Mastercam 2026 is Available to All Customers!

[SuperHoneyBadger]

I think the base issue with all the sweeping changes since 2023(maybe before – that's my first shakeup) is that longtime users hailed Mastercam for being the swiss army knife of CAM, a jack-of-all-trades. The old adage around here is there's always more than one way to get things done, for better or worse. These changes that get our collective feathers ruffled are because we're now being prescribed a method for something that used to have a few avenues, or because it has now broken one of the paths we used to tread to get to another desired result. Even if those paths could be construed as a workaround or hack, that's a matter of perspective and YOUR workflow.

It feels as though we're constantly being told: "this is how you do X function now, there is only this way as of today and it's better than what you were doing". As others have said, I don't foist blame on the people doing the work, they are doing what they do to keep food on the table, as it were. You do what the boss says.

Also how many times have I seen it posted here - or eMC in the past 20 years: "if they just worked on bugs for one release"? Maybe we're worth listening to, maybe we don't know jack fuck about SAAS development.

[riverhunter]

MC is not the only one trying to update UI's to be fancy.  NX last two releases have some terrible issues with their operation navigator.  that was rock solid and one of the most useful interfaces I had ever used.  With that said I think I'm headed back to NX, just going down to 2023.

[Jeff]

You do understand that "your" default preferences are not everyone's default preferences, yes?

Oh I know this, 100%. My changes are my own. But they make my job 1000x more efficient.
But you have to admit that for a new user it's gotta be overwhelming to hop into a freshly installed Mastercam all giddy and full of joy only to find out that you have much more work to do in order to get a working program onto the shop floor.

[JParis]

But you have to admit that for a new user it's gotta be overwhelming to hop into a freshly installed Mastercam all giddy and full of joy only to find out that you have much more work to do in order to get a working program onto the shop floor.

and I am betting that is FAR more prevalent in new users that have refused any training...

Because I can tell you, when I was training new users, a chunk of what I went over included changing and modifying settings and how to get the OP defaults

I find most of those complaints are self-inflicted

[Jeff]

and I am betting that is FAR more prevalent in new users that have refused any training...

Because I can tell you, when I was training new users, a chunk of what I went over included changing and modifying settings and how to get the OP defaults

I find most of those complaints are self-inflicted

I think a lot of new users suffer from information overload in training.
They don't know what they don't know and you could go over this in class for a week, and it still wouldn't sink in.
Better defaults will make the new user more efficient.
I'm not talking about UI changes, I'm mainly referring to "small" things like names of holders.
Who the hell decided that C4E4-1000 was a good name for a default holder? Really? THAT is something to be proud of?
The help documentation....a lot of worthless crap.
Look up the definition they have for "Damp" in the multiaxis path. "Allows a more flexible application of the axial shift."---- well that tells me everything! Now I feel like an asshole for not knowing that! /sarcasm 

[Jeff]

If it seems like I'm in a bad mood this morning it's because of a dooshbag truck owner cutting a corner on a curve and shattering my driver's side mirror. So CNC Software is bearing the brunt of my frustration at the moment.

[Newbeeee™]

If it seems like I'm in a bad mood this morning it's because of a dooshbag truck owner cutting a corner on a curve and shattering my driver's side mirror. So CNC Software is bearing the brunt of my frustration at the moment.

Is it tea break yet? Go eat some cheerio's

[Jeff]

Is it tea break yet? Go eat some cheerio's

Tea?
I need something stronger than tea.
Also, I'm not a Brit. We don't take tea breaks. 

[Dylan Gondyke]

Since you specifically brought up 2026 and are breaking your arms patting yourselves on the back for the new levels and planes managers...  I'll first say I appreciate the ability to create groups, definitely an enhancement to have this feature.  And being able to drag and drop to re-sort, awesome, even if it lacks multi-select capability (shift- or control-click)  But...  We were able to convince you in beta that the planes manager needs the properties dropdown returned because of loss of functionality.  But levels needs this too.  There are active threads on both the other major user forums about this specifically, and no official response.  Specifically the numbers being automatically sequential when created.  Used to be you'd just type whatever number and a level would be created.  Now it seems the only way is with the "+" button.  Never used that button before this month, in over 25 years using mastercam.  The specific loss of functionality being raised on the other forums is selecting visible levels - we're missing the check-box selection for used, named, etc.  Loss of functionality, not just disruption of workflow.  That and having to click the stupid "eye" instead of just being able to click the level.  And the slow double-click to be able to edit number or name without right-click menu, and that the contrast between the field becoming active and the row selected leaves more than a little to be desired.
Thanks for your eyeballs on this post.

These are definitely being looked at and mirror my own thoughts with the day to day use of the redesign. The rename in particular with the slow double click was untenable. That team is actively working on improving or adding all the above.

Also with the eye thing- You can click on the picture of the levels on the left and it both sets it to active and makes it visible in one click, vs clicking somewhere in the rest of the level row and then clicking the eye, which takes two clicks.

I posted on eMastercam a while ago talking about bug fixes and some of the reasons why things get stuck:
https://www.emastercam.com/forums/topic/110665-common-parameters-plane-update/#comment-1355726

When it comes to Beta testing, as a product owner I'd always love to see feedback earlier. I know the Technical Preview period has been very quiet from you vocal users the last few years, so if you can, reach out to your reseller and ask to get access to the Tech Preview releases. If people only use the last 1 or 2 Beta releases, we only have time left to address critical fixes or quick (like days or less) fixes because of timeline, and anything that doesn't meet that schedule HAS to fall to the next release.

There are a few forums I keep track of daily and I'll bring issues directly to teams from posts or content. Thanks for the suggestions in between venting 

[Zoffen]

Maybe mastercam should PAY beta testers or offer some sort of discount. That might get more users to participate. I think most see it as a waste of time as alot of things you submitt just don't ever get fixed or are pushed off so far it just leaves a bad taste in your mouth...

[jstell]

These are definitely being looked at and mirror my own thoughts with the day to day use of the redesign. The rename in particular with the slow double click was untenable. That team is actively working on improving or adding all the above.

Also with the eye thing- You can click on the picture of the levels on the left and it both sets it to active and makes it visible in one click, vs clicking somewhere in the rest of the level row and then clicking the eye, which takes two clicks.

There are a few forums I keep track of daily and I'll bring issues directly to teams from posts or content. Thanks for the suggestions in between venting 

Appreciate your work and responsiveness.  That's why I quoted you and posted.  It clearly lit up further interaction with this thread.  Glad to hear I'm not the only one frustrated by some of this stuff, and especially that there are plans to address some of these clumsy interface changes.
The eye instead of just the "x" in the field seems pretty gimmicky.  Same function, fine.  But moving it over to the right has forced me to change the way I tile my levels and planes managers on the second screen.  Preference, I know.  But having lost the ability to move the columns around means I can't put the stupid eye over to the left and have it how I like it.  Used to be we could decide, now CNC has made the decision and we just have to live with it.  Why?  How is that better?

[Dylan Gondyke]

I pitched a shift of the eyeball over to the left, by the level number, but it wasn't done this go-round for a few reasons including visual clutter/complexity by grouping them. User-arranged columns is the ultimate answer but that kind of customizability adds big complexity to something that now has grouping, so it might take a bit of time to get there. That little filter dialog is set up for options growth in the future- I imagine this would be where the show/hide unused would naturally appear.

If you were in the very early tech previews, you might have seen this, but the team tried a different approach to the properties panes in both planes and levels, but it didn't pan out to be better, so late in the game they reimplemented properties in planes and is in the process of reimplementing it into levels.