With
StreamCAD, it’s your choice of operating system. My
favorite is Mac OS X, but
I’m very excited about
having StreamCAD running on OS X. In my opinion, StreamCAD looks best on OS X. The way multiple documents
are handled, the way tool windows disappear when you switch to another
application.
Apple has got great focus
on OpenGL, and recent (Leopard) advances such as running OpenGL in a separate
thread is very impressive. It seems that OS X is where good things are
happening.
There are things that I
really like about windows and would like to see on other OS as well. The menu
system, which allows me to use hotkey combinations like Alt+F,
Alt+S (menu File/save) is really great. The droplist key is another things
that I would wish fot in OS X.
And of course, Windows XP
has the largest installed user base. The competition is fierce and competing
here is thus very important to get keep the “edge” sharp.
That semitransparent
window effect seems to be a nuisance in mot cases. For CAD it really works. It
sorts of wakes your curiosity when you see an object disappear behind a
toolbar. I only wish it would be grayish rather than that blurry effect.
StreamCAD will never adopt that horrible ribbon thing. Or
maybe it already did? The StreamCAD wizard displays
HTML files and I bet you some GUI expert will transform it.
I’m not aware of any
problems running StreamCAD on top of this OS but I
haven’t tested it.
To quote Bill Gates: “Real
soon now”. I tried to install Ubuntu on my Dell QuadCore Vista monster, but unfortunately, it didn’t
recognize the RAID drive configuration.
The StreamCAD
UI is built on top of a great library called wxWidgets.
It supports lots of operating systems and if you can present a business case
for me, many others are possible.