efficient in the longer run or to new users, but us old dogs will need a bit of time to get used to it.

[Jaylin Hochstetler]

The UI toolkit SE was using hasn't changed (same 3rd party). What has changed is the appearance which is being driven by some new guidelines which intend to make all Xcelerator products look similar. Not sure what you are referring to in regard to it causing crashes. Typically, crashes only occurs when you are using a junk GPU or out of date drivers/firmware or don't have enough memory. Can't remember when the last crash occurred due to a UI issue... Maybe years ago.

Thanks for the clarification.

[Ryan-3DS]

Gang-

This is an older thread but I thought it might also be interesting to include the newer solver for sketching in NX 1926 (actually released in 2020). Take a look at that! It might be really, really, familiar to you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1YRYE9thvQ

What you are seeing is the combinations of UI, solvers, and possibly other functions/APIs between SE and NX. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. There is a comment by Dan Staples in the 2023 release video where he says that Solid Edge is the "on-ramp" to Xcelerator. Now is this being driven by the marketing group (Xcelerator) or product development and the need to reduce the costs of maintaining multiple tools that "do the same thing" (in most cases)?

Secondly, since Solid Edge 2023 got its "new" interface.. the users on the Solid Edge community (official forum) have voiced their opinions as well.

I have concluded that those, including myself, really don't like changes in the tools we use every day.

[Ryan-3DS]

Looks like the icons were changed to match NX

image.png

Jason,
Can you tell me if the Solid Edge Radial menu is still available in the new UI? Or did it move to the "square/block" shape that NX uses for its "radial" popup dialog? Which by the way is a single-level listing and not the 2 layers that SE has/had.

Thanks in advance!
Ryan

[KennyG]

Jason,
Can you tell me if the Solid Edge Radial menu is still available in the new UI? Or did it move to the "square/block" shape that NX uses for its "radial" popup dialog? Which by the way is a single-level listing and not the 2 layers that SE has/had.

Thanks in advance!
Ryan

Radial menu is the same in SE 2023.

[Ryan-3DS]

Thanks Kenny! I'll have to check NX to see if their block shape was then replaced with SE's! Siemens is supposed to a "common UI across all Siemens products."

[matt]

For those who haven't seen my thoughts on SE 2023, I wrote two blog articles. The first was on what's new with the Siemens philosophy, mainly focused on Xcelerator. The second article was on the actual new features. I think the Xcelerator Share is brilliant, and something that should have existed long ago. Also I like the context bars, and the more SW-like workflows. But I didn't like the steering wheel in ordered mode, especially using it to add Move Face features.

https://dezignstuff.com/solid-edge-2023 ... hilosophy/
https://dezignstuff.com/solid-edge-2023 ... inor-miss/

[bryan5]

I downloaded the maker’s edition at home to review the new interface of SE2023 before upgrading at work.

My first 2 cents

My first takes so far is that the new user interface is different and will take a little time to know where my most used commands are located. I don’t believe it is as much of a “doom and gloom” user interface change that I have been reading in the official solid edge forum.

Just my 2 cents

[bryan5]

One interesting item I noticed. Most (if not all) of the sheet metal icons did not change. The are still the same as SE 2022

[Ryan-3DS]

One interesting item I noticed. Most (if not all) of the sheet metal icons did not change. The are still the same as SE 2022

This might be the result of SE and NX having identical (for the most part) straight-bend sheet metal functions for many years now.