CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive

1 November 2012

Product News

ZWCAD+ Takes the User Interface to the Next Level with SmartMouse

SmartMouse is a new feature in ZWCAD+ providing command input through mouse movement. Due to the incomparability of SmartMouse technology in the CAD industry, it has been a hit among users and CAD experts alike by providing a whole new UI experience. In order for users to learn more about SmartMouse, the product manager of ZWCAD+ shared design ideas of the feature during a webinar talk, which was well received by the audience.

After the ZWCAD+ official release, the feature first attracted CAD experts to test it. Ralph Grabowski, a renowned author of over 140 books and several hundred magazine articles about computer-aided design, commented on the feature in his recent product review of ZWCAD+: “With the mouse gesturing they call SmartMouse, ZWCAD+ does take the user interface lead over some big-name CAD products. By holding down the right mouse button and dragging the cursor in the shape of a letter of the alphabet (or in a specific directions), I activate a command. Best of all, the SmartMouseConfig command fully customizes any of the movements.”

As SmartMouse gained in popularity, more and more CAD users became interested in the design idea of this new feature. In order to show all the possibilities and explain how SmartMouse works, Daniel Huang the Product Manager of ZWCAD+ hosted a webinar.

“As time progresses, software development has become more and more humanized in user experience. The traditional way for designers to use CAD commands is to type on the keyboard or move the mouse to search for that command button. We think that there can be a different and even better UI experience for users.”

Daniel continued: “With this in mind, we started to research and became inspired by some of the current web browsers. They have similar mouse gesture functions, with which you can trigger certain browsing actions by moving your mouse. We decided to give it a shot in our CAD software. We had some of our users test this feature and they were amazed. Therefore, we spared no effort to perfect it by collecting more suggestions from users and the final design has proven a success. Now a growing number of users worldwide have found this feature a nice time saver after adapting.”

For a detailed introduction about SmartMouse, please see “SmartMouse and a Different Ribbon Added to the Next Version of ZWCAD”.

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