First, let me say "wow!"
DraftSight is awesome. The combined efficiency of the online tutorials, Webinars, and guides have enabled me to get over that huge beginner's hurdle ... and I have tried with other CAD packages many times in years past. Finally, I have gained enough proficiency where I can use CAD as a tool and present ideas with enough clarity that the audience is more likely to give the idea some further consideration as opposed to immediate rejection along the lines of: "This sketch is so crude ... the idea behind it is probably no better developed and most likely a waste of time."
I'm thrilled to have landed here and I want to "give back" some too. I have two questions:
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1) As a total novice, I was extremely focused while working through the Getting-Started-Guide. I noticed in a few spots some minor discrepancy between the program's actual command line response and what the guide stated. It is horrendously difficult to make such detailed instructions perfect and unreasonable to expect the expert authors to be as focused as the student. Will you please consider creating an errata mechanism so that over time even the smallest of quirks can be smoothed over by utilizing the feed back from students? Perhaps encouraging errata submissions using a title structure of: "Errata - title - page #" would allow efficient discussion and forum searching. For example:
Title: Errata - Getting-Started-Guide.pdf - page 130
Quote: 4 Double-click Lesson 2-3. The drawing is displayed in the graphics area.
Correction: Should be >> Lesson 1-3
I quickly figured out the minor typo, proceeded on, and absolutely enjoyed the tutorial.
Note: Already asked in this forum is the issue of thumbnail previews not visible upon opening. The typo above caused me to slow down enough to realize how desirable it is to have thumbnails. I hope this can be resolved. Increasing the difficulty of troubleshooting thumbnails is the problem not being universal. The screen shots in the Getting-Started-Guide do show thumbnail views. I found the following discussion that may be helpful:
http://gupta9665.wordpress.com/2010/12/19/solidworks-thumbnail-images-in-window-explorer/
One thing for sure, finding the solution requires skills far more advanced than what I have to offer.
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2) What path do you suggest for the student beyond the Getting-Started-Guide? I would be thrilled to see some work from those with advanced beginner, intermediate, and expert skills. A screen shot of someone's work with more advanced skills is very helpful; but an actual file that can be explored and the layers and blocks studied would be an order of magnitude more helpful. Can you suggest a college text that is perhaps a year or two dated and can be found in the used stacks? Its exciting to be learning CAD ... and I hope to keep the learning curve steep.
-- tholly
