X17, what's the consensus?

[HumbleChief]

I've used Chief for over 20 years and my experience with X 17 so far mirrors my experience with every upgrade with one personal difference this time. The usual upgrades give us things we each need, things we don't need, and things we didn't know we needed. Watching the program mature over the years has been an amazing adventure with each year adding just a little more functionality and a little more capability. The thing is for some people, including myself, with each new upgrade the software becomes so capable that upgrades are only really needed to keep up with the latest version, even if that version adds very little day to day work flow improvements. That's the difference for me and X17. I simply don't need any of the new features in X17.

 

I haven't seen a single new feature in X17 that will help my work flow but I realize how individual that can be and can see how moving water and 3D text might be good for some users but for me I really don't even need any new features over X16. I do small home remodeling in San Diego so my business model doesn't require that much horsepower and I can figure out stairs and most every situation (with the help of this forum :)) that I come across. So for me X17 might be a great upgrade for some but for me I'll upgrade to preserve my SSA status and not for the new features of X17.

[Designers_Ink]

1 hour ago, Alaskan_Son said:

 

I agree with almost all of what you said.  All except that last sentence. Believe me, Chief is fully aware of the need for collaboration between multiple machines.  I'm about 99.99% certain that one of main reasons (if not the main reason) for implementing Project Management in the first place was so that they could address some of these collaboration issues, more specifically with the goal of a managed cloud store so you eventually wouldn't have to import/export anything at all.

I think you are exactly right.  They put a ton of resources into the Project Management part of the update (which I think is a good idea), and if the cloud portion was implemented at the same time, it would have been an outstanding version.  Without that piece of the puzzle, it leaves this version update lacking (especially for those who collaborate on files daily).  But that is just how things work sometimes when you take on a huge endeavor like this.  I know those guys busted their butts to try to get everything to work smoothly.  As it is currently, my company just can't use the Project Management system until we can collaborate with each other as easily as we do now with just using Dropbox.  I look forward to the day we can.

 

I don't doubt they will get all of the pieces working smoothly and as intended, but I would love for them to add the cloud service piece as a patch when it is ready to go instead of waiting until X18 to implement it.  Without that piece, this is more of a X16.5 update for us since we can't use the biggest piece of the update. 

 

I would love it even more if they allowed us to use our current cloud system or even our own servers and not a Chief Cloud proprietary system.  For those of us that do a high volume of projects with huge files, we will run out of space allotted very quickly, and I would suspect more space would have to be purchased from them.  If I end up having to pay some monthly fee for more space, my wife may make me cancel my Netflix subscription, and I just can't have that.  I am right in the middle of watching Suits again.

[Smn842]

18 hours ago, ComputerMaster86 said:

Get in touch with them and make your request known. to them.  Help them understand your request and wants for the software.  I get the feeling people don't always do this.

 

I have made several minor requests directly in details and chased repeatedly for years (I can say they are minor as as lifelong software developer and software architect) and cannot even get feedback on the enhancement request status. So yes some of us don't just post here and hope.